The Meaning of Consent in the Age of Content

When I was invited to a wellness festival last month, and dragged my boyfriend along as my plus-one, it wasn’t the creatine water that made him feel unsettled. It was becoming someone else’s content without consent. Emerging fresh from the shower in the men’s changing rooms, he was met by a fitness influencer wielding a mini microphone, iPhone camera already rolling, asking him to share six steps from his “wellness routine”. The influencer had amassed 50,000 followers, but not by respecting the boundaries of personal space — let alone the legal consequences of non-consensual filming inside a changing room.

In 2026, this story isn’t that surprising. Content creators are being pushed to go viral and create ‘authentic’ moments at every opportunity — whether that’s a trip to the gym, a browse in a luxury boutique, or even a walk down the street. This means anyone who crosses the path of a content creator may find themselves in the background of a video, if not the subject of one.

For years, the creator economy has relied on an implicit social contract: that the rest of us would tolerate being caught in the background of content. But more than 15 years into its existence, as consumers tire of social media saturation and grow more privacy-aware, that contract is beginning to fray. The problem is now that unpaid extras are beginning to strike.

It’s a tension that’s always existed, but it’s reached boiling point in recent weeks. When an Instagram post by Nantucket gift shop, Four Winds Craft Guild, featuring a new, in-store “No Influencers” sign went viral, it became an unlikely cultural flashpoint for the growing online privacy debate. The store’s owner, John Sylvia, didn’t create the sign for it to go viral. Instead, he had a bone to pick with visitors who’d enter the store and immediately start filming it, without interacting with his staff or products. “A lot of people are tired of feeling like extras in someone else’s video,” he told New York Magazine’s The Cut. The Instagram post’s comments section immediately blew up, and the store’s own account gained 11,000 followers in a single week. Some argued creators had become disruptive to local businesses and public spaces, while influencers with millions of followers like Paige Lorenze said the sign unfairly caricatured an industry that’s become a legitimate profession.

Four Winds Craft Guild, a gift shop in Nantucket, went viral last week when it posted this “No Influencers” sign to its Instagram page. Photo: Jessica Jenkins Photography, courtesy of Four Winds Craft Guild.

“The sight of an influencer filming in public no longer reads as one person making content. Increasingly, it reads as the visible frontend of a much larger surveillance system,” says Dr. Sarah Saska, a sociotechnologist and specialist in tech’s relationship with culture and power.

Despite being forecast to reach $480 billion in value next year, the global creator economy has no mandated governing body or governing standards, though some industry groups like the UK’s IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) and the international Creator Economy Council have begun offering formal qualifications in an attempt to professionalize content creation. Insiders say the recent public backlash is placing a new urgency on the industry, which is being forced to seriously confront new questions about consent, etiquette, and accountability. At the same time, experts say brands have a responsibility to reconsider everything from creator briefs to the design of stores increasingly built to be filmed when they tap influencers to represent them online.

Not all creator content, of course, calls consent into question. But the more influencers treat stores, events, and public spaces as mere backdrops for their videos, the more hollow the content feels.

“It all spotlights a core industry truth. Drive-by content without real brand love doesn’t move the needle,” says Thomas Walters, co-founder of US-based influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy. “Consumers — like business owners — are tired of creators treating public spaces like private backdrops without sharing a genuine passion or offering real value.”

It’s a transition that fashion influencer and model Antonia Freya Lydia Thierfeld, who has 570,000 Instagram followers and 160,000 on TikTok, says she learned the hard way. When a TikTok video she posted from a busy London underground platform went viral with the caption, “Like can you wait just one sec, sir?”, as her shot was intercepted by a male passer-by, Thierfeld attracted criticism for not accommodating others and capturing strangers. “At the time, it was intended as a humorous POV on the reality of being a creator trying to capture content in a busy public place, not as criticism of the people walking through the shot,” Thierfeld says. “Looking back, I realize that the humor didn’t translate in the way I intended. Since then, I’ve become much more conscious of how content can be perceived, and I’m much more intentional about where and when I film.”

