- The word influencer underwent narrowing semantic change, going from the more general “person who influences others” to the specific “person who influences others on social media.”
Influencer
noun; other word formation type
A person with a prominent social media following (typically on the Instagram app) who makes money from posting photos with products from brand deals they have. Influencers are able to sell products on their page due to a large amount of followers and by portraying a fun and luxurious lifestyle on their page that followers would want to emulate. One would need to have thousands of followers and at least one sponsored post to be considered an influencers. “Influencer” is typically used by the younger generations that make up the majority of Instagram users. In recent years the word “influencer” has more of a negative context due to a lack of trust in social media figures pushing products, and numerous “influencer scandals” that involve influencers promoting products that disappoint their fans, like Fyre Festival tickets.
Etymology : Agentive nominalisation of verb “to influence” which is converted to a noun meaning “person who influences” with the suffix “-er”.
Source : “The Fatigue Hitting Influencers as Instagram Evolves,” (article by Sam Blum for the BBC Worklife blog, 10-21-2019)
Last modified: 12 December 2019