Influencers Aren't Relatable Anymore

These content creators built a platform on being just like Us. But with massive success comes unattainability for their audiences

- MOLLY MCGUIGAN

“Get ready with me for the first day of classes at U Miami,” a 21-year-old Alix Earle told her 1 million-ish followers in a 2022 TikTok — an introduction that became synonymous with the influencer’s confessional beauty-centered style of creation that contributed to her meteoric rise to fame. (She’s been widely credited with popularizing the “GRWM” format for the TikTok generation.) In some ways, not much has changed: “Get ready with me to go on Good Morning America to announce that I’m going to be on this season of Dancing With the Stars,” she said in a May video to her now 7.5 million followers. Same intro. Same format. Except this time, she’d traded a quintessential young adult experience — doing her own makeup in her college bedroom — for appearing on national TV, getting glammed up by pros. And what could be less relatable than announcing your appearance on a TV show to announce an appearance on another?