We talk about the influencer economy as though influence is mainly about selling things.

Reach. Engagement. Brand partnerships. Conversion.

Someone wears a dress and it sells out. A creator recommends a beauty product on Instagram or Facebook and thousands of people add it to their shopping cart. 

We tend to accept, without much question, that someone with a large enough following can change our consumer behaviour.

So why do we suddenly treat that influence differently when it shifts from selling a handbag, a restaurant booking or a moisturiser to asking people to think about where their money is going and what it might be supporting?

That, to me, is where the influencer economy becomes much more interesting. Because mass influence is not really about selling. It is about having people’s attention. And attention can move money.

There is something quite powerful about a group of musical artists walking onto a stage in front of thousands of people who are already listening.

The fans bought the tickets. They know the songs. They have a long-founded emotional connection and are willing to give the artists several hours of their attention.

That is an extraordinary kind of influence.

In Australia alone, Massive Attack played three major arena shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in August 2026. Around 9,000 people attended the Brisbane show, while the Sydney and Melbourne concerts were sold out. That means tens of thousands of Australian fans were exposed directly to the band’s political and humanitarian messaging across just three nights.

At their shows, giant screens and live visuals were curated throughout the performance to draw attention to war, surveillance, inequality and political power. One of their best-known tracks, Safe From Harm was dedicated to the people of Palestine and a huge Palestinian flag appeared across the screens.

This political material wasn’t tucked away in an interview on YouTube – it was built into the live experience, with thousands of people already present and paying attention.

These Australian shows followed an incident at the group’s Singapore concert on 29 July 2026, where Massive Attack displayed a Palestinian flag and expressed support for Palestine. Two core members of the group were subsequently issued warnings and barred from re-entering Singapore. 

Whatever you think about Massive Attack’s position, there is something powerful – and I believe, admirable – about using that level of influence to draw attention to something they believe in and that people should not be simply ignoring.

The people attending those concerts did not necessarily buy tickets because they wanted to think about a humanitarian crisis, genodice and human suffering. They came because they loved Massive Attack’s music.

Some in the audience would already have been following what is happening in Gaza. Others may have known relatively little about the genocide.

Some may have kept their distance from the subject because it felt too political, too complicated or simply too far removed from their immediate lives.

But suddenly the disaster in Gaza is right in front of them. Not buried in an international-news section. Not dependent on an algorithm deciding to put a story into their feed. Not competing with hundreds of other reels as they scroll social media before breakfast, lunch, dinner or bedtime.

The fans are standing in an arena, watching one of their favourite musical groups, and the humanitarian issues in the wider world are occupying the enormous screens surrounding the stage.

Someone who had barely thought about the human catastrophe in Gaza or the suffering of humans in other countries, may go home from the arena and read more. They might start asking questions about what is happening and whether governments, corporations or brands they support are connected to the disasters in ways they had never considered.

And I’ve seen that happen.

Someone close to me had never particularly wanted to talk about Gaza and the suffering of Palestinian people. It wasn’t that they were hostile to the subject, but they actively avoided the topic. They simply weren’t engaged with what was happening and chose, like many people, to keep it at arm’s length. 

Then they saw Massive Attack.

Something about experiencing those images in that environment broke through in a way that news reports, social posts and conversations hadn’t.

Suddenly they were describing what they had seen. They were asking questions. They were reacting. They were empathising. They were affected by it.

Massive Attack didn’t tell that person exactly what to think. They made it much harder not to think about it. That new awareness may change nothing. Or it may change their perception completely.

And when a musical group can introduce those questions to tens of thousands of people in Australia over the course of three nights, influence starts to look very different from the version we usually talk about in marketing.

It is no longer simply about persuading somebody to buy something.

It is about having enough trust, cultural relevance and attention to encourage people to notice something they may otherwise never have stopped to consider.

That is influence.

The reality is that a lot of people are simply exhausted. They are working, paying more for everyday essentials, worrying about housing, juggling family responsibilities and trying to keep their own lives moving.

