Under the influence of influencers

The backlash against influencers posting from Dubai penthouses or Gulf beaches during the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran is predictable. But it takes potshots at the wrong targets. Critics have been accusing them of frivolity, of flaunting luxury while danger and destruction loom. Yet, this outrage misunderstands the cultural role influencers play, especially in a time of crisis. Influencers are neither politicians nor policymakers. They are curators of escape. Their feeds are not meant to resolve geopolitics, but to remind us that life, even under shadow, still contains beauty, aspiration and joy. To condemn them for showing sunsets over the Gulf is to deny the human need for reprieve. Escapism is not betrayal, but survival.

For an older generation, solace comes from counsellors, priests or even writers - figures who offered havens of meaning when the world seemed unbearable. Today, influencers perform a similar function. Their curated lifestyles, travel reels and fashion posts are not trivialities but digital sanctuaries. They provide a counterweight to the relentless churn of war headlines, offering a reminder that joy persists even in precarious times. Critics themselves consume the very content they deride. Doomscrolling breeds despair. Yet, the influencer's glossy detachment provides a pause, a breath. This is not denial but a form of therapeutic care. In their shimmering irrelevance, influencers become secular priests of aesthetics, offering not absolution but distraction. And distraction, at a time of ceaseless conflict, is a form of hope.

To demand silence from influencers is to demand a monochrome world where every voice echoes only tragedy. Humanity resists such flattening. We need both the chronicler of war and curator of happiness. Influencers, in their reeling detachment, perform a vital cultural service: they remind us that even amid utter chaos, the appetite for pleasure and hope, even the most banal kinds, endures. And hope, however frivolously packaged, is never wasted.