A successor to 2024’s ‘de-influencing’ wave (see Look Ahead 2025), a new tide of ‘influencer fatigue’ is gripping internet culture, particularly in the US. Frustration with influencers’ repetitive advertising, virality chasing, and excessively curated lifestyle content is driving a recalibration of audience attention towards ‘nano’ creators who prioritise transparency, expertise and relatability over performatively aspirational fodder, with smart brands following suit.

With 57% of US Gen Z and millennials saying generative AI has made online content worse, anti-AI-slop discourse is rising among content creators determined to preserve human hegemony in digital spaces. Content centres on helping audiences understand how AI slop is changing social media and their experiences with it, including new ‘slop economy’ terminology, warnings against AI influencers, and evidence for the ‘dead internet theory’.

Surprise-hit, Instagram-housed episodic mini-documentary Errands is beguiling viewers by transforming New Yorkers’ daily rote tasks into quest-like adventures. The show is part of a new crop of content-creator-made ‘cosy’ content, feeding appetites for low-stakes (but not brain-rotted) entertainment. With a gonzo, sweetly haphazard style, Errands also taps audiences’ strengthening desire for content heroing human magic.