Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network – Critical Theory
Host: New Books
Guest: Sophie Bishop, author of Influencer Creep: How Optimization, Authenticity, and Self-Branding Transform Creative Culture
Date: November 12, 2025

This episode dives into the central themes of Sophie Bishop’s new book, Influencer Creep, exploring how strategies associated with influencers—optimization, authenticity, and self-branding—are reshaping the broader creative culture, especially among artists. The discussion covers the blurred boundaries between influencer and artist, the risks inherent in platform dependency, the economics of creative labor under platform capitalism, and the emergent challenges brought by AI and shifting social platform dynamics.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What Is "Influencer Creep"? (02:48-05:19)

• Definition: Influencer creep refers to the way strategies and expectations initially developed within influencer culture—particularly around optimization, self-branding, and authenticity—have spread into adjacent creative fields, notably the arts.
• Trajectory: Bishop traces this from her research beginnings with “bloggers, video bloggers, content creators” to the realization that artists in the pandemic era echoed influencers’ concerns and tactics. (03:30)
• Insight: “Influencer culture has crept out far beyond… a very small niche area of content creation on social media platforms. And actually, it impacts all of us in our everyday lives.” — Sophie Bishop [04:55]

2. The Role and Risks of Platforms (05:19-09:21)

• Platforms as "False Friends": While social platforms claim to champion creators, their true loyalty is to advertisers. These structures create unpredictable, capricious environments for both influencers and artists.
• Algorithmic Uncertainty: The opacity of algorithms means creators never truly know how or when their content will be promoted or suppressed.
• Audience Ownership: Even building a large following doesn’t guarantee access—algorithms, not creators, decide who sees what.
• Pandemic Context: Many artists experienced an influx of followers and income during early COVID-19 but later lost visibility, undermining financial security and long-term planning.

“They have absolutely no ownership over their audience… Even the people who have deliberately opted in to hear from you, there's no guarantee that they actually will.” — Sophie Bishop [07:46]

3. Response Strategies: Navigating the Black Box (09:21-12:06)

• Blurring of Influencers and Artists: The book emphasizes how artists must adopt influencer-like behaviors to survive on platforms.
• Algorithmic Gossip: Creators crowdsource knowledge about algorithms—running experiments, sharing screenshots, speculating together, and using communities like Reddit to identify trends.

“Influencers are actually really smart and strategic and actually technically kind of orientated... They have a really significant amount of technical knowledge about how social media platforms work because they're working on them all the time.” — Sophie Bishop [10:13]

• Artists are now similarly investing significant time into understanding platform mechanics, often at the expense of their creative process.

4. Artistic Practice under Platform Logic (12:06-15:08)

• Impact on Art: Artists adjust their work to fit algorithmic preferences—favoring bold, colorful motifs, portraiture over landscapes, and creating process videos to maximize engagement.
• Embodiment Shifts: The need to document process (e.g., using GoPros or mechanical arms with cameras) alters how artists physically approach creation.

“Their artistic practice was changed based on the kind of work that they thought might be visible.” — Sophie Bishop [13:12]

5. The High Value of "Authenticity" (15:08-19:53)

• Influencer Authenticity:
  • “Taking the professional edge off”: Using informal aesthetics (shaky cameras, background noise) to break from traditional, polished media.
  • “Emotional authenticity”: Strategic disclosure of vulnerability—crying, sharing failures—creates trust and platform success, but is also a deliberate tactic.

“There is this sort of strategic effort towards not being too shiny, not being too shiny while still being obviously very aspirational and alluring, but then also...being emotionally real.” — Sophie Bishop [17:50]

• Artist Authenticity:
  • The market for handmade art depends on communicating human labor and personal narrative. Artists must balance relatability with protecting privacy, often wrestling with how much of their real life to reveal online.

6. The Economics: Brands, Audiences, and Monetization (19:53-24:12)

• Influencers: Largely dependent on brand partnerships and sponsorships, shaping both their content and online personas.
• Artists: Face similar pressures—potential sales, commissions, or gallery representation increasingly begin with their social media presence, shaping what they share and how.
• Content Censorship: Platform moderation (e.g., around nudes in art) limits what can be shown, with commercial repercussions.

“If you make work that involves nudes, then your work is not going to be acceptable to be posted on social media... And then if... people can't see it on social media, then like, where are they going to see it?” — Sophie Bishop [22:24]

7. AI, Platform Changes, and the Future (24:12-28:04)

• Impact of AI: The rise of generative AI makes the "human" aspect of creative work more valuable, pushing creators to emphasize their distinctiveness through influencer-style strategies.
• Platform Evolution: TikTok’s ascendance adds new pressures—artists must craft even more engaging, short-form video content to break through.
• Pressure to Optimize: Fighting the tide of algorithmic “slop,” optimization, branding, and authenticity juggling only become more necessary.

“There's more and more pressure to really defend ourselves as human creators.” — Sophie Bishop [26:59]

8. Research Horizons and Personal Reflection (28:04–end)

• Future Research: Bishop is considering next steps in her research, possibly focusing on parenting TikTok and monetization strategies of new parents as a form of digital labor/creativity.
• Critical Gaps: She notes a lack of deep, critical sociology connecting art and digital platforms, though cites a few exceptions.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Algorithm Dependency:
  “There's a real reliance on that visibility when, yeah, it's like, not guaranteed at all and can kind of be taken away at any moment.” — Sophie Bishop [08:57]

• On Emotional Authenticity:
  “…Tears are kind of big bucks in the influencer space.” — Sophie Bishop [16:47]

• On Human vs. AI Creativity:
  “If you are going to be paying someone to do it, is increasingly important… the ways that you promote yourself and…that sort of authentic artistic aura is by doing the strategies that influence a creep.” — Sophie Bishop [25:41]

Key Timestamps

• 02:48 — What is “influencer creep”?
• 05:55 — The risks and realities of social media platforms for creators
• 10:00 — Algorithmic gossip and strategic adaptation by influencers and artists
• 12:45 — How artistic practices change under algorithmic pressures
• 16:04 — Tactics of authenticity and emotional vulnerability
• 18:16 — The artist’s struggle with public-private boundaries and authenticity
• 19:53 — Monetization and the role of brands for both influencers and artists
• 24:12 — The changing landscape: funding cuts, AI, and TikTok
• 26:59 — The increasing importance of “defending ourselves as human creators”
• 28:42 — Bishop’s future research directions

Conclusion

Through Influencer Creep, Sophie Bishop shows how the boundaries between ‘artist’ and ‘influencer’ are vanishing as both groups navigate the opaque, often precarious world of social media platforms. In an environment where optimization, authenticity, and self-branding are prerequisites for visibility and economic survival, the strategies once unique to influencers now shape entire creative cultures—making the lessons of influencer culture essential for understanding the present and future of creative work online.