Hashtag Open House (The New York Times)

Hashtag Open House

Influencers in Los Angeles and New York are saving us from dreary old open houses. Maybe you can get some cheap rent out of your Snapchat?

LOS ANGELES — The black-lit pillow fight room was perfect. “Anything with movement, it’s an instant boomerang!” said Ayla Woodruff. “That’s just a given.”

She quickly jumped into the milieu, picked up a few white feathers and asked her mother to start shooting. Half a dozen models in form-fitting pajamas theatrically swung pillows at each other, jumped on the bed and hammed it up as party guests snapped pictures with their phones.

Ms. Woodruff is a 25-year-old professional social media influencer. She gets paid as much as $22,000 for a post.

This was at a real estate open house on a recent evening in Los Angeles. There were a few stacks of fliers with the usual twilight photos and bullet-point highlights of the home on offer (a $15.895-million hillside contemporary-style mansion with an infinity pool and 360-degree views of Los Angeles).