Thierfeld says that the conversation has evolved since 2022, when she posted the video and when “filming in public felt more casual”. Today, she’ll often scope out a location and return another time if it feels too busy to film appropriately. “I still love creating content in public, because it’s often the most authentic setting, but I’m much more conscious of other people’s privacy and try to avoid capturing anyone unnecessarily, especially when they’re clearly visible or identifiable,” she adds. These guidelines are self-imposed, where no wider industry regulations exist — Thierfeld believes the onus falls on creators to “use common sense” and respect those around them, adding that no brand she’s worked with has ever given her specific guidance about filming in public or retail environments.

Industry experts, however, say that brands are beginning to take more notice of the online conversation, in what Cora Delaney, founder of creator and creative agency EYC, describes as a “gradual evolution” rather than a “dramatic shift” toward codifying creator briefs.

“Most brands aren’t saying, ‘Don’t film in public,’ but they are asking more questions about how content gets made,” Delaney says. “Reputation risk has become part of campaign planning alongside brand safety, and luxury and premium brands in particular are increasingly aware that a viral backlash over production behavior can overshadow the campaign itself. The new expectation is that creators can produce authentic content without disrupting the environments they’re in or making other people feel like unwilling participants.”

Delaney is seeing more brands submit creator briefs that include guidance around filming respectfully, obtaining permissions where appropriate, avoiding unnecessary capture of bystanders, and complying with retailer or venue policies. “It’s less about legal liability and more about professionalism. The best brands are treating creators more like production partners, with clearer expectations around conduct, rather than assuming everyone already knows what’s appropriate.”

Thierfeld says she finds brands often communicate their expectations more clearly when they invite her into their own spaces. “That protects both creators and customers and avoids awkward situations. Clear communication makes the experience better for everyone involved,” she says.

But even within luxury, there is little consensus. Some brands openly invite creators to document their shopping experiences, while others, like Hermès, have attracted entire online community discussions on sites like Reddit (r/TheHermesGame) and PurseForum dedicated to working out how to covertly capture content of Birkin shopping videos in stores where those customers say it’s often discouraged.

A window display at a Hermès boutique on New Bond Street in London. Hermès has become the center of a thriving content creator subgenre of covertly filmed “Birkin journey” shopping appointments within its luxury stores. Photo: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Among brands that actively partner with content creators to showcase their products, Delaney has noticed a subtle shift toward commissioning more private production styles.

“We’re seeing more emphasis on controlled authenticity, rather than chaotic authenticity,” she says. “Brands still want content that feels real and spontaneous, but they’re increasingly commissioning content in private venues, after-hours retail environments, creator homes, hotels, or controlled lifestyle settings where the experience feels genuine without creating unnecessary friction.”

For luxury brands, the challenge around privacy and consent runs even deeper. Veteran retail anthropologist and founder of industry consulting firm Envirosell, Paco Underhill, says merchants have to balance visitor “quality” (or likelihood of conversion) with volume, designing stores that encourage social sharing without compromising exclusivity or the privacy expected by top-spending clients. If you design a super-shareable in-store experience, it may attract hundreds of 25-year-olds with an interest in luxury brands and high digital literacy, who will capture in-store content and post it online — but not buy. If you have one 60-year-old VIC, however, with low digital literacy that has no interest in capturing digital content, values privacy while doing so, and has just come to shop, you need them to feel safe.

Legal experts say brands are increasingly seeking counsel on how to control unsolicited in-store content creation. Where the flourishing genre of covert “Birkin journey” videos circulating on Instagram and TikTok, for example, document sales associate interactions, back-of-house moments, the appointment process, and the coveted offer of a Birkin or a Kelly, it’s as much a privacy risk for Hermes’s IP and its employees as it is for other customers who may be captured in-frame.