A new sector of social media stars are sweeping Gen Z off its feet — and redefining the term “influencer” in the process. “It girls” like Alix Earle and Madeline Argy have skyrocketed to fame so quickly that their content seems to have an addictive ingredient baked into it.
Earle and Argy are primarily influencers, but they have successfully transcended TikTok and other social media apps. Both are becoming increasingly immersed in fashion and podcasting.
This stems in part from their recent affiliation with Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper. The two women signed to Cooper’s Unwell Network in August 2023 as content creators for multi-media projects. Following in Cooper’s footsteps, Argy and Earle then formed their own podcasts with Gen Z as the target audience.
Alex Cooper and Call Her Daddy
Cooper herself is a trailblazer — a mastermind of mass appeal and a masterclass in empire-building. Already the #1 female podcaster in the world, she works ceaselessly to elevate her career. Her Unwell platform is booming as new tours, merch, and pop-up bars further enhance the brand.
Cooper once dealt almost exclusively in sex and scandal — her podcast revolved around what she termed “female locker-room talk.” But after a $60 million Spotify deal and a split from her former co-host Sofia Franklyn, Cooper opted to pursue a new angle as a solo host.
Since then, she has conducted interviews with several celebrities, including Miley Cyrus and Gwyneth Paltrow. She has also shifted the tone of her podcast to a more emotionally complex dialogue about life and love.
Cooper is widely regarded as an empowering icon of female sexuality and wisdom. And now, she is carving a unique cultural niche for like-minded women to occupy. Earle and Argy are two such women who have planted the roots of their careers in relatability.
Alix Earle’s Ascent
Earle’s TikTok blew up in late 2022, and she currently boasts 6.5 million followers on the social media app. Her most successful videos chronicle her wardrobe choices in the classic “Get Ready with Me” (GRWM) style.
Earle’s GRWMs cover a vast spectrum of looks, from light, natural makeup to glamorous red-carpet ensembles. In every video, she chats while she beautifies herself, creating a conversational cadence that heightens viewers’ engagement as they internalize both her routine and the details of her personal life.
Faithful to her influencer name, Earle is an established trendsetter who recommends clothing, makeup, and skincare products. For instance, she is credited with inspiring the widespread use of NYX white eyeliner. Earle also partners with popular brands such as White Fox Boutique, Revolve, Too Faced, Fashion Nova, and Pretty Little Thing.
Most notably, she has shared details of her transformative journey with Accutane, infusing her videos with a personal quality.
Acne induces tremendous insecurity for the average teenager, but Earle is willing to showcase her skin at its worst, placing herself in a position of vulnerability to remind viewers that it can and will get better.
This effort resonated deeply amongst commenters. @cargracelol declared, “I love you for this transparency,” and @liv.woolf added, “You literally just made me feel so much better ab[out] my acne.”
Earle’s unwavering confidence incites a ripple effect of self-acceptance, bolstering her younger fans to embrace themselves as they are.
The Versatility of the Influencer
In spite of its TikTok origins, Earle’s career is undeniably multidimensional. Over the past year, she has attended many prominent functions, including the New York and Paris Fashion Weeks, the People’s Choice Awards, and the Grammys. Additionally, Earle gifted a business scholarship to her alma mater, the University of Miami, last June.
She was even a guest lecturer at UMiami’s Herbert Business School, where she previously took a media analytics class that laid the groundwork for her own creation model. Earle is not only paving the way for influencers but also providing guided instruction to help them better reach their audiences.
Earle Stays True to Her Social Media Roots
Although Earle’s venues have evolved significantly from her early days at UMiami tailgates, her social media content remains largely unchanged.
Extravagant weekends in Aspen are bookended by fashion mishaps and makeup-less morning hangovers. Gilded, glossy GRWMs fulfill the aesthetic tastes of her viewers, while later videos unveil the vomit-stained aftermath lurking in the deepest crevices of her closet.
