Looking at the Latest Wave of Creator / Influencer Backlash
The Becca Bloom discourse and the growing critique of curated aspiration.
What’s going on?
“I love it when rich people do rich correctly.”
Becca Bloom is currently (one of the) main characters of TikTok – she’s an influencer with family money (and an apparent cousin of Singapore-based “stay at home daughter” Chloe L) who’s basically famous for giving us a peek into her lavish lifestyle. And a considerable group of people (including 2m followers) can’t get enough of her soft, hyper-curated life of hot dog purses, docile cats (slight boo because Scottish Folds are genetically unfair), what’s in my <ultra designer> bag, and OOTDs.
(Note that Becca Bloom is a nom de Tok, presumably inspired by Rebecca Bloom of Confessions of a Shopaholic.)
Of course, there are countless parody videos of Becca’s chi chi life – it’s easy to poke fun at Becca. But the reaction to her is also a great signal for where the influencer economy is currently at.
Essentially, Becca’s audience is split in two: those who adore her without irony, and those who see her as the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the the state of creators.
In the latter camp are commentators like Nathan Ramos Park – his critiques like “Becca Bloom […] could pay off all their commentors’ debts and wouldn’t even notice. Stop glorying the idea of the ‘right way to rich’” and “Billionnaires used to build infrastructures, not do Van Cleef hauls” are getting almost as much engagement as Becca’s own content.
But this isn’t just about Becca. It’s part of the latest backlash against influencers and creators which includes points of view like:
Many of your fave influencers are just sex workers living in Dubai
“Can we start calling out influencers by name for promoting overconsumption?”
What’s driving it?
The influencer economy has been fraying for a while.
Early 2023: deinfluencing – a backlash against recommendation culture and overconsumption
May 2024: the “digital guillotine” / Block Out 2024 sparked largely by influencer Haleyy Baylee’s Met Gala pre-event “let them eat cake” moment
Summer 2024: underconsumption – a further reinforcement of “buy less” mentalities
If being an influencer / creator started off as being (framed at least as) democratic, empowering, and authentic, it now just feels like a cynical review of the same old hierarchies. And the critics aren’t just envious haters – they’re exhausted, faced with constant murmurs of recession, rising costs of living, unstable work, and crumbling infrastructure. Against this, watching a koi fish get fed sashimi (that’s courtesy of Chloe L, not Becca) feels more dystopia than goals, and people are calling it out.
What does it mean?
Consumers are savvy (except when they’re not), and it’s clear that influencers are (generally) recognized as part of the system now. Of course this doesn’t mean influencing is over. But the vibe has shifted. If you want to build a real audience in 2025, you can’t just sell a dream – you have to justify what you’re selling, and why.
Take Burberry’s recent advertorial with New York Magazine. It featured real people – not influencers, not models – styled in their own Burberry clothing. As Shayna Macklin said on LinkedIn:
Burberry didn’t abandon high fashion; the creative still looks rich, editorial, and elevated. But by stepping away from traditional casting and choosing people with texture, perspective, and presence, they reminded us that luxury doesn’t have to feel exclusive in a cold, unattainable way. Luxury can be personal.
In other words: yes, we still want aspiration, fantasy, and some degree of escape. But we want it tethered to something that feels intentional – a point of view, a lived experience, a sense that there’s a why behind the want.
But also, it’s no longer as simple as “we’re moving from X to Y” – for every discourse, there’s a counterdiscourse. Every trend, movement, and discourse is met with backlash (and backlash to the backlash) as things continue to fragment and splinter.
Final takeaway
As the soft life is getting harder to watch, the age of untouchable aspiration is pretty much over. What’s emerging in its place is more fragmented, more self-aware, and often more critical. To connect with audiences in 2025, you can’t just sell the dream. You have to acknowledge the system that makes the dream possible, and consider who’s excluded from it.