CS371 Blog Post 4 - Ashley Pirillo

 Hi there,

Following the midterm, it seemed appropriate to discuss the Standage reading, more specifically the pages referencing Robin Dunbar's number and use it with the concept of authenticity. This was the idea that the average human can only maintain a personal and reciprocal relationship with 150 individuals before some would be strangers to others (Standage, 2013). It is unrealistic to be able to know that many people and have everyone interact beyond an acquaintance level. 

Personally speaking, as a longtime Instagram user, I have built a decent following and at first, this made me feel cool. Now, after I post a picture or post a story, I see names that I do not recognize at all. It makes me wonder who I have let follow me just to see my followers climb and appear more popular. In elementary school and high school, my friends and I would use how many followers someone had to to determine how attractive and admired they were. The more followers they had became an indication that they were popular and more people liked them or thought they were cool. In addition to that, the ratio of followers to following played a factor. Celebrities or influencers typically have a substantial amount of followers and follow a lot less accounts. You will never see a celebrity with a small following and I have attached some screenshots of this below. This supports the idea that the more attention an account get, the more important the account holder becomes.

The understanding that having many followers is equivalent to being popular, is a problem in itself. Making these numbers visible encourages users to make this central to their online existence. This promotes inauthentic behaviour because if one's primary concern surrounds how many followers or likes they get, then they lose the innocent social aspect of just posting because they want to. To a certain degree, social media lets users control how they are perceived online and this has made it easier for them to put forth the person they want to be rather than the person they are. In summation, we are constantly driven by the opinions of others and make decisions that we know will validate us. 





Comments

  1. Jake RybakNovember 9, 2022 at 1:49 PM

    Hey Ashley,
    Great post! I completely agree with you as a lot of my Instagram followers consist of people that I have not even met in person or would not consider myself to have close relations with. You raise a really good point when you talk about how the follower numbers on instagram are public and influence others to strive for this level of 'popularity'. If instagram made followers private similar to how they did for the likes on a post, I think this could devalue the importance of validation from others. It is a shame to see people make posts and I know that the post does not reflect who they truly are and that they are just conforming to the culture of social media.
    Jake

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  2. Elizabeth KvilNovember 13, 2022 at 3:19 PM

    Hi Ashley!
    I really enjoyed reading your post. I also agree that when posting an instagram story or a post it does not make people feel better about themselves anymore. I have also built myself a decent following but I know less than half people that follow me which does not make me feel the best. I would rather build closer connections and keep a small instagram page where I know everyone. You are completely right, celebrities and influencers have influenced people that it is better to have a large following so that you receive sponsors, free things, etc. This makes people want to become 'famous' even more. Overall, we do not have to be validated by others as it is a toxic mindset to have especially on social media

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erika PerliniDecember 5, 2022 at 10:42 AM

    Hi Ashley, I really enjoyed your post! I completely agree as this was my mentality as-well in elementary and high school. Now most of my instagram consist of followers I do not recognize. This does demonstrate the inauthenticity Baym discusses on these popular social media site, as users would rather have a bigger following , than a few good friends to interact with. I feel If we followed Dunbars number and social media sites set a max of 150 followers, Instagram for instance, could be a lot more real and authentic and users might not feel obligated to edit or embellish their posts.

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