How Social Media Influencers Impact Consumer Collectives: An Embeddedness Perspective.

The article focuses on the impact of embedded entrepreneurship, specifically social media influencers (SMIs), within consumer collectives, using a longitudinal qualitative study of the YouTube beauty community. It applies interactionist role theory to show how SMIs' shift from trusted community members to commercial actors disrupts established social roles—such as Guru–Learner and Friend–Friend—creating dysfunctional role dynamics like role conflict and role captivity for non-entrepreneurial members. This disembedding prompts a countermovement where both SMIs and followers negotiate new role expectations to re-embed economic activity, though platform affordances like comment moderation enable SMIs to suppress critical voices, leading some community members to disengage or form oppositional anti-fan communities. The study highlights the evolving nature of consumer collectives under embedded entrepreneurship, the role of social media platforms in shaping power dynamics, and the broader social implications for collective participation and identity.