THE
THE
INFLUENCER
INFLUENCER
PLEDGE PLEDGE
You are
Already
Virtual
“The other night I had a weird dream. I was flying through this grey atmosphere, around these huge unfathomable structures, but completely at ease. I could roam anywhere I wanted and felt amazingly at home. I could study the structures in close detail, see the flaws, marvel at their spider thin immense volumes.
It was only the next day, when I switched on my computer, that I realised I was dreaming in Rhinoceros ver 2.0.”
When you log onto the net, your mind leaves your body. You are inhabiting another world, another body, another reality. Are you someone else? Are you comfortable? Are you scared? Are you happy?
What reality will your children experience? The Cyberpets they will carry in their pockets are “alive”. What makes you think this love for the virtual is less than the love for your dog, your friends, your ageing mother? The line between the real and the virtual is gone.
God doesn’t live in the Real world. Cyberspace is where your Money is. It is increasingly where you make or break your life. How do you think you will change as a person? As a community? As a citizen of two nations?
We are witnessing Eco-cide. The destruction of the Living Planet as we know it. The Natural world is dying. It is no longer our only option. The customisable comfort of Cyberspace is a warm embrace.
Plugging
In is
release.
In the 1990s, British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar investigated the correlation between the size of the Primate Brain, and the average sizes of their Social groups. By using the Average Human Brain size and extrapolating from his results with other primates, he proposed that humans could comfortably maintain approximately 150 stable relationships.
Our Instagram follower groups frequently and vastly exceed this number. We as a “highly evolved primate” species are still grappling with what it means to be part of a connected tribe of this size.
The mind-boggling sizes of these networks cannot be visualised by our primate brains. The grammar of anonymity, of being an overly aggressive part of a virtual mob, of being a subservient voyeuristic worshipper of a new species of thought leader, is still evolving.
There may be a clue to trolling, heckling and deviant behaviour here. The power of group-speak and anonymity creates a secure blanket for a type of language and behaviour that we cannot exercise in the real world. How does a primate brain reconcile with living in two worlds, and how far can we push our perception of these worlds before they melt together permanently ?
Our innate tribalistic instincts, honed all those millennia ago on the open Savannah push us into self-similar echo chambers, fiercely guarding our little beliefponds, violently attacking the perceived “Other”. Our ape-minds get overcome by the urge to conform and belong, baring our teeth and the other pack, aggressively protecting our tiny plate of virtual real estate.
“Imagine you are given a pair of eyeglasses and asked to wear them continuously for several days. Slipping them on you discover that the lenses distort what you see; all vertical lines, such as the edges of walls or buildings, look somewhat curved. Your world, naturally seems bent out of shape, a Distortion of perceived Reality. But what happens next?
As the perception psychologist James Gibson discovered in 1993, at Smith College in Massachusetts, the mind adapts over time. Eventually the curved lines come to be seen as straight ones. Just as surprising was Gibson’s next experiment. As soon as the glasses are removed, the mind compensates. The curved lines show up again, but arcing in the opposite direction.
What this experiment really shows is the mind’s willingness to ignore immediate reality in favour of another more important one. Your perception of reality at any given moment, flows from much more than just direct sensory input. It derives from cumulative experience with the goal of adapting to whatever reality presently counts, whether earthly or synthetic, moral or immoral, Real or Virtual” The Great Escape Richard Degrandpre
What is the grammar of this experience ? What is the behaviour protocol for a group this size? What are the ethical boundaries of this kind of congregation?
What does it mean to have “Followers”? Why does each “Like” create a tiny dopamine rush in our brain? Is this the new definition of Internet Junkie? Maybe we can trace the boundaries of these questions by visualising this group.
Never before in Human history has a single individual been able to broadcast and feed off a group this size. Daily.
Size
Does
Matter
Lets think about what it means to have a number of “followers” who supply you your daily Dopamine diet. Imagine yourself in one of these social situations, with a microphone in your hand. You have the power now to address all these people.
House party
20 followers
Mid sized wedding
100 followers
Anti-Social ( Full capacity )
500 followers
Magnetic Fields Festival
5000 followers
NH7 Weekender
25000 followers
Eden Garden Kolkata
68000 followers
Wembley London
90,000 followers
Inauguration of Donald Trump
450,000 followers
Royal Wedding ( Prince William )
1M followers
Indian Army ( entire strength )
1.4M followers
Inauguration of Barack Obama
1.8M followers
Ha jj Pilgrimage
2.8M followers
Kumbh Mela ( Haridwar )
80M followers
It is overwhelmingly impossible to imagine a human mind conceiving of a congregation of this size, let along knowing how to address this daily gathering.
If this visualisation does anything, it tries to draw our attention towards where we as a networked culture assign value. As we discover and write the means of engagement, we should endeavour to allow the network to harness the best of us.
The most liked Instagram post record is currently held by an Egg. As of now it has 54.3 Million likes.
All too often someone with access to a crowd and platform the size of a packed Wembley Stadium spouts violent, divisive or even deeply disturbing content.
Almost daily an Influencer will try to sell to his/her followers a Vacuum cleaner, a Vacation, or an object of Vanity.
To make sense of this massive disparity between our natural social group instinct, and the illusion created by this massive congregation of virtual followers, we propose a Pledge.
Imagine we weren’t in an online relationship. Imagine we were at dinner together.
Imagine that every item on the dinner table was endorsed or sponsored in some way by some corporation, and I was being paid every time you take a bite. The glass of wine, the coaster below it, the table-cloth. All for sale.
Now imagine that I secretly got paid by my sponsor for every wink, nod, word, question, reply or laugh that left your mouth. Once you found out about this, how would it make you feel?
THE
THE
INFLUENCER
INFLUENCER
PLEDGE PLEDGE
01 The average person will spend up to eight months of their life on Instagram.
I Pledge to reduce this a bit.
02 Instagram has over 95 Million fake profiles and bots posing as real accounts. Some follow me.
I pledge not to believe the Hype.
03
I pledge to use Reality check engines like https://igaudit.io
04 Instagram Influencer marketing is a $1.7 Billion Industry, and could reach $2.3 Billion by 2020. We both know this.
I Pledge to not sell your attention for cheap.
05 We are now part of a complicated trust-based marketplace. I am a friend you think you know. You can even buy a relationship with me in online marketplaces like Musefind.
I Pledge to BE OPEN ABOUT THE BENEFITS of SELLING YOUR ATTENTION.
06 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.
I Pledge to not barter your trust for personal lifestyle perks.
07 Most brands struggle with not having quality content, breaking through the noise and media clutter and an inability to create a trustbased brand identity.
I Pledge to SEPARATE THE TRUST YOU PLACE IN ME FROM BRANDS I AM SELLING TO YOU.
08 The prevalence of social bots and the purchase of fake followers is rampant. Influencers literally purchase followers using sponsored posts and content that is created to get the most “likes”.
I Pledge to NOT PURCHASE FOLLOWERS TO BOOST MY “PROFILE”.
09 My “Influence” is a counted and quantified number of followers, shares, likes, comments and replies to comments. This is how I monetise our time together.
I Pledge to be aware that we are in a “quantified” relationship
10 I am now a commodity in the Marketeer system, and my lifestyle, preferences, personal viewpoints and beliefs will be customised to be able to sell you a product or an experience.
I Pledge to not be an asshole.