The Orgy of Social Capital
Social Capital is one of the most beautiful parts of social media that I never thought about. Basically, if you work hard enough and get into contact with someone that is also working hard, you both reap the benefits.
The perfect example of this starts with a 23 year old guy by the name David Dobrik.
Dobrik began his Social Capital after becoming popular on the now deceased app Vine. The popularity of his content led to brands reaching out to him to advertise their services/products. In his popular podcast “Views” Dobrik tells the story about the first time he was paid to make a vine, and how the $400 changed his life. Once gaining a large following, Dobrik would make anywhere from $1,000–$3,500 a week from the app.
This is where the orgy started. Dobrik wasn’t alone in his growing fame, for he also had a large group of solid friends who were also creating vines and starting to earn revenue. Altogether, the group was feeding off each other and creating a Social Capital like no other. If you found one of the group members, you easily became engaged with the entire group.
This was the sweet life, until news broke that Vine was going to end.
The gang of viners were panicked, until Dobrik took upon the concept of vlogging.
This began “The Vlog Squad”.
Dobrik crafted the perfect layout of short videos filled with the greatest highlights of his crazy life. In 4 minutes and 20 seconds you can see Dobrik and his friends partying like animals, doing pranks, stunts, meeting celebrities, and giving away money and cars. Dobrik’s most popular videos involve him gifting other members of the group expensive cars.
The Social Capital starts with David. After you watch a couple of his videos, and because they are so short it’s so easy to binge watch a dozen, you start to favor certain characters within the “squad”. David features these people, and by featuring them they also get in on the action. Each of the members has their own youtube channel where they upload their own content, where they also feature the same members of the group introduced by Dobrik’s videos. The entire “squad” is successful, and has been able to branch out into different platforms using their own claimed Social Capital. Most of the members have their own podcasts, Tik Tok, and large following twitter accounts. Each member also has a variety of merchandise sold through one of David’s sponsors — Fanjoy.
Dobrik now has made television appearances, hosted the Kid Choice Awards, and met and kept in contact with movie stars, musicians, and other famous figures.
The interweaving of friendships, accounts, and profit is the most perfect and strategic Social Capital I can identify today. I’m sure Dobrik had no idea what he was doing when he designed the perfect formula for success, but he is now one of many successful influencers on the Youtube platform. However, in Dobrik’s case, he does not succeed alone and has brought fortune upon his group — creating a Social Capital empire.
