Wait…’Influencer Voice’ Is a Thing? Here’s What You Need to Know

Published: February 6, 2025

Wait…’Influencer Voice’ Is a Thing? Here’s What You Need to Know

By Movieguide® Contributor

Spend just a few minutes on TikTok or Instagram Reels, and you will quickly realize that you’re hearing the same voice again and again.

That would be “Influencer Voice,” which Relevant Magazine calls “a vocal phenomenon so widespread that even you have probably slipped into it without realizing.”

Laura Purcell Verdun, a speech therapist and communication coach, said in an interview with NPR that she has had “dozens of clients come to her because they want to get rid of these speech traits.”

This influencer voice is most common among women and consists of “vocal fry” and “uptalk.”

“Broadly, this upspeak with talking does have a tendency to suggest hesitancy, questioning, less-than-assured tones, youthfulness,” she said of the way influencers speak.

“The vocal fry is noisy,” Purcell Verdun explained. “So if they’re in noisy environments, whether it’s a restaurant or a boardroom, you need to be able to speak up. You need to have a strong, clear voice.”

Adam Aleksic, known as “The Etymology Nerd” on TikTok, said this vocal trend finds its origins in the Valley Girl accent.

“It’s sort of a prestige dialect on the internet that also helps with platform retention,” Aleksic explained. “When viewers are listening, they want to keep listening to people when they have [an] uptick in their voice.”

Social media makes things feel like a “performance” for influencers, and thus they take on a new persona.

“Nobody actually talks like that,” a creator explained, per Fast Company. “It’s a form of code-switching that influencers learn on this app because it keeps people watching their videos.”

Rishika Vinnakota, a TikTok influencer, said, “When people meet me for the first time and they’ve only ever heard or seen me on the internet, it’s a really big culture shock to them. They’re like, ‘Oh, you look exactly like how you do online, but the voice isn’t exactly matching up.”

Vinnakota uses a “more professional” voice in her videos so that she can bring in “future brand deals.”

But how does one person get rid of their influencer voice?

Simple: just talk like you would in a normal conversation, Relevant Magazine suggested.