9 ms·

Confessions of an Instagram Influencer

282 points by kevinbluer 10y ago

sAbakumoff 10y ago
Black Mirror, s03e01 in reality.
- platz 10y ago
  I only skimmed it, but I'm feeling this is exploring the world of fashion models more than Instagram per se, or at least being in that world incents a certain behavior. It's fine to wonder if tech if serving us correctly, but also it's good to know that some people have very different lives from us, and thats ok too.
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    Thing is, its not just happening in the 'fashion model' world. The focus seems to be coming down to 'regular' people. Artists, street musicians, developers, moms and dads, single parents, cat lovers, bike enthusiasts, amateur chefs... you name it. If you have a sizeable following, you have the option to sell your soul to one or many companies who will then organise your social media flow for you, suggesting what to post, when to post, and what to hashtag. All for a fee or discounts on their products. At least when you see a racing driver's suit plastered with sponsor logos, you know they've paid him/her or the team for the privilege of doing so. Nowadays it is not so obvious, but rather the inference is that it is all natural and common and 'real'.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cyberferret 10y ago
My wife and I were just talking about this today, coincidentally. She follows a few people around the world who are artists or collectors on IG. She pointed out to me that when she started following some of them more than a year ago, they had a few hundred followers, and were posting general stuff, but which all felt heartfelt and 'in the moment'. I think 'genuine' was the word my wife used. Kids doing silly things. Artwork in various stages of completion, etc. But now, she has noticed a couple of them have rocketed to over hundreds of thousands of followers, and their posts have changed to become quite soulless and fake. Obviously they have been engaged by a marketing or promotional company that sanitises and sets up their posts for them. All of a sudden, an artist who was formerly struggling to raise a family and make meaningful work is announcing (and posting photos) that they are in [insert brand name here] health spa having a weekend pampering. Continuous shots of not the art or kids, but of bath products, massage companies, drink companies etc. all heavily hashtagged. Following up a few days later are pictures of the kids, but this time around a brand new laptop with the manufacturers name and laptop model hashtagged to the hilt. As @sAbakumoff pointed out here - this is "Black Mirror" Season 3 Episode 1 come to life. I have nothing against someone doing promotional work to earn money to live, but I do have a problem with people portraying a totally fake and unrealistic life as a reality. We are just seeing magazines starting to push back against "Generation Photoshop" and go back to 'real' shots of people again (Pirelli 2017 calendar a case in point), but are we now going to replace Photoshop with 'posed reality'? I know a lot of us do that to a certain extent on social media anyway, but not for discounts or monetary compensation, usually.
- icebraining 10y ago
  This is just celebrities cutting out the middlemen (gossip magazines), not a new phenomenon.
- shellehs 10y ago
  I guess(and hope) more and more people are going to accept the fact, most beautiful photos on social media are fake and crafted reality. The people appeared in a photo just like a cartoon character similarly. What you see is not reality but dream you want to live with. Just like you are watching a movie, sometime you can get out from the movie, but you know it is a movie deep in your heart
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    But when I pay for a movie ticket or rent in on NetFlix/Apple TV/whatever, I am expecting it to be fiction, and I am mentally prepared to lose myself in the experience. Same with books, theme parks, plays etc. However, when I follow people on social media, I am expecting something that is a little more 1 to 1, and a lot more real. I am interested in programming, guitars, aviation etc. and follow people with the same passions. If I have to do extra detective whenever someone posted a picture of some guitar gear, in order to find out whether they posted it because they were really inspired by it, or whether they were paid by a manufacturer to do it, then it really renders the interaction meaningless, and I would rather do without it. I'll never pay to go see a live music performance if I know the players are just miming to backing tracks. I go to experience the actual process, pain and joy of someone working hard to create music. The odd mistake and off key note all ADD to the performance for me, not detract. It reminds me that we are all not perfect, but we still try to reach out to each other to connect. If we are all just living in a plastic world now, where we have to question every interaction to ascertain whether it is real or not, then I am not sure I want to participate in that world anymore.
    - astrobe_ 10y ago
      > If we are all just living in a plastic world now [...] then I am not sure I want to participate in that world anymore. People are often worried about being too self-centred, but they really should be worried about being too "others-centred".
keyle 10y ago
I find my feed, even though filled with different people is really really repetitive. You've got the ones about their image, sometime sneaking in some never-heard of brand of protein you wouldn't give your dead dog, you've got the arty ones posting their latest work, you've got the "I'm only doing shots of my girlfriend from behind", the cute dogs with the outfits, and so on. I swear if I could compare it to my timeline from a month, or 3 months ago, it'd be the same. Turns out, even though a picture is worth a thousand words, we keep writing the same sh#$% over and over!
thinkloop 10y ago
I would have liked to see him continue the test without the photography, keeping just the bots and offshore friend farming - I have a feeling that's most of it. TL;DR: How to get Instagram followers: - photo quality is very important, pay for a professional - submit 3 posts a day, try to make them interesting, but that's only medium important - pay for bot to like and comment on posts with similar hash tags, so their owners can see your profile and hopefully follow - use offshore friend farm to boost numbers. They don't outright say it, but the last service had to be that. One day his followers surged for a couple of hours then stopped.
