What will become of influencers in 2026? The attention economy is in crisis, users are seeking originality and follower counts no longer matter

And so influencers are dying. Not literally, of course: we mean the influencer economy, the one that has governed the marketing approach to social media for the past ten years. Over this period, the influencer profession has rested on a simple equation (more followers = more attention), and the trust placed in that attention was directly transferred to brands. This model was built on scarcity — a handful of creatives whose content could cut through the feed — and as such, that scarcity came at a price.

All the same, all boring

Far be it from us to blame artificial intelligence for this or that, but the ease with which a flood of content can be produced in a short space of time has stripped technical production of its competitive advantage and reduced audience attention spans to that of goldfish. The virtual world today is running short of authentic voices, of spontaneity and substance over appearance — qualities that can hardly be cloned with a prompt.

Despite social media usage remaining extremely high, then, trust in content (especially sponsored content) is now very low. Instagram knows this all too well — its own algorithm now rewards shares far more than follower count (historically the most reliable indicator for breaking into the influencer profession) as a measure of quality, as Adam Mosseri stated in a recent post.

On the audience side, research by Vogue Business conducted among younger users paints a picture of a Gen Z audience that has grown tired of the influencer format, with the majority (**70%** of respondents) finding them all too similar to one another and more boring than they were a few years ago (**68%**). A full 75% of respondents even say they suspect the algorithm favours only a certain type of creator.

The new creative figures

On TikTok, the debate is becoming particularly urgent, and some are theorising the emergence of new creative figures as a result of the rift between attention and credibility: The Educator, who shares what they know with spontaneity, generating a sense of intelligence in their viewers; The Genuine Creative, who produces art for the sheer pleasure of it, without necessarily making it performative (for example, those who run small artisan brands, or those who experiment with unusual make-up looks).

And then there is The Cultural Guide, who steers audiences through phenomena, trends and subcultures, establishing what matters and why; The Mundane Microblogger, who documents everyday life without filters, much like Emily Mariko did when she showed her farmers' market haul; and The Gabber, who entertains simply by talking, without a studied setting or script.

Sitting somewhere between these categories is the figure of the hospitality creator — someone who combines expertise, authenticity and the ability to welcome an audience into a shared space, whether physical or symbolic. Whether it's a living room, a venue or an event, they transform hospitality itself into content, much like private chefs do. Beyond these new figures, there are also cases like that of Chanty Beluga — the character created by comedian Courtney O'Donnell that went viral thanks to a video audition — which make brands' approach to digital creators even more complex. In other words, how do you choose a brand ambassador and plan a campaign when fame is left to chance?

The "Age of Aquarius"

This shift in the influencer economy landscape has been linked, by platform users themselves, to the so-called "Age of Aquarius" — namely, Pluto's entry into Aquarius, an astrological event that occurs roughly every two hundred years. According to Astrology, the Divine Science by Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the discovery of electricity are just some of the events attributed to the influence of Aquarius.

This phenomenon has therefore been associated with periods of rupture, social revolutions and sudden cultural accelerations. It may not be scientific proof, but this reading explains how the fragmentation of creative work is being experienced online as an epoch-defining event rather than a normal market cycle.

The brands' response and new values

The more forward-thinking players in the luxury sector are adapting to the change: Loewe, for example, has collaborated with pastry chefs and ceramicists on TikTok who have recreated the brand's accessories, and it rides every less-polished trend with the timing of a brand that has understood the power of UGC — user-generated content. The risk for brands is nonetheless real: betting on a phenomenon that could burn out quickly might compromise brand reputation and future collaborations with established influencers who have the numbers.

In any case, whether one looks at Vogue Business data or the controversial astrological readings circulating on TikTok, the underlying message is the same: audiences are not simply changing their tastes — they are redefining what it means to trust someone online. The fragmentation of creative work is not a symptom of crisis, but proof that the market is reorganising itself around a different kind of value.

Credibility and authenticity are now what count — the very same qualities that were being chased back when posting unpolished monthly photo dumps was in fashion. It remains to be seen whether this new economy of authenticity will manage to become a sustainable model for those who produce it, or whether it will simply replicate the same economic model on a more unpredictable and less regulated terrain than the one that came before it.