Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

Are we start­ing to mim­ic social media influencers? 

I’m a digit­al PR expert, but I’m also a reg­u­lar social media user. I fol­low friends, fam­ily, and acquaint­ances on my social media accounts. And some­thing seems to be … off.

In this blog post, I’ll dis­cuss a form of online wan­nabeism; how reg­u­lar people in your feeds are sud­denly start­ing to talk and act like influ­en­cers — des­pite hav­ing no real audi­ences to address.

Here we go:

Online Wannebeism

Online Wannabeism

The wide­spread beha­viour where non-influ­en­cers mim­ic influ­en­cer man­ner­isms is fas­cin­at­ing — and some­what sad. ¹“Our res­ults con­firm that the five aspects of influ­en­cing posts affect con­sumers’ atti­tudes pos­it­ively and sig­ni­fic­antly, which in turn leads to pos­it­ive beha­vi­our­al out­comes through their desire … Continue read­ing

Online Wannabeism = when a reg­u­lar social media user mim­ics influ­en­cer man­ner­isms while cre­at­ing con­tent; a form of aspir­a­tion­al role­play in front of an ima­gined audience.

We might not all be influ­en­cers, but that does­n’t stop us from mim­ick­ing their beha­viours when we cre­ate and pub­lish content.

“The main-test res­ults, using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) ana­lys­is via AMOS 23, con­firmed that the con­cep­tu­al mod­el and all the hypo­thes­ised rela­tion­ships were stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant. Further, the boot­strap res­ults demon­strated that a target’s mim­icry desire indeed served as a sig­ni­fic­ant medi­at­or link­ing the target’s atti­tu­din­al beliefs to beha­vi­our­al decisions.”
Source: University of Tennessee ²Ki, C. (2018, March). The Drivers and Impacts of Social Media Influencers: The Role of Mimicry. University of Tennessee. https://​core​.ac​.uk/​d​o​w​n​l​o​a​d​/​p​d​f​/​2​6​8​7​9​9​9​2​1​.​pdf

The Social Mirror Theory

Where does this online wan­nabeism stem from?

The social mir­ror the­ory (SMT) states that “[…] people are incap­able of self-reflec­tion without con­sid­er­ing a peer’s inter­pret­a­tion of the exper­i­ence. In oth­er words, people define and resolve their intern­al mus­ings through other’s view­point.” ³Social mir­ror the­ory. (2023, July 21). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​o​c​i​a​l​_​m​i​r​r​o​r​_​t​h​e​ory

SMT is a psy­cho­lo­gic­al concept that sug­gests that people learn to see them­selves and their iden­tit­ies through how oth­ers react to them. The the­ory sug­gests that people use the reac­tions of oth­ers as a “mir­ror” to under­stand and form their sense of self.

Social Media Loneliness

Online influ­en­cers are typ­ic­ally suc­cess­ful by being con­sist­ently unique, evolving, and enter­tain­ing. While massive online fame is tax­ing for most influ­en­cers, they keep going to stay relevant.

Still, an influ­en­cer can­not sus­tain that many sim­ul­tan­eous two-way rela­tion­ships. So, these rela­tion­ships are one-sided in nature.

Put in oth­er words:

I feel for us. Having advised hun­dreds of brands, I know that the most com­mon chal­lenge isn’t bad PR… it’s no PR.

“Take a selfie, fake a life.” ⁴Silfwer, J. (2019, March 2). The Selfie Generation: An Epidemic of Online Narcissism. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​e​l​f​i​e​-​g​e​n​e​r​a​t​i​on/

Learn more: Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

The Anatomy of Attention

The Anatomy of Attention

Attention is an essen­tial com­pon­ent of pub­lic relations:

And it’s not just organ­isa­tions. We all seem to crave atten­tion in some form or another:

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

It’s fear of social isol­a­tion—and atten­tion star­va­tion.

Types of Attention

But what con­sti­tutes ‘atten­tion’?