When your attention is already stretched thin, a humanitarian crisis on the other side of the world can feel distant, overwhelming or simply too much to take on.

So they put the blinkers on. Not necessarily because they don’t care, but because life immediately in front of them is demanding enough.

The problem is that the things happening somewhere else do not always stay somewhere else.

Wars affect energy markets, shipping routes, government spending, investment, supply chains and international trade. Political decisions can flow into our supermarket prices, wages and the companies operating in our Australian economy.

And the businesses we casually give money to every week or month, may be connected to decisions, investments or practices that conflict with our values.

That is where awareness changes things.

What interests me is not the traditional social media influencer model.

It is the idea that a group with a large, engaged audience can shift attention towards something people may not otherwise have thought about, particularly when that audience already trusts them, follows their work and is listening.

A person may have supported the same brand for years without thinking much beyond price, quality or convenience.

Then an artist, musician or public figure raises an issue, points to a company connection or draws attention to an injustice happening in our wider world.

The influencer has not necessarily persuaded them to take a particular position. They have simply made something visible that was previously outside the consumer’s immediate concern or frame of reference.

From there, the consumer decides what to do with that information.

They may look further. They may decide the concern is overstated. They may keep buying exactly as before. Or they may choose to support another business or brand instead.

That is where influence starts to affect consumer behaviour in a much deeper way. It can move people from passive purchasing to conscious questioning.

And once that happens at scale, boycotting, switching brands and redirecting spending can become part of the economic ripple effect.

If enough customers stop purchasing something, businesses eventually need to understand why.

Boycotts connected to the Gaza humanitarian disaster have affected multinational companies in a number of markets, illustrating how political and humanitarian concerns can move from online discussion into actual spending behaviour.

And when consumers leave one brand, their money doesn’t necessarily disappear. It often moves somewhere else. A multinational coffee chain loses a customer and an independent café gains one.

That is where influence can begin to have an economic effect. Because someone with a very large audience can alter what thousands, sometimes millions of people notice, investigate and ultimately choose.

Maybe we have defined influencers too narrowly. We tend to think of the influencer economy as creators with affiliate links, sponsored posts and brand deals.

But increasingly, some creators sit somewhere between entertainer, publisher, commentator and trusted friend.

People are not only consuming content and entertainment from people they follow. They are learning about the world through them. And sometimes an apparently non-political creator can be particularly influential precisely because the audience did not follow them for politics.

If somebody already feels familiar, they can get through a door that traditional political communication can’t.

There is another side to the influencer culture that I don’t think should be ignored.

Speaking out can be considered risky.

An influencer may have spent years building an audience around fashion, beauty, food, fitness or travel. They may genuinely think: I didn’t sign up to become a political commentator.

That’s fair.

They may also worry about getting something wrong. Politics and humanitarian crises are complicated. Social media is unforgiving. A badly phrased post can provoke enormous backlash, and creators can lose followers, brand partnerships and income.

So silence can be a business decision.

But it is still a decision.

The same question becomes interesting when we look at some of the biggest entertainers in the world.

Artists such as Taylor Swift and Harry Styles have extraordinary global audiences. Millions of people follow not only their music, but what they wear, where they go, what they recommend and increasingly what they believe.

Taylor Swift has shown in the past that she is willing to step into political conversations, endorsing candidates and encouraging people in the United States to vote. Harry Styles has generally kept Gaza outside the centre of his public platform, although in 2026 he briefly acknowledged a pro-Palestinian call from the audience during a concert.

Both have enormous cultural influence. The question is whether we will see more of that influence used publicly on issues their audiences increasingly care about.

Having millions of followers does not mean someone has to provide commentary on every crisis. But major public figures also have sophisticated PR and social media teams helping shape what they say – and what they don’t. At that level, staying silent can sometimes look less like neutrality and more like a strategic choice to avoid alienating any part of their global audience.

The contrast with a group such as Massive Attack is striking.

One has chosen to incorporate political and humanitarian issues directly into the cultural experience they create, knowing perfectly well that doing so can cost them access, opportunities and parts of their audience.

