As a doubter of this whole genre of paid-opinion dressed as wholesome word of mouth, I found this week particularly satisfying. At last, it felt like "karma", the full moon or The Universe, or daylight, had caught up with these perfectly packaged Emperors in (no) New Clothes.

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The couple who stood to fall the hardest, and did, were a pair of German Insta-gypsies – one of whose mother, by their admission, works big hours to support their online adventure. They made a post begging their followers for $16,800 to support a tandem bike-ride through Africa that they needed to take for the good of all of us.

Catalin Onc and Elena Engelhardt, of the Instagram account Another Beautiful Day, told 44,000 followers: "We want to take you all on this huge adventure. A celebration of life, as we ride freely across mountains, by the sea and through metropolitans. But we can not do this on our own. We need you!"

Red flag lines included: "We could model and make fast money, but we don't want to advertise consumerism. A normal job at this point would be detrimental." Also, "Some will tell us to get jobs, like everyone else ... But when you have the impact we do on others [sic] life, getting a job is not an option."

Onc was so confident his public would go with him on this he even added a shout-out to his tireless mum: "She works two jobs and has not much herself. We didn't ask her for money but she loves that she is able to help.

"Mom, I want you to know, that it is not only us but hundreds of others that benefit from your help."

Honestly, how this poseur got away with it for this long before someone called BS to his rort is a wonder, but, at last and as one, the internet finally did.

Then there was the righteous ridiculing of cancer fraudster Belle Gibson, the woman who lied to the world about having cured her (non-existent) brain cancer via a "holistic" diet, and in the process ripped off who knows how many vulnerable people.

Looking like she had just stepped out of a 1990s Chanel ad, or as near as one can when one is allegedly penniless but, the court hears, has spent $13,000 on accessories and clothes, Gibson shielded herself behind huge "Saint Laurent" sunnies as she entered court to explain why she could not pay a $440,000 fine for the damage done in her peak influencing days.

She carried herself for all the world like she was still making content for Instagram.

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When it was reported that Gibson was still spouting rubbish about how her "empathetic nature" meant she just wanted to help people, my temperature rose. That so many people were deluded so deeply by her schtick must qualify as an extended moment of crowd hysteria from which we are still emerging, red-faced – but hopefully much wiser.

Perhaps the most promising influencer outage of the week, though, came as the truth bomb delivered to bikini-loving Swede Natalie Schlater. She posed artistically in a white bikini in front of a Balinese rice field in which a man was bent double working, and captioned it "thinking about how different my life is from the man picking in the rice field every morning".

The fact this is all it took for her personal brand to collapse under the weight of social media disgust indicates perhaps we are at the day of influencer reckoning.

It was instructive to observe that what could, even a year ago, perhaps have triggered a minor WotIf stampede instead brought such harsh admonishment for being "a narcissist" that Schlater deleted her account.

Though I'm sure she is hurting, and do not revel in that, this too shall pass. What I hope does not is the fact that, where once so many of us seemed hypnotised by the likes of these beautiful bozos, it feels a whole lot like we finally woke up.