Since 2020, the Creator of Remi Bader had accumulated millions of followers in Tiktok offering her opinions on the cuts of popular clothing brands as a large woman.
In 2023, however, Bader seemed remarkably thinner. When some fans asked him if he had undergone a procedure, she blocked them. Later that year, he announced that he would no longer publish on his body.
Enter the Sarcasm Subnets. In Reddit, these forums exist with the sole purpose of getting the attention of Internet celebrities, whether they dedicate themselves to criticizing the night crossings of Alix Earle or venting with Savannah and Cole Labrant, a family couple of Vlogs who foolishly hinted that his daughter had cancer.
While the Internet is synonymous with fans culture, sarcastic subjects are not for enthusiasts. Instead, snarkers are anti-faons that perfect the art of hate.
After Bader refused to talk about his weight loss, the Sarcastic Subnet of Remi Bader exploded. Users did not bother Bader had lost weight or stopped publishing on the size of their body. Instead, they believed that Bader, the influencer, who had built his brand about the inclusion of large fashion sizes, was not being honest with his fans and needed them to take it into account.
It worked. During an appearance in March 2025 in the Khloé Kardashian podcast, Bader finally revealed that, in fact, he had undergone surgery to lose weight.
Some critics see Snarkers as a big problem and, understandably, denounce their tendency to harassment, body shame and the attempt to cancel influencers.
But completely discarding sarcasm overlooks the fact that it can serve a purpose. In our work as social media researchers, we have written about how sarcasm can be considered as a way of denouncing bad actors in the world of influence, the creation of content, which is not largely regulated.
Base police
Before there were influencers, there were bloggers. While bloggers covered songs that went from entertainment to politics and travel, parenting and fashion bloggers probably have the closest connection with today’s influencers.
After Google introduced Adsense in 2003, bloggers could easily publish advertising on their websites. Then the brands saw a chance. The fashionable bloggers and raising of the children had many loyal followers. Many readers felt an intimate connection with their favorite bloggers, who seemed more friends than spokesmen for outdated celebrities.
The brands realized that they could send their products to the bloggers in exchange for an article or an article. In addition, advertisers understood that fashion and raising bloggers did not have to adhere to the same regulations as an industry or the code of ethics as most media, such as the dissemination of payments or conflicts of interest.
This changed the dynamics between bloggers and their fans, who wondered if you could trust bloggers if sometimes they were paid for promoting certain products.
In response, in 2009 websites emerged to criticize bloggers. “Get off my internet,” for example, was presented as a “quality control dog” to provide constructive criticism and denounce misleading practices. As Instagram and YouTube became more popular, the Subnet “R/Blogsnark” was launched in 2015 to criticize the first influencers, in addition to bloggers.
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Few railings in its place
Today, the influencers industry has an assessment of more than 250 billion dollars only in the US, and is on the way to assert more than 500 billion by 2027.
However, there are few regulations for influencers. Some laws have arisen to protect Children Influencers, and the Federal Commerce of Commerce of the US has established legal guidelines for sponsored content.
That said, the influence industry is still full of exploitation.
It goes both ways: corporations can exploit influencers. For example, a 2021 study discovered that black influencers receive offers below the market compared to white influencers.
Also, influencers can deceive or exploit their followers. They can use unrealistic body filters to look thinner than they are. They could hide who pays them. They can promote erroneous information about health, such as the controversial Cleaning Paraguard, a false treatment driven by influential people in the well -being that claimed to free its parasites users.
Or, in the case of Remi Bader, they could win a large number of followers by promoting body positivity, just to hide a weight loss procedure for their fans.
For disappointed fans or followers who feel burned, sarcasm may seem the only regulatory barrier in an industry that has largely passed without control. Think about sarcasm as a Better Business Bureau for the indomitable world of influence, a form of responsibility that attracts attention to scammers and scammers.
Keeping it real
Today’s sarcasm exists at the intersection of gossip and cancellation culture.
Although the culture of cancellation certainly has its failures, we address the culture of cancellation in our writings as a valuable tool that allows audiences to hold the powerful. For example, color communities have joined strength to denounce the racists, as they did in 2024 when they presented the antinegros tweets of Brooke Schofield lifestyle.
Influencers generate trust with their audiences based on being “real” and close. But there is nothing that prevents them from breaking that trust, and Snarkers can pounce to point out bad behavior or hypocrisy.
Within the competitive world of family vlogging, snarkers see themselves like doing more than remove the pot. They are narrators of the truth that they bring to light injustices, such as abuse and labor exploitation. Part of this exhibition is paying off, with more and more states introducing and approving laws of family vloggers that require children to one day a part of their parents ‘profits or restrict the frequency with which children can appear in their parents’ videos.
Yes, sarcasm can become cyberbullying. But that should not rule out its value as a transparency tool. The influencers are ultimately brands. They sell to the public ideas, lifestyles and products.
When people feel they have been deceived, we believe they have every right to denounce it.
*Jessica Maddox She is an attached professor of journalism and creative media at the University of Alabama, while Jess Rauchberg is an attached professor of communication technologies, University Seton Hall.
This text was originally published in The Conversation/Reuters.
