“I am sorry for judging you”: conceptualizing sentiment reversal among followers in case of falsely alleged social media influencer transgression

Purpose Influencer transgressions can disappoint their followers. However, there is a lack of clarity about the effects of a false allegation on an influencer–follower relationship. Drawing from cognitive dissonance and moral reasoning theory, the current study aims to examine how this relationship is shaped across three time periods (before the allegation is leveled, after the allegation is leveled, and when the allegation is found to be baseless). Design/methodology/approach We study comments posted by followers of two falsely alleged social media influencers (SMI) on their YouTube and Instagram channels. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) followed by netnography is used for thematic analysis. LDA is a social media topic modeling method that processes a statistically representative set of words to explain the tone and tenor of qualitative conversations. A sentiment analysis of the comments is done using SentiStrength. Findings When an allegation is leveled initially, the response from followers is overwhelmingly negative toward the influencer owing to moral coupling. However, when the allegations are proven to be false, the followers return to a positive opinion of the influencer, owing to feelings of dissonance and guilt. Practical implications The study contributes to the fields of influencer marketing, cognitive dissonance and moral reasoning. It highlights how endorsers can take advantage of the positive sentiment that arises once an accused SMI’s transgression is proven false. Originality/value This study introduces the concept of “Sentiment Reversal,” which is exhibited in the social media space. In this phenomenon, sentiments move from negative to positive toward the falsely accused SMI as they are vindicated of the previous charge.