AUDIENCE CAPTURE - How "Influencers" Become Brainwashed by Their Audiences

Social media’s combination of global reach,

performance metrics, platform design, content

format, and algorithmic interference have changed

how creators make for others, and how others

perceive and interact with creators' work.

The results are an eternal presence, persistent

feedback, an unrealistic expectation of virality,

harmful social comparison, crea

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The problem is, we no longer live solely among those we know well. We're now forced to refine our personalities by the countless eyes of strangers. And this has begun to affect the process by which we develop our identities.

This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized world lures us to be who strangers wish us to be. And with personal development so arduous and lonely, there is ease and comfort in crowdsourcing your identity. But amid such temptations, it's worth re... See more