Whiteness functions as unearned capital in influencer economics

Evidence

Even popular Black influencers are often treated as secondary to white influencers, placing them in a position where they must work harder for a similar amount of attention and less pay. Take, for instance, a series of well-publicized events thrown by Tarte Cosmetics, in which the company invited many TikTok-based beauty influencers to events, first in Dubai and then in Miami. For the Dubai trip, fifty influencers were invited, yet only one invitee, Monet McMichael, was not white. The subsequent Tarte trip, to the former estate of the singer Prince, outside Miami, was also called out for racial disparities, this time by one of its invitees, Cynthia Victor, a beauty influencer of Sri Lankan descent known on TikTok as Shawtysin, for the privileges she witnessed given to the white attendees. While Victor was invited for one week, the white influencers on the trip were invited for two and were often given better rooms and more promotional goods and opportunities than she was. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how the influencer-as-firm realizes surplus — here race visibly determines the pay and opportunity differential that Marxian analysis would attribute to the commodity.