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Fortune
Fortune
Iman Pabani

Gen Z teens tell us why they stopped trusting experts in favor of influencers on TikTok

TikTok Stella Fortune Instagram
(Credit: getty)
  • Iman Pabani is a 15-year-old student at Dwight School London, studying the International Baccalaureate. She wants to pursue a career in investigative journalism and travel around the world. Fortune asked her to interview her peers about why teens increasingly don’t trust—or don’t even read—information from experts, and prefer to get their information from TikTok instead. This is her report.

Every morning for a month, Stella opened her freezer, grabbed two cold spoons, and pressed them under her eyes. The first few seconds always stung, but she didn’t stop. She had seen the trick on TikTok, where influencers promised it would magically remove dark circles in just 30 days.

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