“Attention is a com­plex, real neur­al archi­tec­ture (‘RNA’) mod­el that integ­rates vari­ous cog­nit­ive mod­els and brain cen­ters to per­form tasks like visu­al search.”
Source: Trends in cog­nit­ive sci­ences ⁵Shipp, S. (2004). The brain cir­cuitry of atten­tion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 223 – 230. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​t​i​c​s​.​2​0​0​4​.​0​3​.​004

Each of the below terms refers to a spe­cif­ic aspect or type of atten­tion (“men­tal band­width”), a com­plex cog­nit­ive pro­cess. ⁶Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. … Continue read­ing

Let’s explore dif­fer­ent types of attention:

Each type of atten­tion is likely to play a role in how we inter­act with and pro­cess inform­a­tion from our envir­on­ment, and under­stand­ing these dif­fer­ent aspects is key in fields like psy­cho­logy, neur­os­cience, and education.

Learn more: The Anatomy of Attention

Dunbar’s Number

150 — Dunbar’s Number

Robin Dunbar, a British anthro­po­lo­gist and evol­u­tion­ary psy­cho­lo­gist, pro­posed what’s known as “Dunbar’s Number” — a the­ory sug­gest­ing that humans can only com­fort­ably main­tain about 150 stable rela­tion­ships. ⁷Dunbar, R. I. M. (1998). The social brain hypo­thes­is. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 6(5), 178 – 190.

This includes fam­ily, friends, col­leagues, and oth­ers with whom a per­son can keep mean­ing­ful con­tact. Beyond this num­ber, the qual­ity of rela­tion­ships can dimin­ish due to the lim­it­a­tions in our men­tal band­width. ⁸Silfwer, J. (2012, April 14). Social Group Sizes (The Social Brain Hypothesis). Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​g​r​o​u​p​-​s​i​z​es/

“Dunbar’s num­ber is a sug­ges­ted cog­nit­ive lim­it to the num­ber of people with whom one can main­tain stable social rela­tion­ships. […] No pre­cise value has been pro­posed for Dunbar’s num­ber. It has been pro­posed to lie between 100 and 230, with a com­monly used value of 150. Dunbar’s num­ber states the num­ber of people one knows and keeps social con­tact with, and it does not include the num­ber of people known per­son­ally with a ceased social rela­tion­ship, nor people just gen­er­ally known with a lack of per­sist­ent social rela­tion­ship, a num­ber which might be much high­er and likely depends on long-term memory size.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁹Dunbar’s num­ber. (2023, May 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

According to Dunbar, this lim­it is a dir­ect func­tion of rel­at­ive neo­cor­tex size, which con­strains our abil­ity to keep track of com­plex social rela­tion­ships. ¹⁰It’s worth not­ing that the concept of Dunbar’s Number has been debated and scru­tin­ised with­in the sci­entif­ic com­munity.

Learn more: 150 — Dunbar’s Number

Typical Social Group Sizes

Social Group Sizes (For Social Brains)

How many social con­nec­tions you you com­fort­ably sus­tain? According to the social brain hypo­thes­is, lim­its exist. ¹¹Zhou WX, Sornette D, Hill RA, Dunbar RI. Discrete hier­arch­ic­al organ­iz­a­tion of social group sizes. Proc Biol Sci. 2005 Feb 22;272(1561):439 – 44.

“The ‘social brain hypo­thes­is’ for the evol­u­tion of large brains in prim­ates has led to evid­ence for the coe­volu­tion of neo­cor­tic­al size and social group sizes, sug­gest­ing that there is a cog­nit­ive con­straint on group size that depends, in some way, on the volume of neur­al mater­i­al avail­able for pro­cessing and syn­thes­iz­ing inform­a­tion on social rela­tion­ships.”
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences ¹²Zhou, X., Sornette, D., Hill, R. A., & M. Dunbar, R. I. (2005). Discrete hier­arch­ic­al organ­iz­a­tion of social group sizes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1561), … Continue read­ing

Scientific evid­ence sug­gests that people tend to organ­ise them­selves not in an even dis­tri­bu­tion of group sizes but in dis­crete hier­arch­ic­al social groups of more par­tic­u­lar sizes:

Alas, there seems to be a dis­crete stat­ist­ic­al order in the com­plex chaos of human relationships:

“Such dis­crete scale invari­ance could be related to that iden­ti­fied in sig­na­tures of herd­ing beha­viour in fin­an­cial mar­kets and might reflect a hier­arch­ic­al pro­cessing of social near­ness by human brains.“
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences ¹³Zhou, X., Sornette, D., Hill, R. A., & M. Dunbar, R. I. (2005). Discrete hier­arch­ic­al organ­iz­a­tion of social group sizes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1561), … Continue read­ing

Read also: Group Sizes (The Social Brain Hypothesis)

The Selfie Generation

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The Selfie Generation

I turned 30 in 2009 and spent the fol­low­ing dec­ade exper­i­en­cing a social media uni­verse dom­in­ated by teens and 20-somethings. Sure, new trends are excit­ing, but still.

I’ve loathed see­ing oth­er­wise mature, intel­li­gent, middle-aged friends do duck­face selfies in front of their bath­room mir­rors — or weirdly flex­ing about their latest triath­lon train­ing ses­sion. ¹⁴Silfwer, J. (2021, August 10). Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​o​n​l​i​n​e​-​w​a​n​n​a​b​e​i​sm/

“Being young today is no longer a trans­it­ory stage, but rather a life choice, well estab­lished and bru­tally pro­moted by the media sys­tem. While the clas­sic paradigms of adult­hood and mat­ur­a­tion could inter­pret such infant­ile beha­vi­or as a symp­tom of devi­ance, such beha­vi­or has become a mod­el to fol­low, an ideal of fun and being care­free, present in a wide vari­ety of con­texts of soci­ety. The con­tem­por­ary adult fol­lows a sort of thought­ful imma­tur­ity, a con­scious escape from the respons­ib­il­it­ies of an ana­chron­ist­ic mod­el of life. If an ideal of matur­ity remains, it does not find beha­vi­or­al com­pens­a­tions in a soci­ety where child­ish atti­tudes and adoles­cent life mod­els are con­stantly pro­moted by the media and tol­er­ated by insti­tu­tions.”
Source: ResearchGate ¹⁵Bernardini, J. (2014, June 30). The Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult and the Figure of Kidult. ResearchGate. … Continue read­ing

Some take the route of being omni­po­tent multi-experts who are fiercely opin­ion­ated about everything. Others try to save the world by organ­ising them­selves around the cent­ral task of sham­ing oth­ers pub­licly. Some try too hard to impress oth­ers by self-pro­mot­ing their per­son­al life choices. ¹⁶Silfwer, J. (2022, September 6). Social Media — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​o​c​i​a​l​-​m​e​d​ia/

Others opt out. Some of us cen­sor ourselves in fear of social isol­a­tion, opin­ion cor­ridors, and mighty echo cham­bers. ¹⁷Silfwer, J. (2023, December 15). Echo Chambers: Algorithmic Confirmation Bias. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​c​h​o​-​c​h​a​m​b​e​rs/ ¹⁸Silfwer, J. (2020, June 4). The Spiral of Silence. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​p​i​r​a​l​-​o​f​-​s​i​l​e​n​ce/

“A status update with no likes (or a clev­er tweet without retweets) becomes the equi­val­ent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewrit­ten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to con­form to the opin­ions of those around us.”
— Neil Strauss, Wall Street Journal

We resort to click­bait, humble brag­ging, and vir­tue sig­nalling in our des­per­ate search for likes. ¹⁹Silfwer, J. (2023, November 22). The Anatomy of Attention. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​t​t​e​n​t​i​on/

We’re a gen­er­a­tion of adults who don’t know what it means to be grownups on social media.

“To me, it’s just one symp­tom of a broad­er trend of infant­il­isa­tion in Western cul­ture. It began before the advent of smart­phones and social media. But, as I argue in my book “The Terminal Self,” our every­day inter­ac­tions with these com­puter tech­no­lo­gies have accel­er­ated and nor­m­al­ised our culture’s infant­ile tend­en­cies.”
— Simon Gottschalk, pro­fess­or of Sociology at the University of Nevada

But it’s nev­er too late to be a grownup in social media:

• Cultivate mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions. Use social media to estab­lish and main­tain genu­ine rela­tion­ships with people that mat­ter to you.
• Practice explor­at­ory learn­ing. Use social media with an open mind to learn from oth­er people’s exper­i­ences and insights. 
• Demonstrate cre­ativ­ity and use­ful­ness. Use social media to express your­self cre­at­ively and strive to add value to others.