- mrtksn 10y ago
  I wonder what will happen when AI is good enough to imitate real internet users and ad agencies just spin up some servers in some datacenter that handles millions of bots that are indistinguishable from real people and follow the formula of the influencers.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    "The Singularity Wears #prada", coming soon to a digital content delivery service near you.
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    Bots creating content for bots to click on. Perfect. Seal it in a bunker and launch into space (together with the marketeers).
  - shostack 10y ago
    Direct response advertisers would see crap quality and stop paying. Brand advertisers would probably be slower to stop but their measurement tools to map impression data to purchases, whether offline or online is improving dramatically. Advertisers who aren't savvy about analytics will continue to prop up the cottage industry of fraudulent eyeball providers.
  - imh 10y ago
    That arms race is like some bizarre analogue to bitcoin mining.
panorama 10y ago
We live in a society where, because ad dollars drive so much of online commerce, attention _is_ currency. And right now influencer marketing is outperforming many other channels, so naturally a lot of money is headed this direction, allowing many 'ordinary' people to monetize. I don't think this is a problem - I believe in the power of the internet democratizing revenue opportunities and disrupting outdated media channels. (Bias disclaimer: I run a startup that helps brands find Instagram influencers to work with - won't plug it here but it's in my profile).
- mtrn 10y ago
  In one way, this is sponsorship taken to a micro level. And sponsorship is fine - and usually open, for the benefit of both parties. But if I open a random influencer agency website, I can read something like this: "Influencers drive trust". The message here seems to be: Yes, trust is super valuable - and now the price is finally dropping! But is it really?
  - panorama 10y ago
    It's a weird middle-ground. I myself constantly ask people for their recommendations on books and such. I trust them and act upon their suggestions. The only difference is that influencers are paid to suggest, and sometimes this leads to low-quality products being touted by low-quality influencers appearing in your feed. Definitely bad. DHH suggested a book in an interview with Tim Ferriss[0]. I read what DHH says often and trust his taste - is this bad? I don't think so. Obviously DHH wasn't paid to talk about this book, but it wouldn't matter either way to me; a lot of his influence comes from the fact that I know he wouldn't willingly shill for something he doesn't believe in. [0] http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/10/27/david-heinemeier-hansson/ http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/10/27/david-heinemeier-hans...
    - shostack 10y ago
      It doesn't just sometimes lead to lower quality recommendations. It ALWAYS does due to the nature of how it works. When someone is financially incentivized to push something, but discloses that, you have to take it with a grain of salt. When they don't disclose it, you can't trust a word out of their mouth. Full stop.
askdjso 10y ago
I know a local "artist" that lives off Instagram and not her "art". She publishes all her "songs" on Youtube for free, and lives off sponsored content on Instagram and media appearances. Is she lazy and getting "free-money"? no. Is she talented? also no.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  She's just gaming a system that rewards her output. Whether the advertisers are getting a good return on investment is debatable, but apparently they are convinced that advertising on her channel is worth it. The only drawback is that she might be investing a good part of her career in something that may prove prone to inflation and whim.
- WA 10y ago
  Since when is the commercial aspect of art about talent?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
razakel 10y ago
I'm with Bill Hicks when it comes to advertising and marketing. I adblock. I pirate. I don't use Facebook or other social networking sites. I don't want advertising in my life. It's propaganda. It shits in your head. If there's anybody reading this who works in those industries: you thought Generation X was cynical?
- mozumder 10y ago
  Bill Hicks never figured out the meaning of life. The entire purpose of life is to market. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth so that you're more marketable than the slob that doesn't. Everything you do can be traced back to marketing. The more people understand that, the better off they will be at handling life.
  - razakel 10y ago
    >The entire purpose of life is to market. Maybe my target market isn't slavish devotees of a vapid consumerist culture who assert their identity with commercial brands?
    - mozumder 10y ago
      You know your marketing yourself right now with your statements to the audience here, right? An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture...
      - razakel 10y ago
        >You know your marketing yourself right now with your statements to the audience here, right? I understand your sentiment, but I believe that's a toxic worldview. >An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture... I am criticising consumerism, not capitalism.
        sooheon 10y ago
        Interesting, what do you think is the distinction? The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism. And the biggest driver of the consumerist mind is capitalist manipulation. They feed off of each other, and are so intertwined that it's hardly useful to refer to one without acknowledging that it comes with the other.
tempestn 10y ago
> “You sell part of your soul. Because no matter what beautiful moment you enjoy in your life, you’re going to want to take a photo and share it. Distinguishing between when is it my life and when am I creating content is a really big burden.” I didn't realize just how realistic that Black Mirror episode was.
Illniyar 10y ago
So he hired a bot for a month to do 30,000 likes. Anyone wonder how many of his own likes are from bots? All this social media advertisement seems like one big fraud to me - from profile farms to click frauds, has any of the people buying the ads actually attempted to verify the actual increase in sales? Or maybe it just looks good in powerpoints when showing to the clients where the money is spent.
