Being Instafamous is hard work. On top of that hard work is a layer of deception that everyone is participating in.
The Influencer’s Dilemma
It’s a great read. A few more salient quotes:
People have not yet internalized that most forms of digital social capital is for sale. They don’t grasp how effortlessly people can manufacture likes, purchase followers, and artificially create popularity.
One consideration as to why Wikipedia “works” is that the platform is non-profit. Wikipedia’s goal is not viewer engagement but rather truth and fact, elements that traditional platforms are willing to overlook in their pursuit of profit.
It’s not possible to eliminate social capital’s captivating charm. Instead, we must identify how to create platforms that award people influence fairly, based upon the real value they provide.
[We] need a way that allows everyone to easily verify the veracity of social capital in a way that, for thousands of years, depended upon the presence of real live people.