Deinfluencer / Deinfluencing

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About

A Deinfluencer is a social media influencer who, rather than influencing viewers to buy products, deinfluences or urges their viewers to avoid purchasing certain highly-promoted but questionable products. This practice, known as Deinfluencing, became increasingly popular on TikTok in early 2023, resulting in multiple stories about deinfluencing by the mainstream media.

Origin

It is unclear who coined the terms "deinfluencer" and "deinfluencing," but the terms became increasingly popular on TikTok in December 2022 leading into January 2023. One of the earliest notable videos under the hashtag #deinfluencing on TikTok is a December 30th, 2022 post by TikToker^[1] @maddiebwells, who claims she used to work at Sephora and says she's "here to deinfluence," then talks about several Sephora products people should not buy, garnering over 1.8 million views in just over a month (shown below).

Spread

Deinfluencing became increasingly popular on TikTok throughout January and February 2023, with the hashtag "#deinfluencing" racking up a collective 160-million-plus total views. For example, on January 25th, 2023, TikToker^[2] @alyssastephanie posted a video deinfluencing viewers from buying certain "TikTok cult products," garnering over 5.5 million views in three weeks (shown below, left). On January 27th, TikToker^[3] @chez.amelie posted a deinfluencing video that gained over 4.1 million views in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

The trend also spread outside of TikTok. On February 10th, Twitter^[4] user @ohmybeautybank made a post asking users to comment their "deinfluencing skincare / makeup," garnering over 7,200 likes in four days. On February 13th, Twitter^[5] user @Toastmarshmell1 posted a video deinfluencing viewers about certain anime and anime merch, garnering over 2,100 likes and 34,000 views in a day (shown below). On February 14th, National Post,^[6] HuffPost^[7] and AP News^[8] published articles about the trend.