- SuperPaintMan 10y ago
  There's a good chance if you do not recognize the user liking your post, it's a bot hoping to get a followback. Yeah it's fraud up and down the feed, and it looks great in spreadsheets. IG provides metrics on profile views and website clicks, that's one way to measure engagement as bots will usually skip that.
jokoon 10y ago
The more I read about that, the more I want to start an instagram of a stereotypical loser.
- razakel 10y ago
  >The more I read about that, the more I want to start an instagram of a stereotypical loser. It wouldn't be popular. People crave escapism. The very fact that you're satirising exactly that is what defeats the purpose.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    You'd be surprised. Everything can be sold. Companies have figured out how to monetize anticonsumerism long time ago. Related: Black Mirror, S01E02 - Fifteen Million Merits.
  - jokoon 10y ago
    I think it would. I'm sure many people would relate to it. /r/me_irl has a success of its own. There are many many people who feel guilty because their life could be more successful. It's a very hard thing to unroot out of your mind, but laughing about it is a huge relief.
johndoe4589 10y ago
Was just thinking about this recently as I started following a few people. We are increasingly living in a world of fiction. Previously it was mainly fed through television. You'd grow up on television series, and as a young man/woman you'd try to be cool like them, dress like them, talk like them. You build your world view around "influential" portrayals. Nowadays, we haven't freed ourself from media controlled television at all. It's actually worse, because now advertising is blurring the lines even more between real people and fiction. We eat and breathe fiction, then we live our own life trying to resemble it. Nothing is new there. But what's new for me is I started to recognize that fiction in and of itself is probably as detrimental to our society as fear is. It's well known that fear drives self centered way of life and when we are in survival mode, we just don't make good choices and we lack compassion. Lately I'm thinking that fiction, on a collective scale, is just as bad as fear. It keeps us unconscious. Just like fear it dissociates us from what we are, and from one another. It's really detrimental to us as individuals, and as a society. Unlike fear, it isn't immediately felt in the stomach.. so there is no sense of urgency.. And yet it is there... one just looks at the world to see the massive disconnect in our life on a day to day basis. I guess fear and fiction are best friends. Fear drives us to dissociate, and fiction provides the perfect happy place to dissociate. John Berger, Ways of Seeing "But where is this other way of life?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY
- qznc 10y ago
  I don't think that we are increasingly living in a world of fiction. We always have. It is human. Kids believe in Santa Claus, adults believe Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Some believe in Mohammed, Jesus, Jahwe, or Dharma. Some believe they will become rich in Silicon Valley, others on Wallstreet. Some believe in articles from mainstream media, some don't. Many people have dreams for their future, which is just fiction they are telling themselves. You consider these thoughts dark or cynical. Why? Humans have built an amazing civilization with a global economy and messaging travel across the globe in milliseconds. We did all this as fallible meat bags believing in dreams and telling each other mostly false stories. That is a great story as well. ;)
  - 10y ago
yk 10y ago
> (#ad #sp #liveauthentic) In some literary critique sense, it does not so much seem hollow as it seems like authentic expression of our time. The fact that people authentically believe in success in social media does not invalidate their dreams.
johndoez 10y ago
Influencer marketing will boom with the launch of social commerce. But startups need to be careful about advertising regulation. If someone has paid for a promotion, then it will have to be tagged as such, like Sponsored Ad.
- Guyag 10y ago
  I don't think tagging with something like #ad or #sponsored does nearly enough, especially if hidden amongst a bunch of other tags. (edit: And #sp - are you kidding me?) Traditional ads are obvious through specific placement on the page (sidebars) and/or a prominent "Advertisement" or "Sponsored" label and/or moreover simply having the general look and feel of a 'traditional' advert. When your favourite media personality is gushing about some product it's really easy to forget it's an advert and they're being paid for it. I know that's what makes it great for marketing purposes, but it feels seriously dishonest and (to me) represents a decline in our standards.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    These type of advertisements are already garnering interest from national regulators. One reason is that a lot of these influencers have a lot of children and teens amongst their followers (think beauty vloggers on YouTube). Most countries have laws regulating advertising aimed at minors. By using popular social media channels brands can circumvent this limitation by simply buying advertising space from local influencers with predominantly teen or pre-teen follower demographics.
auganov 10y ago
Such a weird article. It's written as if he already had a large following and got on to monetize it. But it looks like a fresh account and in the end, he failed to gain any real momentum. Which goes to show that establishing genuine rapport still matters. Why would you even go from posting cat pictures to vaguely fashion/glamor content? Bloomberg should do what these scouts do - find a person that already has traction and pay them to journal their monetization process.
chris_wot 10y ago
Fuck this for a joke. Thank goodness I'm not on any of these services, or even using them! It's bad enough I use Facebook, but the Instagrams of our time are just ridiculous.
nojvek 10y ago
This is the sole reason why I liked snapchat. But now snapchat is getting so popular, the ads are being forced in my face. I'm gonna a probably jump ship to something less invasive.
alkonaut 10y ago
More than two hashtags on a photo is an instant unfollow. Obvious paid shot? Same. Idk who enjoys following what's essentially just an ad? You can get glossy ad pics in a magazine?

