Random afternoon thoughts that I know progressive art historians have expressed far better than me.
I think the term "influencer", and even "content creator", were created because certain types of art have been so de-canonized by art gate-keepers that people became too embarrassed to call them artists (both the artists themselves and those who enjoy their art).
Most of who we call "influencers" are still producing something. Perhaps like Warhol the art they produce is more akin to curating or image generation or perhaps they are creating other visual art like Tiktoks or Instagram stories.
Either way, I think they are artists in most senses of the word that matter.
This has a negative impact on the social media art that we do like ( I will call Shakespeare an "artist" but I call callmekris a "content creator") but it also impacts the art we are critical of. I'm considered highbrow if I discuss the broader implications of personal and societal misogyny on the art of Picasso but if I were to have an identical conversation about Luke Taylor, I will get told he's not an "artist" and I'm taking it too seriously.
On an unrelated but tangential topic, I think this also has the exact opposite but equally negative effect on what folks have decided is "real art".
It's been mystified and elevated to a point where we are not allowed to enjoy Shakespeare as a casual provider of sex jokes or spend a half hour on the Louvre website just spacing out on pretty pictures and Rubens' thirst traps.
Part of me really wants to side with the self-identity aspect because I'm a big believer in people choosing their own labels, but where I run into problems is seeing how many misogyny affected people and people of colour have been convinced what they do isn't art by white supremacy and the patriarchy. If they don't consider what they do art because of a society that constantly devalues them, while Musk does consider his tweets about SNL skits to be art because of an echo chamber that elevates everything he touches, I don't know if that really is the best metric.