Let’s import Nantucket’s cheeky ‘no influencers’ signs to other cities — including NYC

There’s big influencer drama on the little island of Nantucket — and there’s a reason we’re all invested.
Because most lifestyle content creators are simply insufferable.
Over dinner this week, a friend who is a regular on the quaint New England isle asked if I was up to date on the brouhaha.
“All you see on the cobblestone streets are people with their ring lights filming content,” she said, noting that locals in the tony but laidback town have had it with the annoying interlopers.
The relentless influx of the camera wielders and posers led John Sylvia, the owner of Four Winds Craft Guild, an antique store opened in 1948, to hang a “No Influencers” sign in the shop.
True to the island’s quiet luxury ethos, it wasn’t a blaring neon sign meant as an official edict. Made in a nautical style, it’s a cheeky and subtle commentary on the invasion of the quaint enclave by these intrepid cultural explorers.
The store posted an image of the sign on Instagram. And it didn’t go over well with some.
One thin-skinned influencer — with millions of followers but not a ounce of self-awareness — took great offense and, bizarrely, attempted to turn the sign into her great feminist moment.
“Mocking women when they become powerful in a new industry isn’t new,” wrote Paige Lorenze, under the shop’s post.
She recently hung her own shingle there, selling items from her Dairy Boy brand.
“It’s just a strange message coming from a store that celebrates a craft with such a rich history of women shaping the island and its economy,” Lorenze added.
She is truly missing the point: Male influencers can be just as annoying as the women.
Lorenze has done a great job of turning her good looks and slim build into an online moneymaker. But she’s so vain, she definitely thinks that sign is about her.
Or about women in general. However, when you have no real argument — or ability to laugh at yourself — you reach for victimhood.
By the morning after my dinner, the back-and-forth was laid out in the New York Times and various other outlets. After all, it was made for virality.
It resonated because this isn’t confined to Nantucket. There, it’s simply more concentrated.
Like locusts, the self-styled lifestyle experts swarmed small towns and big cities alike.
This fuss is reminiscent of the episode of “Emily in Paris” in which an influencer posts about a small Italian village where a famous cashmere brand is made — and it’s suddenly besieged by clueless vultures with cameras.
I think back to 2013, when mad-scientist pastry chef Dominique Ansel introduced the cronut in NYC. It led to a ridiculous line that lasted for hours and stretched for blocks.
This curious queue was the object of fascination from every form of media, covered as breathlessly as some sort of new animal at the Bronx Zoo.
We didn’t realize that it was also a harbinger of things to come: that ridiculous lines outside of establishments would be our future.
At least Ansel was slinging delicious quality morsels. And something novel.
Nowadays, there are long lines of tourists waiting outside subpar establishments, just for the gram.
It’s turned simple pleasures like grabbing a bagel on Sunday into something as painful as waiting in the DMV.
Sure, there are some influencers who make clever content — who have a unique or useful point of view.
But most of it is just derivative slop dedicated to gluttonous consumption. It’s pure narcissism.
Followers watch them open packages or show off their new Hill House dress in front of a hydrangea bush, and many suckers even buy the products through the influencers’ accounts — netting them more cash and fans more crap they don’t need.
Lately, the most entertaining stuff online is the content ridiculing the phenomenon. One of the best is the pair of friends behind “The Brooklyn Stoop,” who act like ambulance chasers promising to go after influencers compensated to promote unremarkable grub. They’re “reviewing the reviewer.”
“If they got paid, you got played” is their tagline.
Social media has made our world smaller and more connected. It’s also enabled some of the most poorly behaved, entitled idiots on this earth and ruined the pristine beauty of many spots.
Though Nantucket shop owner Sylvia didn’t mean to, he’s influenced me. I want to buy one of his signs.