282 points by kevinbluer 10y ago

sAbakumoff 10y ago

Black Mirror, s03e01 in reality.

platz 10y ago
I only skimmed it, but I'm feeling this is exploring the world of fashion models more than Instagram per se, or at least being in that world incents a certain behavior. It's fine to wonder if tech if serving us correctly, but also it's good to know that some people have very different lives from us, and thats ok too.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Thing is, its not just happening in the 'fashion model' world. The focus seems to be coming down to 'regular' people. Artists, street musicians, developers, moms and dads, single parents, cat lovers, bike enthusiasts, amateur chefs... you name it. If you have a sizeable following, you have the option to sell your soul to one or many companies who will then organise your social media flow for you, suggesting what to post, when to post, and what to hashtag. All for a fee or discounts on their products. At least when you see a racing driver's suit plastered with sponsor logos, you know they've paid him/her or the team for the privilege of doing so. Nowadays it is not so obvious, but rather the inference is that it is all natural and common and 'real'.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cyberferret 10y ago

My wife and I were just talking about this today, coincidentally. She follows a few people around the world who are artists or collectors on IG. She pointed out to me that when she started following some of them more than a year ago, they had a few hundred followers, and were posting general stuff, but which all felt heartfelt and 'in the moment'. I think 'genuine' was the word my wife used. Kids doing silly things. Artwork in various stages of completion, etc. But now, she has noticed a couple of them have rocketed to over hundreds of thousands of followers, and their posts have changed to become quite soulless and fake. Obviously they have been engaged by a marketing or promotional company that sanitises and sets up their posts for them. All of a sudden, an artist who was formerly struggling to raise a family and make meaningful work is announcing (and posting photos) that they are in [insert brand name here] health spa having a weekend pampering. Continuous shots of not the art or kids, but of bath products, massage companies, drink companies etc. all heavily hashtagged. Following up a few days later are pictures of the kids, but this time around a brand new laptop with the manufacturers name and laptop model hashtagged to the hilt. As @sAbakumoff pointed out here - this is "Black Mirror" Season 3 Episode 1 come to life. I have nothing against someone doing promotional work to earn money to live, but I do have a problem with people portraying a totally fake and unrealistic life as a reality. We are just seeing magazines starting to push back against "Generation Photoshop" and go back to 'real' shots of people again (Pirelli 2017 calendar a case in point), but are we now going to replace Photoshop with 'posed reality'? I know a lot of us do that to a certain extent on social media anyway, but not for discounts or monetary compensation, usually.

