Have you ever noticed an influx of negative make-up reviews in your social media feeds recently? A TikTok influencer who normally promotes their latest beauty haul as an alternative telling you what not to purchase? Products that were viral favourites just last week suddenly being deemed overhyped and overrated? If you’ve, it’s likely that you simply’ve been “deinfluenced”. 

Deinfluencing is the most recent trend sweeping social media. Positioned as an antidote to overconsumption and product fatigue within the face of one other economic recession, these “anti-influencer” videos see people taking to TikTok to share the products they don’t want their followers to purchase. “I am here to de-influence you,” a viral video by Estefany Teran Rodriguez begins before she lists out all of the products you shouldn’t be purchasing: the Ultra Mini Ugg Boot, the Dyson Airwrap, the Charlotte Tilbury Wand.

“Audiences are getting bored with seeing influencers [and] content creators flaunt and rave about products which can be price greater than their basic necessities,” the 23-year-old sales coordinator tells Dazed. “Essentially the most notable community in over-saturation is the sweetness one. Every day a recent product is ‘the must-have’ item and the overconsumption is overwhelming and inconceivable to maintain up with for any working-class person. The opposite day I realised I had about $250 price of blush, which is absurd.”

While “de-influencing” little question has its roots in reactions against overconsumption and the price of living crisis, it also reflects a growing fatigue and distrust in beauty influencers and the next attempt by these influencers to pivot and remodel their content. Over the previous couple of weeks, a series of events have indicated that the shine is perhaps wearing off the concept of beauty influencers.

In January, a Tarte Cosmetics influencer trip to Dubai sparked debate and backlash across the web. Pre-pandemic, influencer trips were the bread and butter of the sweetness guru community, and types spent hundreds of thousands of dollars – literally – flying the most important YouTubers all world wide and showering them with luxury experiences. But against the backdrop of massive economic inequalities, these extravagant displays of wealth seem increasingly tone-deaf and the general public mood towards them has shifted.

One other indicator that influencers is perhaps losing their sheen is the struggle of influencer brands to survive in the sweetness market. Despite massive social media followings, Addison Rae and Hyram Yarbro did not translate those numbers into sales and persuade people to truly spend money on their products. This failure of beauty influencers to resonate could be attributed to the mistrust cultivated by an oversaturated market and an absence of credibility. Consumers are not any longer buying that influencers truly endorse the products they promote, oftentimes dubbing recent beauty ventures as “money grabs” and accusing recommendations of being sponsored or paid for. It’s unsurprising, given how much sponsored content goes undisclosed, how often influencers use beauty filters or facetuning while doing tutorials or reviews, and the way one-in-four influencers buy fake followers.

This lack of consumer trust became evident with the ‘MascaraGate’ beauty scandal. Back in January, Mikayla Nogueira, a well-liked TikTok beauty influencer with over 14 million followers, posted a sponsored review of L’Oreal’s Telescopic Lift Mascara. The video was quickly met with backlash as many viewers identified that it looked as if Nogueira was wearing fake lashes which she was attempting to pass off as solely the outcomes of the mascara. Because the criticism grew, nonetheless, so did the engagement and the video now has almost 56 million views – significantly greater than Nogueira’s average. Even with (or due to) the controversy, many sought out the mascara to prove the influencer was wearing “falsies” and ended up liking it in the process. While other top-grade influencers joined in on the bandwagon, criticising Nogueira, and feasting on the engagement.

It’s clear that negative feedback can mean high engagement rates and negative content like bad reviews do equally as well – studies have shown that negative social media posts receive twice as much engagement than positive and this rings true for the sweetness industry. Because viewers have grown sceptical and increasingly consider positive product endorsement to be disingenuous, negative reviews are sometimes perceived as more authentic. “Bashing a product is hardly a recent concept and is how influencers I grew up with blew up. They were ‘being honest’!” says Charlotte Palermino CEO and cofounder of Dieux Skin. “Negativity is more ‘believable’ but it surely also makes for excellent outrage content, and subsequently… more views.”

Nevertheless, simply because a review is negative doesn’t mean it’s any more trustworthy. Throughout the height of beauty YouTube, beauty influencers were paid to make negative reviews of competitor brands. And while the deinfluencer trend can have began off as a response to overconsumption, it was quickly co-opted by people using it as a technique to promote dupes or other products which, unlike those being criticised, ‘actually work’. Deinfluencing has thus just develop into influencing under a unique wrapping. “Balanced reviews get the least engagement, which is why you see people move to extremes,” as Palermino says.

We’re now in an age where more people than ever are striving to be influencers. The algorithm is flooded with people telling you what products you need to be putting in your face and social media has develop into a sphere of perpetual commercial that’s tiring consumers. Negative content elicits a response and better levels of engagement from audiences, so it’s not surprising that influencers are using it as a tactic to face out from the gang. But this performative authenticity only highlights the trust crisis and as product sales dwindle and massive names struggle to influence buyers, could ‘deinfluencing’ be nothing but a last-ditch effort to save lots of the dying influencer industrial complex?