And Earle is wholly unashamed of this duality. In fact, it forms the very foundation of her brand. She is, at heart, a “Hot Mess,” as her podcast name proclaims in bold-faced text.
Up Close and Personal With Hot Mess
Hot Mess is Earle’s latest venture. In September 2023, the podcast momentarily dethroned The Joe Rogen Experience as the top Spotify podcast, and Earle continues to attract listeners in droves.
In her most notable episodes, Earle unpacks emotionally vulnerable topics such as eating disorders, exclusionary sorority culture, and familial conflicts. She has recently begun experimenting with a vlog-like filming style in which vibrant video clips enhance the existing audio.
Alix Earle is simultaneously relatable and aspirational. She embodies the social media ideal, yet she wears a distinctly human face while doing it, expressing resonant feelings and experiences via her various platforms.
The Magnetic Social Media of Madeline Argy
Madeline Argy is another figure who has mastered the art of projecting normalcy. Aside from her on-again, off-again relationship with British rapper Central Cee, Argy possesses little inherent claim to fame, but she is a dominant social media presence in her own right.
Her TikToks trend toward fast-paced discourse, springing from topic to topic in a mind-bending carousel of chaos. The subject matter typically involves mental health struggles, embarrassing encounters, conspiracy theories, and other random insights.
One video details her morbid fascination with the Madeleine McCann case; another overshares the particulars of a rapidly deteriorating foot injury after she accidentally jumped onto the point of a high heel.
The common denominator across her content? Argy’s commonality itself. At times, she is unhygienic and unmotivated; she can also be neurotic and energetic. And through it all, she is wholly uncensored and unapologetic.
Pretty Lonesome: Moving Forward, But Not Away
Like Earle, Argy has long since graduated from social media fame to mainstream culture. An attendee of Burberry and Prada fashion shows and a Kosas partner, she is making a name for herself outside of the microcosmic TikTok sphere. And Argy, too, is filming her own podcast for the Unwell Network (entitled Pretty Lonesome).
Argy is perhaps most similar to Earle in that she retains her original influencer persona. She is an introspective introvert built upon intimacy, a magician capable of animating the mundane.
Even in the context of her new podcast, Argy consistently appears bare-faced or with minimal makeup, filming from her car or her flat in casual attire. She aims to destigmatize “being alone, together” — a validation of quieter spirits seeking comfort and community.
Influencer “It Girls” Are Our Girls
Both Earle and Argy are witty yet hopelessly self-aware. Armed with blunt honesty, they dive headfirst into their regrets and reflections. Listening to them feels more interactive than didactic. They are simultaneously friends confiding in you and sisters advising you, and they acknowledge that they often feel just as lost as you do.
Commenters “relate so much” to Earle’s skincare struggles. They “think regularly” about Argy’s conspiracies. Week after week listeners keep tuning in for more.
The resulting sentiment of collective character development is powerful and perfectly captures the influencer’s magic. They invite you into the inner recesses of their psyches and their personal lives from the comfort of their wealthy lifestyles, which seem to be a mere screen away.
This breeds simulated proximity to and a corresponding possibility of becoming rich, famous, and successful. Why can’t we do it, too? What if we turned our heartbreak into humor and our fashion sense into a fanbase?
Earle and Argy package influencer dreams in palatability, right down to their podcasts. After all, the names Hot Mess and Pretty Lonesome read as somewhat paradoxical, implying a coexistence and perhaps even a symbiosis between beauty and disorder.
The two women are normalizing imperfect femininity — and we are able to live the “pretty lonesome” “hot mess” vicariously through their podcasts.
What’s Next For TikTok?
The growth of Alix Earle and Madeline Argy denotes a transitional era for TikTok. No longer a Musical.ly parody, the social media app is assuming an identity of its own. It now offers longer, more engaging videos that capture the personality of a given influencer.
Earle and Argy have each cultivated a signature lifestyle brand rather than subsisting on a trend-by-trend basis — and viewers are clearly responding.
