06/14/2023

The End of Influencers on Instagram

Creators are tired of being at the mercy of platforms

Caitlin Covington never wanted to be an Instagram influencer—that is just an Instagram influencer. She always identified as a blogger, and she held on to that even as blog readership slowly declined and Instagram began to crowd out any other type of content creation.

Covington has been blogging about her personal style and life since 2012 and is one of the pioneers of the industry, a fashion and lifestyle blogger who rose to fame based on her aspirational aesthetic and girl-next-door wholesomeness. It's hard to convey her magnetism without sounding like a creepy magazine writer describing a young ingenue primarily by her looks, but Covington's Disney princess beauty, her long bouncy dark hair, and her big eyes are the first things you notice when you look at her feed. When you think of an influencer, you probably think of someone like Covington.

In the mid-2010s, Instagram exploded as a content machine, and old-school bloggers like Covington were lured over to the platform as a way to grow their brand and audience. By 2021, though, Instagram content had swallowed much of the blogger industry that came before it. Influencers have told me that many brands will pay only for Instagram content and look only at Instagram numbers when determining an influencer's rate, or they will pay premiums for Instagram. Slowly, blogs and other types of content began to fall by the wayside, until many influencers found themselves spending the majority of their workdays on Instagram. Without realizing it, they had given up something crucial. Instead of owning their business on their own platform, they now were subject to the whims of a corporation they couldn't control, one that didn't seem to care much about them.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.