The others largely keep that cultural and political influence separate.

The point isn’t to decide which artist is morally superior. The more interesting question is what they choose to do with the influence they have.

When you have enormous cultural power, what do you choose to do with it?

I don’t think we need fashion or beauty influencers suddenly explaining international law because they think their followers want a reel or carousel by lunchtime. That could make the information environment considerably worse.

But there is a question I think is worth asking.

If somebody can influence 500,000 people to care about a new lipstick colour, what does it mean when they choose not to use that same platform to draw attention to something much more important to humanity? Particularly when an influencer has previously built their identity around sustainability, equality, feminism, human rights or social justice.

People notice which issues are safe enough to speak about and which ones suddenly become “too political”.

That doesn’t mean the audience is always fair. But the relationship between influencer and follower has changed.

It is no longer simply: Entertain me and recommend things.

For some people it has become: I give you my time and attention. What do you do with it and what do you give me back?

A social media following doesn’t make someone an expert.  Someone can have ten million followers and still have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Influencers can distribute false information just as effectively as they can challenge it.

The internet and social media have given people the ability to investigate ownership, lobbying, political donations, corporate relationships and conflicting accounts of events in ways previous generations simply could not. But it has also created an extraordinary machine for misinformation.

The useful shift is not from believing institutions to believing influencers. It is towards being less willing to be spoon-fed anybody’s version of events without asking questions.

Who is telling me this? Where did the information come from? Is there evidence? Who benefits if I believe it? Can I verify it somewhere else?

Influence should make people curious, not replace their judgement.

Most of us don’t have direct access to governments, multinational boards or powerful lobby groups. We cannot personally determine foreign policy. We cannot rewrite the rules around political donations or lobbying. And we cannot individually change what a multinational corporation does.

That can make people feel incredibly powerless.

But we do participate in the economy every day. We buy things. And every purchase ultimately sends money somewhere.

For people looking at governments, corporations and geopolitical interests that feel impossibly powerful, our purchasing decisions can feel tiny by comparison.

Individually, they are. Collectively, they can become something very different.

That is what connects influence, awareness and boycotting.

Someone first needs to know there is something to question. Then they need enough information to decide whether it matters to them. Then they decide what to do.

An artist with a captive audience can start that chain. So can a creator with two million followers. And so can a conversation between two friends after a concert.

That doesn’t necessarily mean we need to conduct a 10-day investigation before buying a packet of biscuits.  But when something matters enough, choosing not to buy becomes one of the most immediate forms of power a consumer has. This is what connects influence, awareness and boycotting.

Perhaps what we’ve been calling the influencer economy is really the attention economy.

The thing brands have always been paying for was never the Instagram, Facebook or TikTok account itself. It was the attention sitting behind it. For years, marketers have understood how valuable that attention is, and they have paid extraordinary amounts of money to access it.

We measure it, target it, segment it, retarget it and build entire campaigns around it.

But consumers are not simply audiences waiting to be sold something. They are participants in an economy, and where they direct their attention can eventually influence where they direct their money.

Sometimes influence simply plants the first question.

Someone notices something they had previously ignored. They read a little more. They hear another perspective. They start questioning something they had accepted without thinking too deeply about it. Then, months or even years later, their understanding may look completely different.

That long haul matters.

We often expect people to understand an issue quickly, take a position and act. But most meaningful shifts in thinking don’t happen like that. They happen gradually, through exposure, conversations, curiosity, discomfort and the willingness to keep looking.

That is why simply getting somebody to pay attention can be powerful.

An artist may not change somebody’s mind in one concert. An influencer may not change somebody’s purchasing behaviour with one post. A conversation between friends may not lead anywhere straight away.

But each can become part of a much longer process of understanding. And eventually, understanding can change behaviour.

If you have the power to make thousands or millions of people look in a particular direction, that is much more than marketing.

It is cultural power.

And when cultural power starts changing where people put their money, it becomes economic power too.