What is de-influencering? How to hack the TikTok-made-me-buy-it effect

For this week’s No More Ls column, we’re diving into the power of influence and how we can stop urge to stop impulse shopping.

By Carli Whitwell

We’ve all been there: doomscrolling TikTok when someone catches our attention. Someone who looks like they’re living our dream life. Their house—and their hair—is clean, and they just seem to have it so together. 

It’s aspirational and inspirational. And it’s natural to want a piece of it, says Parween Mander, a Vancouver-based money coach and de-influncer (an influencer who encourages buying less). “If I can buy that expensive sweater, if I can buy that one kitchen gadget, then I might just experience what that might feel like,” she says. “It’s human nature to think ‘I don’t want to feel left out,’ and so ‘I want to spend to keep up’.”

Social media, especially Tiktok, she adds, has really taken us to the next level. In fact, with more than 30 million posts, the hashtag “TikTokMadeMeBuyIt” has become both a brainrot and a spend trap.

Mander shares her tips to stop the TikTok spending cycle. 

Accept that someone is probably trying to sell you something

Remember when social media was simply about induced sepia-toned FOMO or its photo filters? Today it’s still great at that (minus the Valencia effect, RIP) but it’s also a revenue stream for businesses and people, who make money via:

• Branded content: A creator is paid to promote a product, and creators should legally disclose the content as sponsored or an ad.
• Affiliate sales: These are tracked purchases via discount codes and personalized URLs—if you use the influencer’s or brand’s link or code, they make a commission when you buy the brand or product.
• TikTok Shop: Currently being tested in Canada, so not widely available, this feature allows creators and businesses to feature products on video and streams, and users (a.k.a. us!) to purchase from them seamlessly before you can say “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday.” 

Understand why you feel so tempted to spend

Stop—after a creator recommends these cute arm weights that toned her arms in just eight minutes a day (oh, those ones vids just served to me?) and before you click “add to cart.”  Mander recommends asking yourself a few questions: Are you looking to escape something? Did you have a hard day at work? Did you get in an argument? Are you, maybe, just bored? Also, “What’s going on for you emotionally when you’re consuming the content? Have that understanding first,” she says. 

Acknowledge it and let it go. “I tell my clients all the time, ‘if you want to chill in bed and doomscroll… you have permission to do it—without the spending.’”

If you find you’re still tempted to shop, keep the conversation going. Ask yourself if you’re putting a condition or expectation on the purchase, suggests Mander. It could be as simple as: I will be happier, I will work out more or I will be less stressed. “There’s this idealism that convinces you ‘if I buy this, I’ll reach a certain version of myself’,” she says. That’s a lot to expect from a purchase to magically change our lives. 

Time your purchase

Thanks to online shopping it’s easier than ever to buy something before you’ve even had a second to think about whether you need it. “In the digital world, everything’s so convenient that we can’t tolerate the discomfort of telling ourselves ‘no, we have to wait.’ That can be enough to trigger that scarcity feeling so we click now and we’re happy in the moment.”

The best thing to do is take a beat.

“Write it down, save it, or even open up the link, see it, and then walk away from it,” says Mander. “Give yourself space to reflect.” If it’s still on your mind a day or two later, make a savings goal in your budget to buy it or even buy second hand, if you’re open to it.

Create a rot list to help you switch up your saving mindset

Mander tallies up all of the impulse items she felt she had to have at first, after seeing them on social media. But after reflection, she held off on purchasing them. She wrote down the item and its cost on a “rot list” on her Notes app. A year later, she calculated she would have spent $1,000 on products she forgot about about a few days later. That’s a grand she kept!

The rot list helped her switch up her mindset, so she no longer sees saving as restrictive. “That $1,000 can now go somewhere else. It’s not that I deprived myself of something; saying no to one thing is, actually saying yes to something else.” Maybe that’s a vacation, a new car or a home. 

Try it for free first

That full set of Le Creuset your favourite food influencer uses to whip up dinner does not a five-star meal make. If you want to start cooking more, use the pots and pans you have and choose recipes based on ingredients that are affordable for you. Or try that reformer workout at home in your T-shirt and boxers to see if you actually want to spend the money on a gym membership and the new Alo fit to go with it. 

“In the world of capitalism and convenience, we just want to skip ahead to the results to look like we have it together,” says Mander. “We can do many activities for free first.”

Normalize underconsumption

TikTok hauls are designed to feed the consumer beast in us, so try to remind yourself that wearing clothes over and over, having one perfume instead of a curated selection, or finishing a skincare product before you buy a new one, is completely normal.

“Spending has to be intentional. Do I need seven different lip balms? No. There’s plenty of options for me to choose from, and I can always keep buying them, but the key is recognizing the couple that I do like and challenging myself to finish them before buying another one.”

Still have the itch to spend? Treat yourself with a mini reward

If you have a need to treat yourself, find something cheaper, Mander says. A latte. A drink. A comic book. A nail polish. Or a small snack that satisfies a craving without breaking the bank. Mander says: “One of my clients, every Friday, she would go to McDonald’s and order herself a Diet Coke and fries.” 

Ketchup optional.