icebraining 10y ago
This is just celebrities cutting out the middlemen (gossip magazines), not a new phenomenon.
shellehs 10y ago
I guess(and hope) more and more people are going to accept the fact, most beautiful photos on social media are fake and crafted reality. The people appeared in a photo just like a cartoon character similarly. What you see is not reality but dream you want to live with. Just like you are watching a movie, sometime you can get out from the movie, but you know it is a movie deep in your heart
- cyberferret 10y ago
  But when I pay for a movie ticket or rent in on NetFlix/Apple TV/whatever, I am expecting it to be fiction, and I am mentally prepared to lose myself in the experience. Same with books, theme parks, plays etc. However, when I follow people on social media, I am expecting something that is a little more 1 to 1, and a lot more real. I am interested in programming, guitars, aviation etc. and follow people with the same passions. If I have to do extra detective whenever someone posted a picture of some guitar gear, in order to find out whether they posted it because they were really inspired by it, or whether they were paid by a manufacturer to do it, then it really renders the interaction meaningless, and I would rather do without it. I'll never pay to go see a live music performance if I know the players are just miming to backing tracks. I go to experience the actual process, pain and joy of someone working hard to create music. The odd mistake and off key note all ADD to the performance for me, not detract. It reminds me that we are all not perfect, but we still try to reach out to each other to connect. If we are all just living in a plastic world now, where we have to question every interaction to ascertain whether it is real or not, then I am not sure I want to participate in that world anymore.
  - astrobe_ 10y ago
    > If we are all just living in a plastic world now [...] then I am not sure I want to participate in that world anymore. People are often worried about being too self-centred, but they really should be worried about being too "others-centred".

keyle 10y ago

I find my feed, even though filled with different people is really really repetitive. You've got the ones about their image, sometime sneaking in some never-heard of brand of protein you wouldn't give your dead dog, you've got the arty ones posting their latest work, you've got the "I'm only doing shots of my girlfriend from behind", the cute dogs with the outfits, and so on. I swear if I could compare it to my timeline from a month, or 3 months ago, it'd be the same. Turns out, even though a picture is worth a thousand words, we keep writing the same sh#$% over and over!

thinkloop 10y ago

I would have liked to see him continue the test without the photography, keeping just the bots and offshore friend farming - I have a feeling that's most of it. TL;DR: How to get Instagram followers: - photo quality is very important, pay for a professional - submit 3 posts a day, try to make them interesting, but that's only medium important - pay for bot to like and comment on posts with similar hash tags, so their owners can see your profile and hopefully follow - use offshore friend farm to boost numbers. They don't outright say it, but the last service had to be that. One day his followers surged for a couple of hours then stopped.

mrtksn 10y ago
I wonder what will happen when AI is good enough to imitate real internet users and ad agencies just spin up some servers in some datacenter that handles millions of bots that are indistinguishable from real people and follow the formula of the influencers.
- throwanem 10y ago
  "The Singularity Wears #prada", coming soon to a digital content delivery service near you.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Bots creating content for bots to click on. Perfect. Seal it in a bunker and launch into space (together with the marketeers).
- shostack 10y ago
  Direct response advertisers would see crap quality and stop paying. Brand advertisers would probably be slower to stop but their measurement tools to map impression data to purchases, whether offline or online is improving dramatically. Advertisers who aren't savvy about analytics will continue to prop up the cottage industry of fraudulent eyeball providers.
- imh 10y ago
  That arms race is like some bizarre analogue to bitcoin mining.

panorama 10y ago

We live in a society where, because ad dollars drive so much of online commerce, attention _is_ currency. And right now influencer marketing is outperforming many other channels, so naturally a lot of money is headed this direction, allowing many 'ordinary' people to monetize. I don't think this is a problem - I believe in the power of the internet democratizing revenue opportunities and disrupting outdated media channels. (Bias disclaimer: I run a startup that helps brands find Instagram influencers to work with - won't plug it here but it's in my profile).

