If you walk around Kitchener, a mid-sized town in Ontario, Canada, you come across houses built over a hundred years ago. It’s easy to spot these houses as they have large front yards and the house itself is at the back of the land. That’s not what you see when you walk around Waterloo, a town right next to Kitchener, but one that developed far more recently. Here the houses are closer to the sidewalk and the yards have gone to the back of the house.
I thought this was nothing more than a design choice over the years but my professor of global governance, of all subjects, told me these changing layouts reflect North America’s changing relationship with consumption. Back in the old days, the front yards were where the children played along with others on the streets. The kitchens in these houses were facing these front yards as mothers kept an eye on the kids while they cooked.
Over the years as women’s role in society changed and more of them entered the workforce, there was no adult present to keep an eye on children all the time. So they had to play indoors, or in the backyards within the boundary walls. The kitchens inside these newer houses moved to the back of the house, and the concept of open street playtime took a hit. What resulted from this shift was a focus on keeping the children entertained indoors, and eventually led to buying. More toys, more games, more stuff.
My professor probably gave us a simplistic example to illustrate her point, but it stuck with me. If a seemingly unrelated factor, such as house design, can influence over time our consumption patterns, do we have no control over what and how much we buy? And with the hyper onslaught of social media influencing, are we doomed to be buried under our purchases? This week, The Global Tiller examines the latest TikTok trend, called deinfluencing. What sparked this movement against overconsumption and can we take some comfort in its course correction?
Influencers on social media have traditionally sold something to their audiences. They buy, or brands send them products, which they try and then share their experiences. I remember vividly in 2009 — my last year of university — when Levi’s offered "popular" students in my class free jeans and tops to wear around campus hoping to get a buy in from the rest of us. A friend of mine, who later became an adman, prophetically noted that this was the future of advertising.
It was a refreshing change from the era of product endorsements from celebrities. These influencers looked like you and I. But gone are those days. Social media influencers can give celebrities a run for their money. The polished, pampered class of influencers, people who make money from their online audiences and the brands they partner with, are part of an estimated $16 billion market. Much like the pendulum swung from hard-to-relate-to celebrities towards ordinary joes, it is swinging away again from these hard-to-relate-to influencers.
And that brings us to deinfluencing — TiKTokers urging followers to think twice about impulse-purchasing certain cult-favourite products. Big names in the TikTok world hopped on board, suggesting cheaper alternatives to trendy make-up products and hairstyling tools. The hashtag #deinfluencing on TikTok has more than 159.6 million views and it has been whole heartedly embraced by environmentalists and climate activists, who are rejoicing that overconsumption is finally up for debate.
However, not everyone is convinced. Deinfluencing is still influencing because you are telling people what to do. “Creators are using their power to sway the purchasing decisions of a broader population. They’ve just adapted the trend to resonate with consumers during an economic downturn,” said a social media analyst at Insider Intelligence.
Rather than a sparking a wider introspection into our consumption habits, this trend may just be a response to the current economic situation. As inflation soars across most countries, ordinary people are finding it harder and harder to manage their daily lives, yet they are seeing influencers touting the absolute need for a matching pyjama set and the latest hydro flask. Fearing that they may be deemed "unrelatable", influencers are just using the ongoing economic anxieties to speak to their audiences.
Since we’ve moved to Hawaiʻi recently, my social media algorithms have been pushing far more products and, I’ll be honest, some of them seem far too tempting to ignore. Not to mention the added ease of Amazon Prime delivery options.
But I keep going back to my professor's story and how sometimes even something as obscure as a large closet space influences you into buying more than you need, let alone the direct marketing of cute label makers and avocado holders. I’m resisting by questioning why I need to buy something and what’s driving that need. If you have other tips, I’m all ears.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
How is the online consumer culture impacting the planet and is deinfluencing the answer? Al Jazeera’s The Stream digs into:
Are TikTok’s ‘de-influencers’ changing attitudes on consumerism?
…and now what?
Influencing is an important tool when talking about leadership. When leaders want to step out of a command and control approach, influence becomes the necessary tool. Leading by example is influence, inspiring speeches are influence, deep and active listening is influence, as making people feel listened and cared for influences the relationship the leader has with their community.
So when does influencing become a bad word? How do we use it positively the way deinfluencers pretend to do?
These are not easy questions as they often come with a subjective angle: many influencers will probably tell you that they start with good intentions. They want to help people, they strongly believe in what they are selling. Whether they get paid for it is not necessarily what makes it bad.
Yet, whenever we talk about influence and influencers today, we all have this image of a crazy superficial TikToker trying to force us into buying something we don’t need. And many of these videos are indeed quite cringy to watch. Yet, people follow.
As the famous and wise philosopher, Obi Wan Kenobi, used to say: “Who’s the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?”
It’s never only about the influencer alone, as it’s never about the leader alone. It’s an interaction within which one proposes (sometimes using tools and techniques to make the proposal very attractive), and the other accepts (to the best of their knowledge). It’s when we look at this interaction that we can find when influencing becomes a useful tool for all or a beneficial tool for one.
When an influencer tries to make their product attractive for their own benefit, they will not be clear with their intentions, or reveal their context. They may promise a positive outcome for their “followers” when, in fact, the follower itself is the product and the outcome. They may not disclose what’s behind the curtain, putting themselves in the position of an abuser, and not a leader. And that’s not a balanced interaction that normally defines leadership.
But a “follower” still accepts without clearly knowing this imbalance. It probably comes down to trust and the fact that deep down inside, the follower has a natural inclination to accept anyway: because they have been educated as good consumers and good citizens.
Deinfluencing shows us that online influencers are not a cause but a consequence. A consequence of a system that allows leaders to abuse power and influence for themselves. We can see this easily with the recent case of Silicon Valley Bank where the CEO was an active lobbyist (influencer) for deregulation that would supposedly create more jobs and improve the economy when it actually only allowed him to grow his bank beyond safety and reason, and for him to sell for more than $30 million of shares before his bank crashed this week.
Deinfluencing is a consequence of a system that doesn’t focus on getting people educated enough to think more critically and act more responsibly but as Roman satirist Juvenal said, “bread and circuses”.
Hira writes that influence is not a new thing and it will not die with this deinfluencing trend. It is very much a part of our systems and it’s up to us, citizens, to influence our leaders into doing what is right for the collective good, and to no longer let influencers, whether online or in companies or in governments, to nudge us into a direction that benefits them and not the commonwealth.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury