By Kate McQuinlan
The backlash against Irish influencers attending Electric Picnic on Coca Cola’s dime has exposed something uncomfortable: the fragility of performative politics in the influencer economy. For months, many of these same figures shared graphics and hashtags in support of Palestine. But when faced with the reality of boycotted brands offering them money and perks, those convictions seemed to evaporate.
This is what performative politics looks like: activism when it’s trendy and cost-free, silence (or worse, complicity) when money is on the table. And the influencer’s response to being called out has only reinforced that perception.
One influencer, with 1.7 million followers, posted a lengthy response video with three main points:
- She said she asked Coca Cola “questions” and got private reassurances that made her comfortable working with them – answers she can’t share because she’s “not allowed to.”
- She claimed the criticism was about “tearing women down” and was therefore “not feminist.”
- She suggested people should focus on politicians instead of influencers, while painting herself as the victim of unfair attacks.
Each of these deserves scrutiny, but more importantly, together they reveal how influencer culture, corporate PR, and performative politics all intersect.
Performative politics: solidarity until the cheque clears
Supporting Palestine has, in recent years, become a visible marker of progressive politics online. Influencers know this. Posts about Gaza garner likes, followers, and cultural credibility. But support that evaporates the moment it clashes with a lucrative brand deal isn’t solidarity, it’s a performance.
Coca Cola is a multi-billion-dollar corporation with one of the most sophisticated PR machines on the planet. To suggest that private reassurances from Coke, assurances so secret they cannot be shared, should outweigh publicly available evidence is astonishing. To imply that the company whispered something different to an influencer, something apparently strong enough to nullify all their history, borders on gaslighting. Are we really supposed to believe Coca Cola has secretly not been operating in occupied land all along? If so, perhaps they might consider updating their own corporate reports.
Lack of accountability: “jealousy” and “not feminist”
Criticism of influencers is almost always met with the same tired refrains: “You’re just jealous.” “This is tearing women down.” “It’s not feminist to criticise another woman.”
This rhetorical move is both lazy and cynical. It weaponises feminism to protect privilege. Feminism is not a hall pass from accountability. The people raising these issues aren’t attacking women for existing, they’re challenging public figures who profit from shaping consumer behaviour while undermining global solidarity campaigns.
To call that “jealousy” is to trivialise real political critique. And to dismiss it as “anti-feminist” is to reduce women’s political engagement to a catfight, undermining the very feminism these influencers claim to champion.
The influencer/attention economy
What’s especially striking about this influencer’s video is not just the content, but the chorus of supportive responses it generated. Many influencers, rather than addressing the issue themselves, simply reposted her statement or left comments of praise. This functions as a wall of solidarity, not with Palestine, but with each other, to insulate themselves from accountability.
This is the dark side of the attention economy. Influencers trade on relatability and authenticity, but at the end of the day, their loyalty lies with brand deals and algorithmic growth. Political causes are taken up when they align with audience sentiment, and quietly dropped when they threaten income streams.
The corporate PR machine
Of course, corporations understand this dynamic perfectly. Coca Cola has lost profits in part because of the global boycott movement. That’s why they are desperate to rebrand, reviving campaigns like “Share a Coke” and using influencers to soften their image.
When the influencer in question said she got private reassurances from Coke that made her comfortable, she was essentially describing the PR machine in action. Corporations don’t just sell products; they sell narratives. They excel at convincing people that their hands are clean, even when decades of evidence say otherwise.
Why this matters
None of this is to suggest influencers need to be perfect. We all live in a compromised world where most consumer choices are tainted. But there’s a difference between buying what you need to survive and cashing cheques from boycotted brands. One is unavoidable. The other is opportunistic complicity.
And yet, the narrative pushed by influencers and their supporters is that any criticism is just bitterness or jealousy. But in reality, it comes from disappointment, disappointment that people with platforms bigger than most activists will ever have choose to side with corporate money over real solidarity.
The uncomfortable truth is this: influencers can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They can’t trade on the cultural cache of supporting Palestine when it suits them and then dismiss accountability as jealousy when they take money from boycotted corporations. Influence is power, and power comes with responsibility.
If that responsibility feels too heavy, maybe influencing isn’t the job for them. Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about a free trip to Electric Picnic. It’s about people in Gaza who don’t get to log off when the brand deal ends.
