Inside the free-for-all arenas of Instagram and TikTok, audiences have spent the last few weeks watching two box-office content creators engage in battle. Since Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper posted a TikTok video on April 13 calling out internet personality Alix Earle for creating “fake drama”, the perennially online have been watching the beef intensify, and the stakes get higher. Last weekend, it reached the sketch writers of SNL, who sent up the “Alix versus Alex” showdown with an intentionally vacuous spoof.

The comments section of these videos is, for the most part, the social media shade you would expect. But it’s not just personal followers grabbing the popcorn. Brand accounts, with blue ticks in check, are also piling on. “Cookies and milk for anyone recovering from this level of spice?” asked Subway Germany on Cooper’s original viral video (gaining, in the process, a cool 127,000 likes). “I think I missed a chapter,” shot Wingstop. “Things are about to get juicyyyy,” wrote Ocean Spray. And audiences have noticed: “It’s the big corporations commenting for me,” reads one reply.

Since the heady days of early Twitter, brands have used comments sections to join in on trending conversations; the likes of Ryanair and Duolingo have made clapbacks and wisecracks a central part of their online strategies to feel relatable to audiences. But while fast food chains, household conglomerates, and lifestyle giants can more easily play hard and fast with biting humor and risqué commentary, fashion and beauty brands have often stayed out of the drama, prioritizing brand safety over awareness. “Now, we’re seeing this from other brands, but in a less snarky way,” says consultant and contributing Puss Puss Magazine editor Gemma Lacey, who has previously managed social media for Adidas and Stella McCartney. “Brands are shifting to social less as a broadcast channel and actually using it socially, making in-jokes.”

In fashion, community-led, premium labels like Damson Madder and Peachy Den and social-first brands like Gap are tapping into the comments, showing love to their consumers with direct replies. While beauty labels including Milk Makeup and The Ordinary have become frequent commenters on their own or others’ posts. It’s not without its pitfalls, however; dipping a toe into discourse can quickly get you into hot water.

This new marketing move comes at a time when the comments section is more attractive real estate than ever. In our Subway Takes era, everyone is expected to have an opinion, and commenting can be a way for brands to break through an impermeable algorithm. Organic reach on Instagram has dropped from 10-15% in 2020 to just 2-3% in 2025, signaling a move toward pay-to-play posting. The comments section provides a precious space to get noticed by non-followers. “For fashion brands, this opens up a new kind of visibility. Instead of just posting polished campaigns, they can insert themselves directly into conversations that are already capturing attention,” says Alexa Kesta, social media consultant and former social media director of The Face.

According to Vogue Business and youth culture agency Archrival, more than half (52%) of Gen Zs in 2025 said they go to the comments section when researching brands and products on social media, compared to only 37%, who visit brands’ profiles and posts. And audiences are commenting more readily, too. Last year, the number of comments on luxury brands’ videos on TikTok was up 113% year-on-year, according to the platform. “The comments section has become a new touchpoint in the shopping journey, especially for younger, tech-savvy consumers who see through traditional ads. It’s a way to build brand equity and awareness that doesn’t feel like traditional marketing,” says Camilla Cicchetti, Cetaphil UK brand manager.

Throwing in your two cents might not be lucrative, nor lead to the usual KPIs (reach, likes, shares) that drive social media managers. But it fosters brand relatability. “I don’t think the payoff is engagement in a traditional sense. It’s [about] being included in these moments,” says Kesta. “Brands aren’t talking to their audience anymore, they’re joining them. I think the comments section has become as important as the content itself.” The option to pin your own comments on an Instagram post, introduced in September 2025, gives brands further scope to lead the conversation, she adds.

Cutting through the noise

Brands have, of course, been listening to comments for a while, even before participating. “When I was at Plot, an AI-powered video social listening platform, the comment tracking feature was one of the most-requested capabilities from brands like Tory Burch and Victoria’s Secret,” says Christina Le, head of marketing at Slate. “It all stemmed from: help us find the conversations we should be in, faster.” These companies needed a way to get a word in. “I think brands knew the comments section was where cultural relevance lived, they just didn’t have a system for showing up there at speed,” Le adds.

For the most part, that was about simple engagement with likeminded accounts. Think: heart and flame emojis dropped on ambassadors’ and magazines’ posts. “The brands are social, they’ve got their ‘friends of the house’, and they need to perform those relationships as evidence to their audience — the same way real people comment and engage on social media with their own network,” says Sasha Mutchnik, senior social director at GQ. It’s similar to what Mutchnik does for her GQ accounts. “I am in favor of using comments sparingly and mostly for net-positive impact. Gassing up friends of the brand, politely calling out aggregators that quote our articles without crediting us, agreeing with particularly good comments on our posts — all fair game.”

