Instagram has driven what can only be categorized as an explosion of social wealth for the largest celebrities and influencers over the last few years.
For generations, celebrities essentially were products sold through a large and complicated media and entertainment ecosystem, and their message and longevity was managed by the production companies, agencies and platforms that distributed their content.
The meteoric growth of Instagram has given them nearly direct personal access to tens and even hundreds of millions of fans that they can take with them and speak to as they please.
At a minimum, this direct influence dramatically loosens the hold the traditional system had over celebrity.
But I believe that the impact is even more dramatic. Instagram is causing the model to flip entirely, so that now celebrities are the platforms and owners of “social capital” and the media services are now merely products that they use as they see fit. The celebrities are the gatekeepers, rather than the other way around.
I am fascinated by the question of what happens from here, after the gold rush of social influence we have lived through over the last few years.
Traditionally, celebrities and their social capital rise and fall. When the media platforms were dominant, they would cycle their celebrity product lines—as one aged, she or he would replace it with a new, younger model.
But if the model is now flipped, and the winners of the social capital gold rush of Instagram are now in charge, do we face a possible future where the same stars are relevant and powerful for a generation or more? Will our grandkids know who the Kardashians and Beyonce are the way we know Disney? If not, what might lead to the downfall of the new social capital “billionaire class?”
I see three possible paths forward. First, it could be that today’s influencers will remain dominant for a long time, and that their social capital will prove highly portable across technology platforms and products as they evolve. The second possibility is that it will turn out that the social capital of influencers is more tied to specific platforms, and the emergence of new platforms, perhaps taking forms we can barely anticipate currently, will continuously inflate and evolve social capital and limit the long-term dominance of today’s influencers. Finally, it could be that the technology platforms themselves decide to intentionally evolve their products to create opportunities for new influencers, eroding existing influencers in favor of new entrants over time.
The Social Media Gold Rush and Case for Dynastic Celebrity
The first option is that the Kardashians are the modern Disney, that Kim is Mickey Mouse, and we have already witnessed the social equivalent of Steamboat Willie.
There are a few key pieces that make up this argument.
First, we have already lived through the explosion of the mobile internet in general and of Instagram in particular. Smartphone growth is dramatically slowing.
In the U.S., Instagram has already achieved practical ubiquity, and while the numbers are still growing, the growth rate is coming down dramatically. We are unlikely to see another major moment of platform disruption anytime soon that creates a new opportunity for upending the social capital structure now in place. The gold rush is over.
Second, even if a new app or experience came out, modern celebrities are now trained to skate to where the puck is going. I think it will be very hard in the U.S. at least for any app to displace Instagram as the center of celebrity influence anytime in the foreseeable future, but even if something came out of left field, the celebrities would easily move to the new platform users were adopting. Their social capital is fully fungible between platforms, and many have already demonstrated that by moving successfully from Snap to Instagram.
Third, and this is the biggest leap, technology and savvy strategy are going to keep the existing celebrity brands stronger for far longer than they could have been historically.
Everyone is now aware of the social and political challenge of “deep fakes,” but the way the same technology is going to be commercially viable is by keeping celebrities looking young, awesome and fun forever. The photo filters and airbrushing of today are going to evolve into full recreations soon enough, so Kim will look whatever age she wants for as long as she wants… and even if she tires of going to the photo shoots, it won’t matter.
It isn’t just that this generation of insta-celebrities were well timed to take advantage of the explosion of Instagram, they are also very likely going to get to take advantage of photo-realistic recreations of themselves, which can both keep them looking like whatever they want, and will also let them personalize experiences for their followers in ways they could never possibly do as human characters alone.
Finally, I will reference my favorite argument about the untaxed nature of social capital. Because their influence isn’t taxed like a financial asset, the power of these stars will likely compound even faster than financial capital. The influencers of today can extend their reach and power (and monetization) by identifying and seeding other micro-influencers’ distribution in return for financial or social reach tax-free. The Kardashians have executed this cross-promotion brilliantly within the family—this strategy will only compound and lead to a world where if you want broad social power, you will have to be under the influence of one of the social media “families.”
