Second tier influencers (100k followers) paying expensive hotels and private plane trips of first tier influences (1 mil followers), so that they can appear on their feeds, and gain new followers.
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Hansen: So in terms of quality, you could use a punch up right there. Ideally, that's up votes from quality people.
Lacie: Quality people?
Hansen: High fours. Impress those up-scale folks, you'll gain velocity on your arc and there's your boost.
This same calculus happens at all levels: trying to be part of certain groups (Stanford graduate, YCombinator graduate etc...) , join certain clubs (Founders who have raised a Series A, Forbes 30 under 30), impress certain people (Investors, Board Members) etc... to get where you want. Just change the players depending on what you want out of life.
So if making it explicit makes you feel bad, then you probably feel bad about how things work already.
There isn't much substance/ understanding/signal/meaning in buying a ride on the coattails of a superficial instagram "influencer".
I just finished "Bad Blood", the book on Theranos. Given that it was a fraud, it was entirely empty. But it was designed to look substantial to Stanford deans and Valley VCs. Later the target shifted to other sorts of movers and shakers, including corporate titans and political bigwigs. They all got suckered, and some of them still don't know it.
I think Instagram influencers look shallow to me because their audience is people who value different things than I do. But I don't take that as a sign that I'm somehow better. Just that I have different weaknesses.
E.g., I spent years developing NeXT software because I drank the Jobs kool-aid. I didn't do that for hard-headed business reasons; I did it because the NeXT hardware and software was incredibly cool to young me. At the time, I would have smugly defended my choice as more rational than getting starry-eyed over a celebrity. In retrospect, I was wrong. I just fell for for something tuned for my weaknesses, just like we all do.
This is actually a great example that I think supports my point. Sure, maybe you got caught up in some hype. But at least you were improving your software development skills, which is something useful.
What usefulness is accomplished or what meaning is found by getting starry eyed over Instagram fame? Maybe you could make an argument related to minor photography or artistic skills that they use to enhance their account. But it's not very substantial -- most Instagram influencers don't become highly skilled photographers in the process.
I understand people have different values. But they still have to defend them and the meaning the values supposedly carry.
It's true that my particular weakness was related to an economically productive activity. But although I personally value production more than consumption, production isn't inherently superior; one without the other is just waste.
Steve Jobs is Steve Jobs because he was very good at manipulating both producers and consumers. The (modest) technical improvements of the iPhone over existing smartphones wouldn't have happened without the millions of people who bought the notion that a slicker device in slicker packaging with slicker ads was deeply better.
Instagram influencers are no more shallow than an Apple ad. And I'd say less, in that they have built up personal businesses by entertaining others and finding a way to monetize it. It's not my kind of thing, but it's not essentially different than the travel magazine business. In both cases people go places and get paid to performatively do fun things in a way that's funded by self-promoting merchants.
The utility of a skill is mostly based around societal value of said skill, not really much else. People get paid millions all around the planet putting balls in various receptacles, but such is the human need for entertainment and feeling good (even if temporary) is a business that is never going to go away. Warren Buffett has said he’s lucky enough he was born when being able to memorize and process lots of financial numbers could be extremely advantageous - maybe that may not be so valuable in 600 years while art is much more precious?
What I don't like is that the most hyper, overenthusiastic, over the top characters send a signal to kids that it's the only route up the ladder. It is not.
Their emptiness in the case of the show is based on the emptiness of the people themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if such a system did wind up being fairly "empty" as you say (see: twitter, IG etc...), but that's a reflection on the users, not the structure of the system.
To put it in millennial marketing pseudo-jargon: how many likes = 1 vote?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9x92nwGf_M
Now that he has seen Trump get elected, I am sure he knows it is possible.
somewhat similar appealing to google search the way to gaming instagram is by having famous people/big accounts/verified accounts comment and interact with ur account so you 1. appear in the activity for their followers 2. appear on the explore page for the potential new followers and more engagement, repeat ad nauseam
"organic growth"
The thing is, these all aren't enforced by governments, but through social media and organizations. The popular one sesame credit in China is from the Alibaba group, not the Chinese government. In the same vein, Instagram is it's own platform, people can determine how much they think "followers" are worth and businesses can use their own discretion to decide how much to enforce their own policies based on others "social credit" or "followers"
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with...
TL;DR socialite of unknown authenticity (but definitely real confidence woman) scams a bank, luxury hotels and restaurants, private air charter company, and the author of that article out of several hundred thousand dollars. Did not get the $20M she was hoping for, though.
There's talk of a movie deal, so, her brazenness might be rewarded after all.