This study investigates the evolving discourses surrounding the term “influencer” within the context of migration from Twitter to BlueSky, using Davies and Harre's (1990) positioning analysis and the methodological toolkit of corpus-assisted discourse analysis. I will first introduce the discourse keyword "influencer" and survey its contexts of use on early social media. I will then introduce the relatively new addition to the frontrunners of social media landscape, the microblogging platform BlueSky, which will serve as the data source for the present study. 

Using a 1,5 mio words corpus of BlueSky posts, I examine how this term is used and perceived during three waves of user migration from Twitter/X, characterised by their respective sociocultural and platform-specific dynamics (October 2022, Musk’s purchase of Twitter; February 2024, invite no longer needed; November 2024, the US election). I investigate collocation patterns of the term within three grammatical frames to uncover shifting attitudes and associations with the influencer role over time. The research questions are: 1) What storylines do BlueSky users assign to ‘influencers’? 2) What concepts, issues and moral judgements are made relevant and what subject positions are made available within them? 3) Do these storylines differ across migration waves?

Preliminary findings suggest that “influencer” carries increasingly negative connotations, often invoked derogatorily and linked to critiques of toxic social media ecosystems and perceived inauthenticity. It appears to be laden with scepticism, associated with the commodification of online presence. Over time, meaning shifts from emblem of entrepreneurial success to shorthand for superficiality or even moral hazard. BlueSky users actively police this term and continually negotiate who is entitled to influence and on what moral grounds. Overall, discourse about influencers is largely homogenous across migration waves, although slight polarisation away from Twitter/X can be seen.