Learn more: The Selfie Generation: An Epidemic of Online Narcissism

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Emotional Maturity in Social Media

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Emotional Maturity and Social Media

How do we bet­ter under­stand the emo­tion­al matur­ity of the Selfie Generation? In The Secret of Maturity by Kevin Everett FitzMaurice, a matur­ity pro­gres­sion of six steps is outlined:

Level 1: Emotional Responsibility

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people get eas­ily offen­ded, espe­cially on behalf of others.

Level 1 matur­ity means that you under­stand that your feel­ings are your choices. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to blame their feel­ings on extern­al stim­uli, such as oth­er people, places, things, forces, fate, and spirits. 

Level 2: Emotional Honesty

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people pub­licly paint them­selves as vic­tims of their feelings.

Level 2 matur­ity means you under­stand your feel­ings and have the cop­ing mech­an­isms to allow for genu­ine emo­tions instead of sup­press­ing them. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to hurt them­selves emo­tion­ally because they haven’t yet learned how to cope with their inner emotions. 

Level 3: Emotional Openness

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people pub­licly over­share to wal­low or are unaware that their shar­ing has the oppos­ite effect than they were aim­ing for.

Level 3 matur­ity means that you can be pur­pose­ful in vent­ing your emo­tions with the intent to let them go because you’re done with them. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to be insec­ure in know­ing how and when to share their feelings. 

Level 4: Emotional Assertiveness

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people allow oth­ers to make them feel bad but can­not set whatever bound­ar­ies they need.

Level 4 matur­ity means that you take respons­ib­il­ity for clearly com­mu­nic­at­ing your emo­tion­al needs with those who care about you. People who haven’t yet reached this matur­ity level tend to fear ask­ing oth­ers to respect their emo­tion­al needs. 

Level 5: Emotional Understanding

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people try too hard to vir­tue sig­nal and pro­ject a false self-image, which only makes them feel worse.

Level 5 matur­ity means you no longer force your­self into ima­gin­ary or con­veni­ent ideas about who you are and what you should feel. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to have cer­tain firm beliefs about them­selves that stem from ideas or prin­ciples, not genu­ine emotions. 

Level 6: Emotional Detachment

Social media imma­tur­ity: When people can’t truly appre­ci­ate liv­ing in a world where people make each oth­er feel good and bad about things.

Level 6 matur­ity means you are detached from your ego, and noth­ing can no longer both­er you bey­ond your con­trol. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to have cer­tain self-con­cepts to defend or promote. 

Learn more: The Selfie Generation: An Epidemic of Online Narcissism

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PR Resource: Social Media PR Issues

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List of Social Media Issues

Social media isn’t just sun­shine and rain­bows. With massive change come new social media issues we must deal with.

Here are a few examples of social media issues:

• Fake Bots, Scam Bots, Troll Bots
• Ghost Followers
• Filter Bubbles (Social Media Algorithms)
• Echo Chambers (Confirmation Bias)
• Media Logic & Social Media Logic
• The Silent Switch
• Dark Web, Dark Social
• Facebook Zero
• Cyberbullying
• Online Trolls, Online Hate
• Fake News, Alternative Facts
• Conspiracy Theories
• Online Disinformation Campaigns
• Electoral Tampering
• Government Surveillance, Facial Recognition
• Cyber Terrorism
• Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Online Fraud
• Cancel Culture, De-Platforming
• The Useful Idiot Syndrome
• Selfie Generation
• Online Wannabeism
• The Copyright Mafia
• The Techlash, Cambridge Analytica
• The Splinternet
• Paywalls (Journalism)
• Clickbait Journalism
• Social Media Fakers
• Fear of Screen Time
• Mental Health Issues
• Programmatic Brainwashing
• Information Overload
• Filter Failure
• Deepfake Videos
• Artificial Intelligence (Threat)

Read also: Social Media: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

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