Algorithmic fame
Why Kardashians are afraid of bots
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Once upon a time, the most liked photo on Instagram was the picture of an egg named Eugene. With more than 56 million likes and 4.8 million followers, Eugene represented a mystery. The mystery of who created it and why has been since solved. The mystery of how it got so many likes is best explained by a disgraced influencer, the model and actor Luka Sabbat: “People are way too influenced by what they see.”
Social influence rests on the fact that, when faced with abundance of choice, we habitually rely on others to know what to buy, read, wear, or listen to. When these others are “regular” people just like us, we tend to trust them more than we would a compensated spokesperson, a model in an ad, an invisible editor, or a distant celebrity. Influencers are close and relatable, and we perceive their recommendations as “honest” and “authentic.” Through our daily social media interactions, our vicarious presence at copiously documented weddings or births, we get to feel that we know our connections like we know our own friends
The social influence market
The social influence market is just like any market. It uses currency (taste) to build capital (social status). This capital eventually gets monetized, and we inevitably discover that our internet “friends” may be making thousands and thousands of dollars for selling us brands, products, and ideas, just like celebrity pitch people did before them. A decade ago, the opposite of authentic influence was selling out; today, it’s the reverse. Selling out equals being an authentic influencer, with a following and engagement large enough to be recognized and sought after by brands wanting to reach your audience. There are more than 32 million “advertising” and “promotion” hashtags on Instagram. And these are just the disclosed partnerships.
The social influence market lacks transparency, ethics, trust, and, increasingly, humans. According to data from anti-fraud company Sway Ops, a single day’s worth of posts tagged #sponsored or #ad on Instagram contained over 50% fake engagements. Points North Group, an influencer marketing analytics specialist, revealed that a whooping 78% of Ritz Carlton engagement from its Instagram influencer campaign came from fake followers or bots. But these are not the social influence market’s biggest issues. The biggest issue is that, in its current form, the market is rapidly becoming irrelevant. “A feed full of #ads comes with diminishing returns,” says Steve Dool, head of Community Partnerships at the U.K.-based social commerce app Depop. In the $6.5 billion social influence market, there are too many influencers not influencing anything. Fifty-two percent of millennials claim they trust influencers less than they used to, according to a Dealspotr report.
Algorithmic personalization
The next iteration of the modern influencer economy is not about hiring existing influencers. It’s creating one’s own. To get a glimpse of this future, look no further than TikTok. TikTok’s core value proposition is algorithmic personalization, a.k.a Kardashian kryptonite.
Algorithmic personalization means that we get to enjoy highly appealing content regardless of who created it. We don’t need to follow anybody or browse or search. Content is delivered to us based on an algorithmically created taste profile rather than socially. TikTok effectively wipes out social status as the influencer market’s capital and taste as its currency. It creates the radically new kind of market where we equal our own taste profiles.
In this market, we are all potential influencers. On TikTok, many popular videos are not created by celebrities, but by ordinary people doing creative things in the form of life hacks or hashtag challenges, which serve as trending topics on the platform and regularly draw hundreds of thousands of people to participate in making videos on the same theme.
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