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The age of the influencer is truly upon us
Summary
Influencer channels help politicians build their brand all year around, not just at election time when everyone wants to interview them
When Anasuya Sengupta recently won the Un Certain Regard Performance Prize for The Shameless, many on social media instantly got busy trying to find their three degrees of separation from her. When Payal Kapadia followed in Sengupta’s wake with her own Grand Prix award, even the Prime Minister found time in the middle of an election campaign to congratulate her.
What was palpable was not just India’s pride at these achievements but also India’s relief. Until this point, India’s Cannes moment had largely been about Nancy Tyagi.
For those who don’t know (and until recently I was one of them), Nancy Tyagi is a fashion influencer. She was part of the Brut India squad of digital influencers at Cannes—Brut being an official media partner of the festival—and walked the red carpet in her own DIY outfits. Like a pink wedding cake of a gown that she said took “30 days, 1,000 metres of fabric and weighs over 20kg." Soon the internet was filled with “Who is Nancy Tyagi?" articles.
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In some ways Tyagi is the Cinderella-style story the media loves—the plucky dreamer and self-taught seamstress from Baranwa village in Uttar Pradesh who became famous by reimagining the outfits that stars like Deepika Padukone or Alia Bhatt wore. But while those have designer labels and teams of tailors behind them, Tyagi is a one-woman-show, shopping in the wholesale fabric market, stitching and snipping her way to Instagram fame with her “Outfits from Scratch". She had chutzpah, talent and wasn’t embarrassed about speaking Hindi on the red carpet. And her 1.3 million followers on Instagram prove that her fans love her for it.
Of course the “I made it to Cannes" posts of many influencers are a little disingenuous. Many paid (or found sponsors to pay) to “make it" to Cannes to be part of one squad or another. And some have wondered what happens to these outfits after the Reel is shot? Is a landfill their ultimate destination after their 15 seconds of fame?
But what the meteoric rise of a Nancy Tyagi also shows is that we do hold the influencer in Un Certain Regard. Or should that be in uncertain regard?
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We are not sure how to measure the worth of an influencer even though we are surrounded by them. The Cannes influencer is not walking the red carpet because she made a film or acted in one. She is not being honoured for her achievements in the world of cinema. But on the other hand 1.3 million followers is not chump change in a world where followers have become currency. And to be honest, some would say bona-fide film stars who are there only because they are plugging a cosmetics brand like L’Oreal are also influencers after a fashion.
The Age of the Influencer is well and truly upon us.
There are now influencers for everything. I get book influencers DMing constantly on Instagram offering to influence my book sales with Reels, posts, GoodReads and Amazon “reviews". Some helpfully add rate sheets. Others tell me it’s 50% payment upfront and 50% later. None of them seem to have noticed my book is several years old. Any time it’s in the news for some reason, or I am part of a literature festival, the book influencers jump into action, congratulating me on my “new" book and offering me enticements like “Do you want to take 50 Amazon Instagram and Goodreads review for your Book? We can Do 50 review for your book. (sic)"
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During a recent literature festival, I noticed I was tagged in a slew of Reels . I had not done anything newsworthy but I realised a host of book influencers had been hired to promote the festival. They produced basically the same Reels—slick video collages with snippets of different sessions, sometimes with a trending soundtrack. None of the posts actually told me anything about what the sessions were about or whether anyone said anything interesting. They happened to be about a lit fest. They could have just as easily been about a café.
The problem is not with the Reels per se. There’s always room for eye candy in this world. It’s that the influencer and the reviewer now occupy the same grey zone. After all, the book influencer messaging me is offering me “reviews". And in a world where book reviews are ever shrinking in mainstream media, authors are hungry for any review anywhere, paid or not.
The owner of a small café in Kolkata told me that he actually gets more bang for his buck when he hires influencers than trying to chase down restaurant reviewers at the local newspaper. The food influencer reliably finds everything utterly yummy and delicious and tells everyone to come with “their squad". Sometimes they confidently recommend 10 menu items they claim they tried, leading me to marvel at their appetites.
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Also they are forever letting us know about “hidden gems" like a 100-year-old eatery. Said eatery was anything but hidden. It was always busy and had been for 100 years. But every vlogger knows “hidden gem" is good clickbait. That is why our Instagram feeds are awash with hidden gems. It worked, I am embarrassed to say. I clicked.
I remember one such “hidden gem"—an old café in the busy heart of south Kolkata, the kind that is usually famous for fish fry, mutton cutlets and tea. The influencer waxed ecstatic about how the fish fry was very pocket-friendly at ₹300. Commenters went berserk wondering how a ₹300 fish fry could be considered pocket-friendly at an old eatery. But the vlogger was unfazed. The more people commented and argued, the more the engagement for the review. The more the engagement, the more the influence.
When it is about a fish fry, perhaps it does not matter too much. You can take it with a large pinch of salt, roll your eyes and move on. When it comes to politics though, it’s a different kettle of fish altogether.
Recently a cross-university group of researchers put together a report on Political Interviewing on YouTube: An Analysis of Indian Political Digital Influencers and Media Houses online. It collected data on 151 political interviews across 25 YouTube channels. One of the intriguing findings was that political content garnered comparatively higher engagement on channels that were primarily digital rather than YouTube channels of mainstream media outlets. So handles such as @CurlyTalesIndia or @UFbySamdishh all outperformed mainstream media when it came to interview views.
One of the researchers, Joyojeet Pal of the University of Michigan, US, tweeted that “minor influencers may follow political scripts verbatim, bigger influencers tailor content to show authenticity. Not all influencers get paid, but most take orders." For example, Pal says @CurlyTalesIndia (whose X bio tells us to follow them for “delicious food, hidden gems and unique travel experiences") talks to politicians about food and travels and gets the most views. It seems to be a win-win for everyone. The politicians get to show their human side. The platform gets traffic. The public gets entertainment.
Influencer channels thus help politicians build their brand all year around, not just at election time when everyone wants to interview them. And since an influencer isn’t supposed to know the ins and outs of policy, they can get away with softball questions unlike mainstream journalists.
Also read: Politics meets podcasts in influencer universe
Some influencers like Samdish Bhatia, host of UNFILTERED by Samdishon YouTube, do well-researched, even combative interviews. An Asaduddin Owaisi might be quizzed on the relationship between religion and state while another clip shows Tej Pratap Yadav revealing his favourite ice cream (Baskin Robbins fruit ninja). But Pal says in an election where we constantly wring our hands about polarisation, the real clincher is “the worst offenders in terms of polarisation are digital influencers. Almost all digital influencers are entirely engaged either by one end of the spectrum or the other. In short, digital influencers create the most polarising content of all."
We maynot think of it that way, but this election and ones to come might well have been “influenced". Now that’s an unexpected hidden gem indeed.
Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on issues we keep rubbing up against.
Sandip Roy is a writer, journalist and radio host. He posts @sandipr
