Popularized during the post-COVID era, the term nepo baby refers to “a kid who’s only famous because of their parents or something,” according to the earliest entry on Urban Dictionary. The phrase took over social media — especially X (formerly Twitter) — where its constant repetition cemented the concept in the minds of everyday netizens, loaded with a clear negative connotation.
Building, though somewhat mild, resentment towards a caste of society that, in this perspective’s view, reached rooms, roles, and relevance in fields as a result of their kin — particularly their parents — the term became a convenient shorthand for calling out inherited success. Some of the most notorious enemies of this school-of-thought include the likes of Brooklyn Beckham, whose fame is indissociable from his last name, allowing him to try his hand at as many creative mediums of expression, almost always with more coverage and curiosity than any other artist, despite not having proven himself and copiously being labeled as not too great.
One of his past projects — a photo-book featuring snapshots of life through his lens — was branded, on multiple occasions and across multiple platforms, as amateurish if not outright “terrible” as it was the case by British publication i Paper’s ex-arts editor Alice Jones. Let’s just say it probably would’ve never seen the light of day if his father wasn’t ex-Manchester United star David Beckham, and his mother wasn’t ex-Spice Girl and renowned designer Victoria Beckham.
Huge fan of Brooklyn Beckham’s terrible photographs and even worse captions pic.twitter.com/012PeCcED4
— Alice Jones (@alicevjones) June 23, 2017
The notion, used to a near state of reflex when talking about the entertainment industry, eventually became less an observation and more of an instinctive accusation. In other words, a label people will reach for the second a last name sounds familiar. And with its recurrence in everyday conversations came with it a slew of more nuanced classifications depending on where the exact rise to relevance stems from— one of its newest being “algo-babies.”
Much like its base form, the term points to a kind of shortcut to stardom. Rather than it stem from lineage and affiliation, in this case, it puts in focus those whose status was engineered by algorithms and now step over their fields of predilections as a result of such. Think of the wave of lifestyle influencers you’ve seen strut down red carpets no longer as guests but as journalists or pundits, the TikTok creators suddenly hosting award-show live-streams, the vloggers now masquerading as actors while those qualified to do so are only rarely handed such opportunities.
The logic behind their recruitment is simple: by booking them — by attaching their image, voice, or mere presence to a project— the organizer is guaranteed a baseline of visibility, an insurance policy powered by the amount of fame the algorithm has provided them with, regardless of how well they know of the task they’re asked to carry out. Coming in sometimes from completely removed backgrounds, parachuted into industries that usually require years of experience, knowledge and most importantly networking, they often start carving a space for themselves in a room that’s already crowded; and that simply because social media data insists on them belonging there.
Is there no more actors? Just influencers? https://t.co/zbCZOMrFA1
— niggaless cage (@2sandz) February 11, 2026
What some have come to refer to as the “influencerization” of work mirrors a growing trend in which study, training, and expertise are steadily devalued, eclipsed by follower counts and engagement curves of all sorts. This rise of micro-celebrities in professional spaces, however popular they may be, has, with time, produced a culture in which digital visibility is permitted to rival — and at times even overrule — actual competence.
Thankfully, this phenomenon only affects certain professions and not the ones that actually matter — those that proved to be indispensable during COVID for example, like doctors, nurses, and emergency workers. Imagine, for a moment, your life resting in the hands of a medic who secured their place in the operating room not through grades or skill but because each selfie they take racks in thousands of likes and comments.
While taking this into account, some will still argue that this shift dismantles traditional gatekeeping players, especially within fields related to culture, long accused for its opacity and elitism. And yes, in theory, it does crack a few doors open but it also creates a new set of thresholds that will always privilege those with a knack for online community management. New problems that come with the aspects of the new era they’re born in. Not much that changes in the end is there?
In the end, the system doesn’t evolve so much as it rebrands. The faces change, the metrics shift, the gatekeepers are renamed but the logic remains the same: visibility first, merit later, if ever. One could call it progress, but only in the narrowest sense. The arbiters have been swapped for machines, yet the hierarchy they uphold still feels oddly familiar. And if this is the idea of progress we are expected to accept for as long as the internet occupies a central place in our lives, who knows which other segments of society can get affected next.
