The Met Gala Breaks Up with Creators, Major Award Show Adds an Influencer Category + the U.K. Births A New Pop Girl
While some doors close for creators, others open. But to which creators remains the question. Let's discuss, coconuts ⬇️ 🥥
In today’s Friday Trend Report (the FTR), we will be discussing:
Why the Met Gala snubbed creators this year
One major award show adds an influencer category
The new pop girl from the U.K. you need to be watching
Why these topics matter:
Met Gala Snubbing Creators: Creators being invited to big ticket events is such a polarizing topic online. So let’s peel back the layers of who gets invited and why.
One major award show adds a pivotal influencer category: While yes, creators are sometimes iced out of events like the Met Gala — we do get recognition elsewhere. And with creators having no mile markers or industry standard to measure success, is this award show moving the needle towards a measurement of prestige?
The U.K. rising pop girl: If you want to feel like you are a free bird this summer, sitting somewhere tropical while texting your crush — this girl’s music is for you. It perfectly captures the essence of sitting on a beach, knowing you have a fun night ahead of you.
You’ll get the first part of this Friday Trend Report free—just enough to spark your curiosity. But if you love pop culture and marketing (the way we do), the full experience is available to you as a paying coconut.
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The Met Gala has long been the pinnacle of fashion's high society, but in recent years, it opened its gilded doors to a new class of attendees: influencers. Digital stars like Liza Koshy and Lilly Singh have graced the event, with Singh notably attending in 2019. However, not all influencers have made it past the iconic steps; some, like certain TikTok personalities, have only experienced the red carpet without an official invitation inside. This distinction underscores the evolving dynamics between traditional celebrity culture and the burgeoning influence of digital creators.
The first generation of influencers to grace the Met Gala stairs was from YouTube (it is notable that most influencers don’t actually make it inside — some are just invited to walk the carpet). But the reason influencers even got access to the carpet to start with? A man named Derek Blasberg.
Who is Derek Blasberg and how did he get YouTubers invited to the Met Gala?
Blasberg is a mysterious man who pulls strings behind the scenes but what we do know about him for sure is that he was appointed YouTube’s Head of Fashion & Beauty from 2018 to 2022. Elle followed him for a day and wrote a great piece about how went from being fired from Vogue to becoming one of the most well-connected men in NYC to the top models and celebrities of the world.
You can read the Elle article here.
The stars aligned when Blasberg discovered a fresh faced Emma Chamberlain on YouTube shortly after starting at the platform. She appeared on his YouTube channel in September of 2019:
It was Blasberg’s job to elevate the platform and take YouTube from a DIY/anyone can do it platform to a prestigious, high brow juggernaut. Emma Chamberlain was their golden ticket.
Before Chamberlain, they tried this method by putting creators like Liza Koshy and Lily Singh on the steps of the Met Gala. And while they did great and accomplished a lot, I think the disconnect here is that they were not creators who ever talked about fashion and the Met Gala is a fashion event. It would have made more sense for comedy creators to be at a comedy roast.
But YouTube struck gold with Chamberlain. The writing was on the wall that she was being positioned by the likes of Blasberg to walk the Met Gala carpet when she was the first YouTuber to appear on the cover of Cosmopolitan in 2020 and then became the first YouTuber to be a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton the same year. LV would be the first fashion house to dress her at her first Met Gala the following year.
Blasberg seemed to find his trojan horse for legitimizing YouTube in the often gatekept and traditional space of fashion with Emma Chamberlain.
While YouTube had tried to move the needle with creators like James Charles walking the Met red carpet, it made the most sense that a fashion-first and beloved creator like Chamberlain would be the one to do it and get invited back for 4-years now.
So what the story of Blasberg tells us is that when you are looking at big events to see who from what platform might get invited, you have to read between the lines.
In 2024, TikTok replaced YouTube as the official event platform sponsor. And that is why huge fashion creators like Wisdom Kaye were invited to the Met Gala to represent TikTok. Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, even attended.
Even Emma Chamberlain, who had publicly declared her outward disdain for the TikTok app, made an account a few weeks before the Met Gala to post her interviews to. Once the 2024 Met Gala ended, she stopped posting to the account entirely. It was clear this was a play to get back on the carpet as a host now that TikTok was the platform hosting it. But dare I say I can name a dozen TikTok creators who made the platform what it is that I believe should have been invited over Chamberlain, at least while TikTok was the official partner.
While she didn’t walk the official carpet, one creator who was invited to a TikTok-sponsored Met Gala party nearby was Haylee Baylee. She went viral for posting a video where she said, “Let them eat cake”.
Needless to say, this didn’t go over well. In fact, her controversial video practically overshadowed the entire Met Gala event, putting a target on the back of every other celebrity who attended as out of touch and maybe even malicious, according to angered audiences. The video above posted by Erin Hattamer perfectly explains the reason for the public anger against Baylee.
In 2025, TikTok was no longer the partner sponsor of the Met Gala.
I am sure there are a litany of reasons from Anna Wintour probably being pissed about the “let them eat cake” controversy to TikTok trying to stay afloat in the U.S. after the umpteenth attempt to ban it by the second presidential administration.
I think them not inviting Wisdom Kaye was a grave oversight, especially for the black dandy & tailoring theme — but ultimately, it was most likely because of he is a TikTok creator and TikTok was no longer the sponsor. In fact, it seemed in 2025 the Met Gala almost entirely moved itself away from influencers, in general. The only noteable influencer was red carpet host regular: Chamberlain.
Sometimes things aren’t personal in the influencer space and instead about the stars aligning for you and the platform you are using. Kind of like when Blasberg and Chamberlain crossed paths and put YouTube fashion on the map.
I talked more about how exactly one gets an invite to the Met Gala in the recent episode of “Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe”, which you can listen to here:
The Brilliant Branding of the Met Gala: The Power of Secrecy
The 2025 Met Gala is more than fashion’s biggest night—it’s a blueprint for branding through exclusivity, mystique, and cultural impact. In this episode of Ahead of the Curve, I unpack what makes the Met Gala such a powerful case study in marketing—and why this year’s theme is one of the most important in recent history.
You’re just getting to the good part. Become a paying member for $9-a-month to unlock the rest of this article—and get full access to the last two Friday Trend Reports:
The award show opening up the long gatekept gates to a new influencer category
The brit pop star about to break mainstream