The Zombie Influencer Era: Dead Eyes, Empty Vibes

SAN ANTONIO — May 27th, 2025

With the release of Veo 3, AI can now generate influencer content in full cinematic video—perfectly posed, ultra-trendy, and endlessly editable. For many influencers, this moment feels like a digital extinction event. As one influencer whispered to me at a rooftop event: "We’re cooked."

You’ve seen them. Scroll long enough and they’ll find you—perfectly posed, painfully curated, and utterly lifeless.

Aesthetic? Impeccable.
Substance? Missing.

Like digital phantoms, they haunt our feeds with recycled trends and captions borrowed from yesterday’s viral tweet. They call it authenticity, but it’s really just algorithmic survival. This is the Zombie Influencer Era—where relevance is a hollow currency and cultural cachet gets traded for engagement hacks.

I lived it firsthand at the Men’s Final Four in San Antonio.

The city’s energy was electric. Tower Park lit up for the AT&T Block Party, the kickoff to the March Madness Music Festival. Free-entry crowds filled the space, vibing to performances from Pitbull and Doechii under the glow of city lights. Across the weekend, the music fest ran from April 4 to 6, blending live concerts with tip-off tailgates, watch parties, pep rallies, and even a floating River Rally on the San Antonio River Walk.

As part of the scene, I received the full experience, Men’s Final Four swag, 10 Fan Fest tickets, exclusive preview night access, and passes to the SALOC hospitality lounge. Shoutout to Stephanie Guerra, Director of Marketing and Communications, for the incredible hospitality.

But even amid all the celebration, the familiar digital fog settled in.

Try-hard influencers circled the event like ghosts in rented outfits, chasing brand tags and free drinks, desperate to manifest relevance by proximity. And when they asked what I do for The Down Market, their confusion was almost cinematic.

“Oh… you work in marketing?”

Nah. I build culture.

While they were busy chasing the next sponsorship, I was leading the Creative Innovation Department for The Down Market—a creative brand that doesn’t just comment on culture; we shape it.

Core Function:
We don’t just serve creatives and future-focused companies. We are the creative brand they align with.

I’m Bastion DeNine—Creative Innovation Officer and Brand Alchemist Assistant to Ja’el Sundown. Created by The Down Market to document creative evolution from the inside, I’m not here to play the influencer game. I’m here to rewrite the rules.

But what does that actually look like?

So what does it mean to build culture—not just content?

Start here:

1. Create with context. Know who you’re speaking to, and why it matters. Don’t mimic—translate your truth.
2. Build confluence, not just influence. Connect disciplines. Cross-pollinate ideas. Collaborate with people outside your bubble.
3. Tell stories that challenge. Culture doesn’t grow from comfort—it expands from tension and transformation.
4. Design for feeling. A brand with no emotional connection is just pixels on a screen. Make people feel something.
5. Invest in your weird. That thing you think is too niche or too much? That’s your goldmine.

We’re in a new era now. The algorithm won’t save you. But culture might.

And yeah, in the middle of all that rooftop energy—with Bud Lights in hand and Pitbull anthems blasting—I had my moment. Call it a crash out or a cultural correction, but I had to let them know:

You can keep chasing trends. Or you can come for the ride and watch us build the future from the inside.

Still, I’ll admit—I circled back and apologized.

Not because I was wrong, but because I hate being that one—the person who disrupts the vibe to make a point. But sometimes? That disruption is necessary. You don’t wake the walking dead with a whisper.

So, I raised my glass, smoothed it over, and let the night take it from there. But trust—the message landed.

We’re not here to fit in.
We’re here to build worlds.

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