“She’s my bitch eating crackers”: influencer snark and the digital gossip economy

Abstract

This commentary proposes influencer snark as an area for feminist media scholarship. Influencer snark is a subversive and satirical social media practice that addresses concerns of credibility, authenticity, and representation in the influencer industry, a multi-million dollar economy overwhelmingly fueled by young women. As the latest iteration of gossip blogs and anti-fandom, snark pages, emerging in the late 2010s and early 2020s, host thousands of users who surveil and discuss influencers daily, offering important implications about gendered visibility and feminist platform practices in emerging media industries. We begin with a discussion contextualizing snark within the influencer industry. The essay then identifies three areas of feminist scholarship where influencer snark responds to: gossip economies, anti-fandoms, and cancel culture.