What Is Deinfluencing, and What Does It Mean for Brand Strategy?

What is deinfluencing?

Deinfluencing is when a creator actively tells followers not to buy a specific product — or argues a hyped product isn't worth the money — instead of recommending it. It looks like an ordinary review video, but inverts the usual logic: instead of "buy this," the message is "don't buy this (or buy the cheaper alternative instead)." The format broke out on TikTok in January 2023 and was shortlisted the same year for Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year, where Collins itself defined it as the use of social media to warn people against certain commercial products and lifestyle choices.

Where does deinfluencing come from?

The trigger event — often called "Mascaragate" — was beauty creator Mikayla Nogueira posting a sponsored TikTok in January 2023 about L'Oréal's Telescopic Lift mascara, showing a dramatic before-and-after that followers quickly noticed relied on false lashes rather than the product itself. The backlash set off a wave of videos in which other creators began "exposing" products they considered overhyped, and the hashtag passed one billion TikTok views that same year, according to a review of the trend by Aidan Moir, assistant professor at McMaster University. What started in the beauty niche has since spread to seasonal shopping and events like Amazon Prime Day.

Deinfluencing is not the same as "underconsumption core"

The two terms get lumped together, but they point in different directions:

This is a point worth making explicit: a typical deinfluencing video still ends with a purchase recommendation — just for a different, often cheaper, product. Critics of the trend make exactly this argument: you're still promoting consumption, just redirecting it. That makes deinfluencing something brands can navigate strategically, not a threat that requires abandoning influencer marketing altogether.

What does this mean for brands running influencer marketing?

Deinfluencing is not, on its own, a reason to stop working with creators — but it changes which kind of content builds trust and which kind triggers skepticism. Three concrete consequences for briefing and collaboration:

1. Heavily scripted content is more exposed than it used to be

When a brand micromanages a creator's script word-for-word, the audience notices the "ad" more clearly — which is precisely the kind of content the deinfluencing wave defines itself against. See Content Approval Workflows That Don't Kill the Content for how to give feedback without stripping out the authenticity that guards against exactly this kind of skepticism.

2. Honest, balanced coverage is now an asset, not a risk

A collaboration where the creator is allowed to mention a genuine drawback, or compare the product to an alternative, reads as more credible today than a pure superlative endorsement — and it's easier to defend if a deinfluencer later picks the product up. See Gifting vs Paid Collaborations for how the collaboration type itself affects how honest the content feels.

3. Clear disclosure is part of credibility, not just a legal box to tick

A collaboration that's clearly labelled as paid is less often read as "just another script," because the follower already knows what they're looking at and can judge the content on that basis. See Influencer Marketing Disclosure Rules in Denmark and the EU for the rules that apply.

Data: brands already changed behaviour in 2026

Digiday+ Research's own study of 2026 holiday marketing strategies shows a concrete behaviour shift: marketers' use of influencer hauls and unboxing videos fell 14 percentage points from 2025 to 2026, while use of gift guides fell 19 percentage points over the same period — the only format in the study to decline in both historic performance and marketers' planned use. Digiday does not itself name deinfluencing as the cause, but the drop lands squarely on the content type — the uncritical "I bought all of this and it's amazing" video — that the deinfluencing movement emerged in reaction to.

How to assess whether your brand is exposed

• Product category: beauty, skincare, fashion and wellness remain the most exposed categories — it's where deinfluencing started and where it's still strongest.
• Content format: heavy haul- and unboxing-style formats ("I bought all of this") carry more exposure than single-product reviews with a clear rationale.
• Script rigidity: the more word-for-word a script is, the more obviously it reads as an ad — and the more likely a deinfluencer is to single out that exact collaboration as an example.
• Product-quality history: a product with known, undisclosed shortcomings is more exposed once a creator starts digging.

Example: two briefs, two different risk profiles (hypothetical)

The following is an illustrative, hypothetical example — not a documented Make Influence case or an industry statistic. It's meant to show the logic, not a real figure.

Brief A (tightly scripted): the creator reads out five pre-written superlatives with no comparison. Brief B (honest framing): the creator gets a short list of factual product strengths but chooses their own wording, and is free to mention one genuine limitation (e.g. "works best on normal skin, less on very dry skin"). Hypothetically: if 100 viewers comment on each video, a tightly scripted, superlative-heavy video typically draws more skeptical "not another ad" comments than a video with a built-in nuance — the direction (more nuance in the brief means fewer skeptical reactions) is the real point, not any specific comment count. None of the numbers here are a documented measurement; they only illustrate the logic.

Make Influence's operational perspective

In our experience — not a documented study — the collaborations that hold up best over time are the ones where the creator has genuine latitude to phrase their own opinion inside a factually accurate brief. It's cheaper to build trust into the brief from the start than to react to a deinfluencing video after it has already gone viral.

Related in the Academy

Deinfluencing raises questions about who you work with and how. See Nano, Micro, Macro or Mega Influencers for how creator size relates to credibility, and Faceless and Anonymous Creator Accounts for another example of how creator trust works without a traditional influencer persona. More terms like this are collected in our influencer marketing glossary.

Frequently asked questions

Is deinfluencing the same as a negative review?

Not necessarily. A negative review is about one product. Deinfluencing is a broader movement that typically combines criticism of a hyped product with a recommendation for an alternative, and has its own recognisable video style and hashtag community.

Can a brand work with a creator who makes deinfluencing content?

Yes. Many deinfluencers still recommend products — just more selectively and with a clearer rationale. A collaboration should build on the same honest framing the creator is already known for, rather than asking them to set it aside.

Does deinfluencing mean influencer marketing is dying?

No. In the vast majority of cases, a deinfluencing video still recommends a purchase — just a different one. It's a shift in which kind of content reads as credible, not a rejection of the creator economy as a whole.

How do we protect against a deinfluencing backlash?

Avoid tightly scripted superlatives, be honest about a product's limitations in the brief, and use clear disclosure. See the checklist in A Brand Safety Checklist for Influencer Partnerships.

Is there a Danish deinfluencing trend?

There is no documented, measured Danish version of the trend at this point — the sources this article draws on cover the global, primarily US-driven TikTok phenomenon. Danish content in the same style exists, but without a documented, separate measurement.