mtrn 10y ago
In one way, this is sponsorship taken to a micro level. And sponsorship is fine - and usually open, for the benefit of both parties. But if I open a random influencer agency website, I can read something like this: "Influencers drive trust". The message here seems to be: Yes, trust is super valuable - and now the price is finally dropping! But is it really?
- panorama 10y ago
  It's a weird middle-ground. I myself constantly ask people for their recommendations on books and such. I trust them and act upon their suggestions. The only difference is that influencers are paid to suggest, and sometimes this leads to low-quality products being touted by low-quality influencers appearing in your feed. Definitely bad. DHH suggested a book in an interview with Tim Ferriss[0]. I read what DHH says often and trust his taste - is this bad? I don't think so. Obviously DHH wasn't paid to talk about this book, but it wouldn't matter either way to me; a lot of his influence comes from the fact that I know he wouldn't willingly shill for something he doesn't believe in. [0] http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/10/27/david-heinemeier-hansson/ http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/10/27/david-heinemeier-hans...
  - shostack 10y ago
    It doesn't just sometimes lead to lower quality recommendations. It ALWAYS does due to the nature of how it works. When someone is financially incentivized to push something, but discloses that, you have to take it with a grain of salt. When they don't disclose it, you can't trust a word out of their mouth. Full stop.

askdjso 10y ago

I know a local "artist" that lives off Instagram and not her "art". She publishes all her "songs" on Youtube for free, and lives off sponsored content on Instagram and media appearances. Is she lazy and getting "free-money"? no. Is she talented? also no.

Freak_NL 10y ago
She's just gaming a system that rewards her output. Whether the advertisers are getting a good return on investment is debatable, but apparently they are convinced that advertising on her channel is worth it. The only drawback is that she might be investing a good part of her career in something that may prove prone to inflation and whim.
WA 10y ago
Since when is the commercial aspect of art about talent?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

razakel 10y ago

I'm with Bill Hicks when it comes to advertising and marketing. I adblock. I pirate. I don't use Facebook or other social networking sites. I don't want advertising in my life. It's propaganda. It shits in your head. If there's anybody reading this who works in those industries: you thought Generation X was cynical?

mozumder 10y ago
Bill Hicks never figured out the meaning of life. The entire purpose of life is to market. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth so that you're more marketable than the slob that doesn't. Everything you do can be traced back to marketing. The more people understand that, the better off they will be at handling life.
- razakel 10y ago
  >The entire purpose of life is to market. Maybe my target market isn't slavish devotees of a vapid consumerist culture who assert their identity with commercial brands?
  - mozumder 10y ago
    You know your marketing yourself right now with your statements to the audience here, right? An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture...
    - razakel 10y ago
      >You know your marketing yourself right now with your statements to the audience here, right? I understand your sentiment, but I believe that's a toxic worldview. >An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture... I am criticising consumerism, not capitalism.
      - sooheon 10y ago
        Interesting, what do you think is the distinction? The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism. And the biggest driver of the consumerist mind is capitalist manipulation. They feed off of each other, and are so intertwined that it's hardly useful to refer to one without acknowledging that it comes with the other.

tempestn 10y ago

> “You sell part of your soul. Because no matter what beautiful moment you enjoy in your life, you’re going to want to take a photo and share it. Distinguishing between when is it my life and when am I creating content is a really big burden.” I didn't realize just how realistic that Black Mirror episode was.

Illniyar 10y ago

So he hired a bot for a month to do 30,000 likes. Anyone wonder how many of his own likes are from bots? All this social media advertisement seems like one big fraud to me - from profile farms to click frauds, has any of the people buying the ads actually attempted to verify the actual increase in sales? Or maybe it just looks good in powerpoints when showing to the clients where the money is spent.

SuperPaintMan 10y ago
There's a good chance if you do not recognize the user liking your post, it's a bot hoping to get a followback. Yeah it's fraud up and down the feed, and it looks great in spreadsheets. IG provides metrics on profile views and website clicks, that's one way to measure engagement as bots will usually skip that.

jokoon 10y ago

The more I read about that, the more I want to start an instagram of a stereotypical loser.

razakel 10y ago
>The more I read about that, the more I want to start an instagram of a stereotypical loser. It wouldn't be popular. People crave escapism. The very fact that you're satirising exactly that is what defeats the purpose.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  You'd be surprised. Everything can be sold. Companies have figured out how to monetize anticonsumerism long time ago. Related: Black Mirror, S01E02 - Fifteen Million Merits.
- jokoon 10y ago
  I think it would. I'm sure many people would relate to it. /r/me_irl has a success of its own. There are many many people who feel guilty because their life could be more successful. It's a very hard thing to unroot out of your mind, but laughing about it is a huge relief.