Now, it might be time for fashion brands themselves to say more. Le notes that a rising number of social media manager job ads “explicitly call out real-time engagement across comments, DMs, and tags as a core function. And you’re seeing job titles drift toward always-on community management.” As a consultant, Kesta is prioritizing it. “That behavior has trained me to see comments not as an afterthought, but as an extension of the content.”

The new, unspoken rules

But how should brands enter the chat? In the flippant world of social media, something off-hand can resonate. “I think Gen Z is particularly drawn to brands that can participate, react, and be playful. It mimics the tone of a group chat. It’s fast and formal and culturally fluent,” Kesta says. “They’re naturally more flexible on how they communicate in an informal, playful tone.”

“The comments section is one of our favorite places to be,” says Amy Bi, VP of brand at Deciem (owner of The Ordinary). “We bring our playful — and sometimes chaotic — tone to the conversation, keeping everything authentic to who we are and what we stand for. Our strategy is simple: comment frequently, fuel the banter, and be as funny as possible.” Recently, the “nobody here knows I’m the X admin” trend, which sees brands post videos shot by their social media director in the crowd of a major event, has driven a new era of the Instagram manager not only being the voice of the brand, but also a personality in their own right, building and breaking a fourth wall for comedic effect.

For luxury brands, though, this irreverent approach isn’t so cut and dry. “Luxury fashion feels more complex. Their value is tied to mystique and a certain level of distance. Stepping into a gossipy discourse can be quite jarring,” says Kesta. As explored recently by Tank Magazine, a rise in “aggressive visibility” and “forced familiarity” is leading to brands entering “the friend zone” at the expense of the desire and aspiration that’s formed by a sense of separation. Repeatedly appearing in comments sections can lead to overexposure that dents exclusivity.

It also requires a reactivity that fashion houses can’t always afford. “Fashion has historically been a media business more so than a social one. The muscle memory is editorial, with their magazine covers, campaign imagery, and runways, which are great broadcast formats. You set it up, and it’s done,” says Le. Too much curation or approval, and the moment may be gone. “The comments section is the total opposite, because it’s a conversation, and conversations require you to be a person. So you could say it’s more social than media.”

It’s why eponymous creative directors like Marc Jacobs and Simon Porte Jacquemus have found success commenting via their personal Instagram accounts. Other brands are finding ways to engage with the comments without actually chiming in. In 2024, TikTok creator @DrKayla_MD posted a viral video stating that, if it got 50,000 likes and a comment from Prada, her husband would buy her the brand’s Re-Edition Saffiano Leather bag. The likes of Burt’s Bees, Pizza Hut, Ziploc (and a fake Prada account) showed support. In the end, her husband bought her the bag anyway. Interestingly, though, Prada did not comment, but it eventually came through and sent her a raffia shoulder bag, demonstrating that it’s both online and in the know, without engaging directly in the comments.

This kind of relatability is precarious. “A Wendy’s reply that bombs costs them nothing, because the brand is built on irreverence. For a fashion brand that’s spent decades cultivating a sense of aspiration, getting it wrong in a comments section can feel existential, even when it isn’t,” says Le. The reward, though, may be worth the risk. Luxury fashion, having located its funny bone in recent years, is more open to showing its facetious side. “You can’t get proximity to culture from the safety of a campaign shoot. You have to get in the room. And the comments section is the room.”

The most important thing is to stay on-brand. “The criticism right now — from marketers especially, but also from regular people — is that a lot of brands are flooding the comments trying to sound like an average Joe and ending up in a sea of sameness. It’s the Gen Z voice copy-paste,” says Le, warning against replying with “rizz” and keeping things authentic, instead.

Social media managers for fashion brands should think before they comment. “The actual move is having some conversational discipline,” Le says. “Don’t show up in conversations you weren’t invited to, but do show up in conversations where your product, customer, or POV is already being discussed.” Cicchetti agrees: “The worst thing is when brands try too hard or shoehorn themselves into conversations where they don’t belong. If it feels forced to you, it’ll definitely feel forced to your audience.”

Couture houses are unlikely to be stirring online drama any time soon. “Obviously, Chanel isn’t going to be weighing in on podcaster-TikToker drama anytime soon, hopefully never,” says Mutchnik. “But that’s just because those forms of celebrity don’t adhere to the house codes.”

Lacey agrees: “High fashion’s currency is based on not needing to ask. The product itself is strong enough to tell brands’ stories, and they use carefully selected creative teams to do so. It’s not appropriate for Prada to drop a lolz emoji on a reel.” But there remains a clear opportunity to throw at least some caution to the wind and enter threads that align with their own voice.