Authentically Misogynistic

What Blake Lively's lawsuit tells us about the influencer economy.

One of the arguments people use to defend influencers (or “content creators” or “tastemakers” or whatever you want to call people who are gig workers for marketing departments) is that they are “authentic.” The logic goes that since anyone can pick up their phone and amass a following through force of personality, they are not beholden to the same constraints as a celebrity providing an endorsement or the inherent phoniness of a 30-second ad. Of course, having a big online following isn’t financially worth much unless you know how to monetize it, and on social media platforms, monetization usually means partnering with larger firms or companies on their campaigns. This can be something innocuous, like a skincare line or a new movie. It can also be far worse.

“Far worse” is what happened with the smear campaign against Blake Lively by her It Ends with Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni. A New York Times story details the lawsuit Lively recently brought against Baldoni, where she outlines not only his unprofessional and demeaning behavior on set but also reveals how he and the film’s lead producer, Jamey Heath, set out to smear Lively before she could reveal their despicable actions.

The whole story is worth a read, but what leaped out at me was how crisis management expert Melissa Nathan (the person credited with the “We can bury anyone,” line) knew how to marshal online forces to make it appear that the backlash against Lively was organic.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends with Us | Image via Sony Pictures