Creators are killing the influencer

The rise of short-form video is pushing influencers to upskill, work harder and rebrand.

The rise of short-form video is pushing influencers to upskill, work harder and rebrand.

When people ask Rhylee Passfield what she does for a living, the 27-year-old tends not to mention the word ‘influencer’. Yet she has two million followers on TikTok and regularly collaborates with global brands like Amazon Prime Video and Sony. But Passfield, a talented make-up artist who’s known by her handle @rhyleep95, doesn’t consider herself an influencer. 

“I don’t think I fit under the influencer category, due to the nature of my content,” says the Queenslander, who found fame by dressing up as film characters and reenacting movie scenes as part of her uncanny ‘cursed cosplay’ series. “When I think of the term ‘influencer’ I think of perfect outfits, makeup, travelling and staged photos, and my content certainly doesn’t fit that criteria.” 

@rhyleep95

Recreating Napoleon Dynamite scenes part 3 😆 #napoleondynamite #skit #cosplay #acting

♬ original sound - Rhylee

Passfield belongs to a new era of social media stars that is distancing themselves from the term influencer, in favour of calling themselves ‘content creators’, or ‘creators’ for short. Previously, the two titles were used pretty interchangeably. But when Instagram became dominated by paid partnership posts (some more contrived than others) and scandals involving early influencers went viral (remember Belle Gibson’s fake cancer diagnosis?) being an ‘influencer’ lost some of its cool, and social media personalities began looking for ways to rebrand. 

According to influencer marketing specialist Emily Hatzopoulos, the race to rebrand was also fuelled by the arrival of social media’s most disruptive platform: TikTok. 

Rhylee Passfield

“TikTok came along with an algorithm and format that was unlike any other major social media platform at the time, and it made growing an audience and becoming an influencer more attainable to the general public than ever,” says Hatzopoulos. 

“Once influencers started to see how saturated the market would become, they tried to rebrand as creators to set themselves apart from the newcomers, who appeared to gather followings through going viral.” 

As a talent manager at Sydney-based influencer marketing agency Born Bred, Hatzopoulos works with names like the Inspired Unemployed, professional boxer Harry Garside and viral comedian Sam Andrews. She says most of her clients prefer the term creator over influencer, because they feel like it’s a more accurate representation of the level of work and creativity that goes into producing their content, especially short-form videos for platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. 

“They’re wearing more hats than ever,” she remarks. “Creators have become script writers, producers, directors, videographers, editors and more. They’re experienced in all of these areas and are masters at grasping viewer attention within the first few seconds of content.” 

Passfield says her videos can take anywhere from two to twenty hours to produce, depending on the complexity of the video or cosplay. “An unbelievable amount of time and effort goes into my videos, and a lot of time is spent editing.” She says the rise of TikTok has created room for a greater diversity of content on social media. “I feel like Instagram was home to a lot of picture perfect influencer type content, whereas TikTok has allowed people to be more creative and artsy and show that side of things.” 

“The days where brands and talent could ‘influence’ people with a pretty, aesthetic product shot are over,” echoes Hatzopoulos. 

She points out that technically, there is a difference between influencing and creating, and brands are becoming more aware of this. “An influencer is someone who has ‘influence’ and focuses on building an engaged community, whereas a content creator is someone who can make content in line with a very specific brief,” says the marketing specialist. Right now, the dynamic skills of smaller creators are in hot demand, especially when it comes to producing user-generated content for brands. “They can nail a set brief and brands can avoid paying hefty usage fees that typically come with known influencers or talent.”

@rhyleep95

Reply to @babykitcho00 creating cursed cosplays part 42 #pleakley #liloandstitch #cosplay #makeup #art #cursedcosplay

♬ original sound - Rhylee

However, Hatzopoulos believes there’s still a place for more conventional influencers, especially when it comes to reaching a specific community of followers. “If brands want their content to reach a large organic audience, or they want to align their brand with a specific public figure or talent, they’ll engage an influencer,” she says. 

For the time being, at least. Because as the profiles of online personalities that go by ‘creator’ continue to expand, and brands become more aware of their skills, influencing — both the occupation and the title —could risk becoming another relic of the social media age.