Distrust Shifted Power To Creators

The Trust Vacuum

I read a New York Times article last week (which still feels strange to say when most things I consume come via TikTok) about Strauss-Howe’s generational theory: the idea that culture moves in 80-year cycles made up of four 20–25 year phases. It caught my attention because the last time I wrote, I was talking about growing distrust in brands affecting what, how, when and where they could communicate now compared to 5-10 years ago, and this framework essentially explains why that sentiment feels so widespread right now.

According to that framework, we’re currently in the fourth turning: a crisis era, when belief in institutions collapses faster than those institutions can reform themselves. This time, that erosion hasn’t happened quietly and it’s been accelerated by AI-driven misinformation, political polarisation, financial shocks, and repeated institutional failures, all compounding into one outcome: distrust at scale.

What’s filling that vacuum of trust is now individuals, with huge influence and fame, to a smaller following, to no following at all. Creators and people who wouldn't even consider themselves as creators, now hold cultural credibility in ways brands, media, and even governments increasingly don’t. In a landscape where legitimacy is earned through visibility, creators are slowly becoming part of the infrastructure people rely on to interpret it.

From Borrowed Credibility to Built Influence

Underpinning all of it is the creator economy. 74% of consumers purchase based on influencer recommendations and that influence is projected to overtake traditional media ad revenue (Brandswatch, 2025). The direction of travel is clear, and trust is moving downstream.

Micro-creators, particularly those closer to their audiences, are becoming more strategically valuable than reach-heavy names. When I worked in gaming, people celebrated these creators “getting that bag” and partnering with major brands, but what was really happening was a structural shift: We’re now moving beyond borrowed credibility into collaborative legitimacy. Creators are being brought into organisations earlier and earlier, into actually shaping products. We’ve gone from using their voice, to associating with their lifestyle, to integrating their perspective into development itself, and In many cases now, they create the product and the ecosystem in which they are marketed.

Unplugged x Hinge: Leaning Into Creators

Unplugged’s partnership with Hinge is a good example of culturally smart storytelling done right.

Rather than centring a traditional influencer campaign, the collaboration spotlighted a real Hinge user named Lucy, who mentioned Unplugged in her profile prompt as a way to attract someone aligned with her values. The brands noticed it and offered to gift her an Unplugged stay if she matched with someone promising. She did with Sam, and nearly a year later they were still together, living together with their adopted dog.

What made it effective was an organic user moment that the brands amplified into a real-world love story. That groundedness is exactly why it resonated as it demonstrated the product truth (Hinge as “the app designed to be deleted”) through lived experience rather than advertising language.

Dove: Leaning Into Distrust

Dove did something similar from a different angle: They leaned into distrust directly by plastering negative reviews across OOH placements.

A lot of people in advertising circles criticised it, arguing it amplified criticism and risked putting people off buying. But the opposite happened: by foregrounding scepticism, they made the positive reviews more believable. Instead of silencing real voices, they centred them and where most brands are scared of Reddit, they treated those everyday reviewers as the campaign’s protagonists, because those are the people consumers actually consult before clicking “buy now.”

Charli XCX The Film Producer: Cultural Authority Travels

Charli XCX (yes, she somehow ends up in everything I write, but she really is that iconic) is now writing and producing films, as well as starring in them through The Moment and her Ukrainian venture Erupcja, which premiered at Toronto Film Festival this year.

What’s interesting is that studios are recognising her curatorial authority because of the taste credibility she’s built elsewhere, even through something as seemingly casual as Letterboxd.

When Creators Build the System

Laura Wasser, a high-profile American attorney known for handling celebrity divorces for the likes of Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, and Angelina Jolie, becoming the face of Reformation’s divorce collection works for the same reason. Who she is endorses the message but she also helped shape the product, through collection curation, around the reality she understands professionally.

Then there are creators who’ve taken the final step and built their own companies outright: Emma Chamberlain with Chamberlain Coffee, Grace Beverley with TALA and Molly-Mae with Maebe. And the same logic is playing out at the top of culture too. Artists and public figures like Kendrick Lamar, Dua Lipa, Beyoncé, Stormzy, and Margot Robbie have launched production companies to control their creative output across music, film, and media.

These businesses are proof that audiences don’t just trust creators to recommend products anymore, but they are also trusted to make and create them too because they have built their audience from the ground up and have a relationship with them in ways that brands cannot.

What That Means Now

All of this points to the same conclusion: if brands don’t learn to build with creators rather than just use them, they risk becoming a brand people don't trust. And that's why the old model, which was holding a product and smiling beside it is already obsolete and the role has now evolved from endorsement to integration and now it’s evolving again, from integration to authorship.

Creators can’t just sit alongside a brand anymore; they can’t just use it, or promote it, or post it. Increasingly, the brand story has to be written for and around them and in many cases, partially by them. Because in an era defined by institutional distrust, the entities people believe most are the ones that feel human.