This stuff needs to be regulated like cigarettes.
You nailed it here. Social media heavily rewards extreme outliers.
>In its testing and research, Instagram said that removing likes had little impact on behaviour or wellbeing - after concerns that using the platform could be linked to insecurity and poor mental health.
>Despite this, Mr Mosseri said Instagram - which is owned by Facebook - introduced the feature to make “people feel good about the time they spend” on the platform. “I do think there’s more to do in this space,” he added. “The more we can give people the ability to shape Instagram and Facebook into what's good for them, the better.”
Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't matter.
Careful, they might start questioning whether standardized testing can be gamed as well.
I suspect many of the so called 'influencer' accounts buy likes and followers. A quick Google for 'buy instagram followers' leads you down a rabbithole of merchants willing to sell you followers and likes. The thing to notice is: when you've gained traction and are over 10,000 followers, the followers that you do buy, become un-noticeable, because there's so much noise on the platform (no-one notices).
This is why new accounts that suddenly have 1000 followers in 7 days is a red flag.
An entire cottage industry exists of boutique firms that specialize in creating bullshit content for influencers. You can see it in spades when you look at "Tagged" photos, and see fan accounts for people with 10k followers with video and image collages. There's also the big "agencies" that rep larger influencers that practice the same tactics, maybe with just a little more finesse.