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When Online Recommendations Stopped Feeling Personal

By Kathrin Morochnyk

Open TikTok and the first thing you hear is: “Girls don’t walk, run to Sephora”. “Girl run to Sephora. I found the best foundation”. “Who else is running to Sephora?”. Every new blush, perfume or lip gloss is suddenly presented as an urgent necessity. Not a want, but a need. Something life changing. At least that is what influencers want consumers to believe.

The truth is that many consumers are getting tired of this endless marketing and honestly, I’m one of them. One day it is the new Rare Beauty blush everyone suddenly “needs”, the next day TikTok is obsessed with under-eye patches because of a Justin and Hailey Bieber collaboration. When I first started using TikTok, influencers seemed to share products they actually liked, and recommendations felt more genuine. Now you just don’t know if something is a sponsorship because watching TikToks often feels like watching a friend and not an advertisement. But what happens when audiences stop trusting that friend? When every recommendation starts sounding sponsored, people slowly stop believing that these creators use the products they promote.

This becomes especially visible in beauty marketing. A couple of days ago, I saw a TikTok: “I should gatekeep this, but I already know it’s going to be viral. The new limited edition Sol de Janeiro scent,” says Megan, a TikTok creator. The video was posted with the caption: “run to Sephora for their new after-hours scent for fall.” This reflects a larger pattern in influencer marketing. But audiences are starting to notice these patterns. Influencers are often given similar campaign briefs and creative directions by brands, which is why so many recommendations online begin to sound almost scripted. There is nothing organic about an advertisement that you have seen countless times on your TikTok For You page, with the same hook every single time.

Once every recommendation starts sounding the same, audiences become more sceptical of influencer culture as a whole. Consumers are not rejecting brands. They are rejecting constant marketing disguised as authenticity. What they no longer want is the feeling of being manipulated online.
The growing scepticism toward influencer marketing is slowly changing the way trends are created online. Influence itself is changing. Companies are now sending PR to micro influencers. Some might think that micro influencers don’t have the same reach as larger creators. However, even though they have a smaller following, their audiences are often far more loyal. When they promote a product, people are more likely to trust the recommendation and actually buy it.

I noticed this myself after going to a Shiseido pop-up event with a friend, where several of the brand’s influencer ambassadors were also present. Since Shiseido is originally a Japanese brand, the event not only focused on skincare products but also tried to bring elements of Japanese culture into the experience. There were skincare analyses, free matcha and even a small matcha ceremony where influencers and visitors participated together. It felt less like traditional advertising and more like a real community experience. Through events and real-life interactions, creators are building connections that feel more meaningful and harder to fake.
There is also a rise of intellectual influencers. The most trusted voices online are often the ones least dependent on brand sponsorships. We now see dermatologists offering skincare advice, successful founders sharing years of lessons and accountants openly discussing financial topics online. What makes audiences trust these creators is that their success does not depend on social media alone. They post because they want to help with their expertise and that’s what makes both them and the products they recommend feel more authentic.

At the same time, this shift in trust is also changing who has influence over trends and cultural relevance online. As one creator on TikTok said, Anna Wintour’s power today is no longer about directly setting trends but about deciding who becomes an “elite tastemaker”. That is where the influence remains. Fashion magazines like Vogue are no longer setting the trends in the same way they once did. Instead, they are increasingly reporting on trends that are already being created online. Now trends move quickly and disappear just as fast, making it difficult for any magazine to fully shape what people consider fashionable. Influencers themselves are shaping what people buy and talk about, while magazines have become more reactive to digital culture. In the future, desirability may no longer come from exclusivity alone, but from perceived authenticity.

Rebuilding credibility depends on the most important people for any brand: the consumer. Consumers want transparency and a shopping experience that feels like a pleasure rather than a performance. Perhaps that is why the creators and brands people trust the most today are often the ones trying the least to sell something at all.  As a consumer myself, I have found myself looking beyond creators promoting every new viral product and paying more attention to smaller creators with a genuine interest in specific topics, whether that is perfume, skincare or styling.

Next post: Body Positivity on Social Media, or: The Mass Production of Insecurities