Published September 4, 2025 03:45AM
The Rise of the Anti-Influencer: How Outdoor Athletes Are Breaking the Algorithm
A new breed of online athlete is breaking the rules of creator culture—and proving that authenticity wins the long game
(Photo: Jean-Michel Tixier)
Delilah Cupp () grew up watching the MTV show Jackass, and in college, she started posting videos on YouTube and Instagram of her athletic shenanigans with her friends, which included shotgunning beers mid-run at a downhill mountain bike race and spinning 360s in a bikini on skis. Her following took off in 2021, when she and two girlfriends made a film called “Girls Gotta Eat Dirt,” in which they wore jorts by performance denim maker , tore around on their bikes like banshees, and poured handfuls of loam into their mouths. She became known for her lighthearted and irreverent online presence (“20 photos that i took of myself in 2024 that u never asked for never wanted & yet here they are,” she captioned a recent photo dump, “better luck next year!”) and for her Instagram videos, in which she rode and skied with a slashy style that felt inspiring yet almost accessible. Despite suffering knee injuries three years in a row, her following kept growing. Today she’s sponsored by brands including K2 skis, Arc’teryx, and Fat Tire. Even in the three years she posted more kneehab than ski content, she lost just one sponsor. The rest told her they stuck by her because of her uniquely authentic online presence and the connection she’d created with her audience.
She is part of a cohort of athletes that I’m calling the anti-influencer: athlete-creators who are breaking the rules of traditional influencing, yet who are nonetheless shaping the culture of outdoor sports. The anti-influencer isn’t the goody-two-shoes brand partner of yore, posting glowy inspo shots and bringing you along for their Goop-inspired morning routine. They’re online in a way that feels uncurated, unique, and authentic to who they are, often with an edgier style inspired by countercultures like skate and punk. “We’re the millennial generation that grew up watching Jackass, surfing, and skating,” says ultrarunner Max Jolliffe, 33 (). In these scenes, “it’s almost like the less you tried the cooler you were.”
Authenticity has become a social media buzzword—so much that the idea in itself has been co-opted by creators seeking clicks. The movement started with the hashtag #nofilter, then escalated to some athletes and influencers being “overly vulnerable” in a way that felt almost contrived, says , director of social at , , , and , who shares social-media advice for athletes and brands on LinkedIn. The sweet spot now is someone who strikes a balance between relatable and aspirational, says , social media director at the outdoor marketing agency . (This aspirational quality gives athletes an advantage over pure creators just producing, say, funny skits.) You want to be able to see yourself as an influencer, Hinrichs says, but you also want to see something you aspire to. Otherwise, what’s the point of following?
Jolliffe, who’s sponsored by and , lives in the middle of that Venn. The tatted Strava memelord, who came to running as part of his sobriety journey, owns the fact that he’s not yet competing at the highest level of the sport, winning UTMB or Western States. But he’s nonetheless won several trail races, including the brutal Moab 240, and he’s known for maintaining a three-and-a-half year run streak, which he broadcast on TikTok. Jolliffe gets his own appeal. “The fastest person at Olympic trials—I can’t even relate to them,” he says. “I’m just relating to the person out there grinding every day.”
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Anti-influencers have become increasingly valuable to brands. “Everything has been done in terms of standard brand campaigns,” says Cupp, so “every company is trying to think of ways to be different.” Leaning into the individuality of their athletes is one of those strategies. That’s why, to some brands, an athlete with a big following is now less important than one with an inimitable personality. Satisfy is known for scooping up-and-coming athletes with that X factor, like Jolliffe, who had just a few thousand followers on Instagram when he signed with the cult running brand. So is Ripton, which partnered with Cupp when her following was similarly nascent. Charismatic underdogs are more affordable for small companies, but Ripton founder Elliot Wilkinson-Ray tells me they’re good for branding, too. These athletes, he says, “are such interesting people that it makes Ripton look a lot more evocative, interesting, and tapped in.”
The term anti-influencer is also apt because most of these athletes are producing content, product, or events outside of Instagram or TikTok. Both Cupp and Jolliffe have created short films and vlogs, but one of the earliest and best-known examples of this may be skier , whose YouTube series The Fifty Project followed his journey to tackle all 50 of the classic North American ski descents. The Fifty flipped the powder-reel formula on its head—the footage was more slogging than skiing, the skiing could be heinous, and despite receiving advice to keep his videos short, Townsend eventually ran them at an average of 25 minutes per episode. The longer they got, the more they gained traction, he says: “It goes against everything that every social media manager tries to tell you.” He believes the series’ real and substantive format was key to its popularity. “People desire connection,” he says. “If you’re chasing the algorithm and chasing what you think is gonna go viral, you’re just playing a dumb game that in the end isn’t valuable for anyone.”
Keenan Takahashi () has a similar philosophy. The pro climber always loathed posting about himself on Instagram; he says it felt “weird and self-aggrandizing.” His online reticence was such that, when signing contracts with sponsors, he’d negotiate to reduce his social media obligations. Takahashi went on to found the climbing apparel company Antigrav (), and he’s also contributed to , a platform that produces YouTube films and a print magazine founded by friend and fellow climber Shawn Raboutou (). Raboutou was another pro athlete who never wanted to play the social media game, and, according to Takahashi, Mellow and Antigrav were created to showcase climbers like them, who wanted to do more longform storytelling.
It seems to be working. Despite sporadic posting, Raboutou is now sponsored by The North Face, and Antigrav’s last t-shirt drop sold out in four minutes.
“Those two brands are really cool to me,” says Hinrichs, who says that younger followers love their “Handycam, skate-style” aesthetic. When she’s sussing a climbing influencer, she tells me, she’ll see if they’re followed by either account as an “authenticity check.” The anti-influencers have become surprisingly influential.
At this point, it barely feels accurate to say that social media isn’t real life. The boundaries between our real and virtual worlds have collapsed; interactions in one realm directly impact those in another. However, the success of anti-influencers suggests an upside to this fusion: We’re developing the same kind of instincts for gauging people online as we do IRL. Our “BS meter” is highly attuned these days, Paget says, and we’re learning to recognize those who give us a good “gut feeling,” even if the platform hasn’t rewarded them with virality. By opting out of chasing likes and instead focusing on creating more meaningful stories, these anti-influencers seem to be taking a more optimistic view of humanity: They’re betting that not all of us are just the vapid, attention span–challenged screen-swipers that the apps suggest we are.
Our “BS meter” is highly attuned these days, Paget says, and we’re learning to recognize those who give us a good “gut feeling,” even if the platform hasn’t rewarded them with virality.
If influencers are a category of celebrity created by social media and shaped by its algorithms, anti-influencers may represent a small but growing corner of the Internet where humans are breaking free of the algo. They may not ever represent the majority, says Takahashi: “But I think there is space for that now.”
