How Gossip is Policing Social Media Influencers
When everyone is judging your every online move
I am fascinated by this new career in our time, called social media influencers.
According to the Influencer marketing hub, an influencer is someone who has the power to influence others’ purchasing decisions based on his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship, and a following in a distinct niche whom he or she actively engages with.
Influencers’ impact on marketing has been disruptive, to say the least. Some influencers are even more popular than celebrities.
I follow a few influencers on Instagram and Youtube and have started noticing a trend developing past few years that became so obvious and noticeable especially in the past 12 months.
Now everyone is an environmentalist.
Everyone is all showcasing how they are striving to use less plastic and create less waste. Zero waste and minimal life are all hot newly emerging trends. They all obsess over and promote ethical products that claim to minimize negative environmental impact in their production.
I am not complaining. This is a great movement of our time. I am glad to see people are becoming more conscious as consumers and concerned about the environment. I am inspired and eager to follow some of the shared tips.
I just find it interesting that a fashion influencer all of sudden, starts to comment, rather sheepishly, on how she is less into fast fashion and more into ethical brands now. She starts creating content about how last year’s fashion items can still be fashionable this year. It is a dramatic change; she used to buy heaps of clothing and shoes every week in her past shopping haul videos.
Another influencer shows off her zero plastic grocery haul. I distinctly remember her past meal prep videos where she had basically every food item wrapped with the plastic. Now she is making a conscious effort to shop where those plastic packagings are seldom used, and making sure her followers know that she is anti-plastic.
Other fashion and diet bloggers and influencers follow suit, some to a further and some to a lesser extent. At least in the social media world, it seems clear that a tide has turned, and being a responsible consumer is a societal duty expected of everyone.
I see a lot of comments from the followers and passers-by. They offer compliments and encouragement. Some show admiration. Some others suggest on how the influencers can do more.
I think I know what’s up. These were the same people who called out the irresponsibility of promoting fast fashion, who pointed excessive plastic wrappings and got lots of likes from other audiences.
Influencers are all being influenced by all the judgmental gossips happening in the comment section.
According to the most widely recognized theory on the evolution of gossip, gossip evolved as a social tool to develop social bonds and trust, and to effectively communicate social norms and keep bad behaviors in check. As ancestral humans moved from a small hunter-gatherer society to larger communities, this was necessary to promote cohesion and mitigate the negative impacts of the free riders who exploit the goodwill of others and do not contribute for the good of the community.
Evolution Institute, a non-profit think tank based in Florida that seeks to apply evolutionary science to solve global social issues, believes that the evolutionary theory of gossip as a tool for cooperation and accountability can be used to encourage responsible behavior on social media.
According to Wilson, the co-founder of Evolution Institute, there are three conditions required for gossip to work as a regulator of behaviors.
I broke down the three conditions below to see how gossip is policing the Influencers.
First, there must be agreed-upon norms for what is and is not appropriate.
There is an increasing public awareness on global issues such as climate change and the environmental impacts of consumerism. The new norm we as a society are setting and solidifying, at least on the social media front, seems to be around being responsible consumers.
Second, it must be possible for group members to detect when those norms have been deviated from.
As social media influencers offer more and more peeks into their private lives to engage with their followers, it is becoming increasingly easy for the judgmental audience to find and freely comment on faults and every aspect of their lives. From what I can observe, certain anonymity offered by social media also encourages this behavior.
Third, it must be possible to punish the offender if they do not adjust their behavior.
Social media influencers are people pleasers. Their influence is based on their reputations and the number of followers. They cannot afford to ignore popular negative comments on their social media posts in fear of losing their followers. So they adjust their behaviors and conform. They become new ambassadors of change.
We certainly live in an interesting time where social media shapes many aspects of our lives. With COVID19 pandemic, everyone is spending more time than ever on screen.
Our understanding of how gossip evolved and what function it serves in today’s communities may provide significant insights into how we as a society, can responsibly use social media to introduce and strengthen new norms, foster greater cooperation and accountability, and discourage bad behaviors.