The Weak but Real Case for Platform Turnover
One easy counter-argument to the above thesis is that it is myopic to believe that we won’t see platform turnover that would create opportunities for disruption of social capital and influence.
We have already gone through an early era of Myspace influencers who completely disappeared. We have also already gone through a Twitter era, where there are still many influencers, but their scale is simply eclipsed by Instagram.
At some point something will supplant Instagram, and while it will likely continue to exist, that new thing will shift power dramatically enough in terms of reach and influence that it will upend the “dynastic celebrity” thesis.
The platform turnover could come in some international form, say, from China, where there are many big apps, and more born all the time. (Still, I think this is unlikely, and that celebrity is one of the last things the U.S. will hold on to in the global marketplace.)
The platform turnover could come out of virtual reality or augmented reality. It is possible that if a future experience on a new computing platform is different enough, it could be hard for celebrities to make the leap.
It could also be that the platform turnover comes in some form we can’t yet fully describe from AI-based characters in some new entertainment ecosystem. The case of @lilmiquela, the venture-backed virtual character on instagram with 1.5 million followers, is the writing on the wall that just as influencers over time will become more engaging fictional characters, fictional characters also will invade our real-world landscapes with a vengeance.
Personally, I believe that the internet and mobile are mature enough that platform turnover isn’t highly likely anytime soon. I also think, as I stated above, that celebrities will be easily able to work through tech platform turnover, but it is possible that platform turnover would change the equation.
Social Inflation and the Case for Product Turnover Within Platforms
The outcome I believe is far more probable is either intentional or accidental economic social inflation driven by the platforms themselves by introducing new features for young users.
If you consider social capital just like any other capital, then there is inherently a concept of “inflation” where, as new social capital is generated, the value of existing social capital erodes. If you consider the technology platforms the central bankers of social capital, then they can, through product decisions, in theory manage the rate at which new social capital is formed, and how new capital is allocated. It is completely plausible that over time the technology platforms will get more intentional about exactly how they manage the power of existing and new celebrities on their platforms.
I used to strongly believe that there was a correct answer to the question of social platform design, and that the platform that ultimately triumphed would be the one that properly built the core functionality and systems needed to digitize human speech and communication.
But I am increasingly convinced by the argument that there is no abstractly correct way to design these systems. Instead, the mediums and networks themselves are just content that over time gets stale and needs to be refreshed or changed to continue to be engaging.
In this version of the world, the successful platforms are the ones that are designed to be able to introduce and refresh functionality in ways that give new people joining for the first time opportunities to “win” and carve out their own spaces versus entering an old game they are already behind in.
Much like the cycles of fashion or music, this is how you justify things like “stories” (a form of media I personally detest—but intellectually understand as new space for younger people to express themselves and own).
You can think of these new features and spaces introduced by the platforms almost as a social capital inflation function, which erodes the social wealth and reach of those that are unable or unwilling to adapt to the new formats, and creates new space for new voices.
You could imagine a world where the platforms very explicitly and intentionally decide to promote social inflation by introducing new functionality and formats to create new space for new influencers, and limit the power of the biggest influencers over time. This would feel like the technology platforms asserting their own version of what the Hollywood-media ecosystem did to celebrities in the past.
You also could imagine a more benign world where the platforms realize this type of perpetual feature introduction and expansion is necessary for their own retention, and any impact on influencers is incidental.
Either way, this is a plausible check in my mind on a world of runaway influencer power.
Just Like the Cash Economy
In the end, the question of how to manage this new inequality in the social capital economy (and how to feel about the winners and losers) really ends up breaking down to the same options we have for the cash-based economy.
We can accept compounding wealth, add inflation, which makes existing wealth less valuable, or try upend the system. We can also choose to accept some of the random walk to it all—where some people were well-positioned and timed and others were not—or begrudge it.
But at least we should understand it and contemplate the realistic options for how the future unfolds, because it does matter, and will shape our global society.