johndoe4589 10y ago

Was just thinking about this recently as I started following a few people. We are increasingly living in a world of fiction. Previously it was mainly fed through television. You'd grow up on television series, and as a young man/woman you'd try to be cool like them, dress like them, talk like them. You build your world view around "influential" portrayals. Nowadays, we haven't freed ourself from media controlled television at all. It's actually worse, because now advertising is blurring the lines even more between real people and fiction. We eat and breathe fiction, then we live our own life trying to resemble it. Nothing is new there. But what's new for me is I started to recognize that fiction in and of itself is probably as detrimental to our society as fear is. It's well known that fear drives self centered way of life and when we are in survival mode, we just don't make good choices and we lack compassion. Lately I'm thinking that fiction, on a collective scale, is just as bad as fear. It keeps us unconscious. Just like fear it dissociates us from what we are, and from one another. It's really detrimental to us as individuals, and as a society. Unlike fear, it isn't immediately felt in the stomach.. so there is no sense of urgency.. And yet it is there... one just looks at the world to see the massive disconnect in our life on a day to day basis. I guess fear and fiction are best friends. Fear drives us to dissociate, and fiction provides the perfect happy place to dissociate. John Berger, Ways of Seeing "But where is this other way of life?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY

qznc 10y ago
I don't think that we are increasingly living in a world of fiction. We always have. It is human. Kids believe in Santa Claus, adults believe Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Some believe in Mohammed, Jesus, Jahwe, or Dharma. Some believe they will become rich in Silicon Valley, others on Wallstreet. Some believe in articles from mainstream media, some don't. Many people have dreams for their future, which is just fiction they are telling themselves. You consider these thoughts dark or cynical. Why? Humans have built an amazing civilization with a global economy and messaging travel across the globe in milliseconds. We did all this as fallible meat bags believing in dreams and telling each other mostly false stories. That is a great story as well. ;)
- 10y ago

yk 10y ago

> (#ad #sp #liveauthentic) In some literary critique sense, it does not so much seem hollow as it seems like authentic expression of our time. The fact that people authentically believe in success in social media does not invalidate their dreams.

johndoez 10y ago

Influencer marketing will boom with the launch of social commerce. But startups need to be careful about advertising regulation. If someone has paid for a promotion, then it will have to be tagged as such, like Sponsored Ad.

Guyag 10y ago
I don't think tagging with something like #ad or #sponsored does nearly enough, especially if hidden amongst a bunch of other tags. (edit: And #sp - are you kidding me?) Traditional ads are obvious through specific placement on the page (sidebars) and/or a prominent "Advertisement" or "Sponsored" label and/or moreover simply having the general look and feel of a 'traditional' advert. When your favourite media personality is gushing about some product it's really easy to forget it's an advert and they're being paid for it. I know that's what makes it great for marketing purposes, but it feels seriously dishonest and (to me) represents a decline in our standards.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  These type of advertisements are already garnering interest from national regulators. One reason is that a lot of these influencers have a lot of children and teens amongst their followers (think beauty vloggers on YouTube). Most countries have laws regulating advertising aimed at minors. By using popular social media channels brands can circumvent this limitation by simply buying advertising space from local influencers with predominantly teen or pre-teen follower demographics.

auganov 10y ago

Such a weird article. It's written as if he already had a large following and got on to monetize it. But it looks like a fresh account and in the end, he failed to gain any real momentum. Which goes to show that establishing genuine rapport still matters. Why would you even go from posting cat pictures to vaguely fashion/glamor content? Bloomberg should do what these scouts do - find a person that already has traction and pay them to journal their monetization process.

chris_wot 10y ago

Fuck this for a joke. Thank goodness I'm not on any of these services, or even using them! It's bad enough I use Facebook, but the Instagrams of our time are just ridiculous.

nojvek 10y ago

This is the sole reason why I liked snapchat. But now snapchat is getting so popular, the ads are being forced in my face. I'm gonna a probably jump ship to something less invasive.

alkonaut 10y ago

More than two hashtags on a photo is an instant unfollow. Obvious paid shot? Same. Idk who enjoys following what's essentially just an ad? You can get glossy ad pics in a magazine?