The De-Influencing Paradox

The objective of the research was to establish whether the concept of de-influencing is a true trend of mindful anti-consumerism or merely a "detour" towards the new kind of consumer economy – the dupe economy. As the results of the quantitative analysis of consumer behavior showed, de-influencing can hardly be considered a "dead end", but rather another way to redirect consumer purchases and choices. While the movement is very efficient in preventing people from the purchases of certain luxury items (89.2%), it pushes almost four out of ten people to buy cheaper alternatives instead. Indeed, the influence of such de-influencing content is actively promoted by the consumers themselves: people who watch such videos frequently tend to look for dupes in much higher numbers (43.1%) than individuals who rarely do. However, the research also revealed the paradox of consumer attitude regarding influencers' intentions and the degree of trust in them. Indeed, according to the results, up to 75.5% of the participants are suspicious about the intentions of the people who create de-influencing videos and assume that such recommendations are made due to promotions. Nevertheless, consumer skepticism does not cancel the impact of de-influencers. As many as 40% of consumers still try to find alternatives despite believing in paid promotion of the latter. This is caused by the inherent persuasive powers of negative reviews. As long as the suggested alternative is economically sensible, consumer suspicions cannot play a role in decision-making. In addition, the absence of critical thinking further contributes to consumer manipulation and the emergence of the "dupe economy". Specifically, only 22.1% of consumers conduct independent verification of the authenticity of the content, while up to 43.6% use comments for validating the information provided in videos. Combined with the fact that participants were undecided regarding the quality of cheap alternatives to luxury goods (the average rating being 2.98 out of 5), this means that the motivation behind their decisions is economic in nature and associated with anti-consumerism. Overall, "The De-Influencing Paradox" is a truly paradoxical phenomenon. Indeed, as a result of the research, de-influencing proved to be an ineffective way to reduce consumerism because its essence lies in redirecting consumers towards another type of products. Hence, de-influencing did not manage to overcome the problem of consumerism, but succeeded in changing it and promoting the emergence of a new economy – the "dupe economy".

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