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Media & PsychologySocial Psychology

Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

An aspirational roleplay in front of an imagined audience.

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

Table of contents

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

“In the digit­al space, atten­tion is a cur­rency.”
— Brian Solis

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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

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:

  • It’s a grow­ing social imbal­ance of loneli­ness. Influencers are in your social circles, but you’re not in theirs.

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

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The Anatomy of Attention

“There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
— Oscar Wilde

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The Anatomy of Attention

Attention is an essen­tial com­pon­ent of pub­lic rela­tions:

  • An organ­isa­tion, starved of atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty, is com­pelled to wage a per­petu­al struggle for its con­tin­ued existence.

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.

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:

  • Alertness. This is the state of being watch­ful and ready to respond. It’s the most basic form of atten­tion, rep­res­ent­ing our read­i­ness to per­ceive and pro­cess inform­a­tion from the environment.
  • Sustained atten­tion. This involves focus­ing on a spe­cif­ic task or stim­u­lus over a pro­longed peri­od. It’s cru­cial for tasks that require ongo­ing con­cen­tra­tion, like read­ing or driving.
  • Focused atten­tion. This refers to the abil­ity to con­cen­trate on one par­tic­u­lar stim­u­lus or task while ignor­ing oth­ers. It’s the abil­ity to focus nar­rowly on a single thing.
  • Attentional switch­ing. Also known as task switch­ing or cog­nit­ive flex­ib­il­ity, this involves shift­ing focus from one task to anoth­er. It’s crit­ic­al for mul­ti­task­ing and adapt­ing to chan­ging demands or priorities.
  • Divided atten­tion. This is the abil­ity to pro­cess two or more responses or react to mul­tiple tasks sim­ul­tan­eously. It’s often tested by ask­ing people to per­form two tasks sim­ul­tan­eously, like listen­ing to a con­ver­sa­tion while writ­ing.
  • Attention accord­ing to the super­vis­ory atten­tion­al sys­tem. This concept, derived from cog­nit­ive psy­cho­logy, refers to a high­er-level con­trol sys­tem that reg­u­lates the alloc­a­tion of atten­tion, par­tic­u­larly in situ­ations requir­ing plan­ning or decision-making.
  • Attention as inhib­i­tion. This aspect of atten­tion involves sup­press­ing irrel­ev­ant or dis­tract­ing stim­uli. It’s a cru­cial com­pon­ent of focused atten­tion and self-regulation.
  • Spatial atten­tion. This type of atten­tion focuses on a spe­cif­ic area with­in the visu­al field. It’s like a spot­light that enhances inform­a­tion pro­cessing in a par­tic­u­lar location.
  • Attention as plan­ning. This per­spect­ive views atten­tion as a resource that needs to be alloc­ated effi­ciently, espe­cially in com­plex tasks requir­ing stra­tegic plan­ning and organization.
  • Interference. In the con­text of atten­tion, inter­fer­ence refers to the pro­cess by which irrel­ev­ant inform­a­tion or dis­trac­tions impede the effi­ciency of cog­nit­ive processing.
  • Attention as arous­al. This con­siders atten­tion in the con­text of the gen­er­al level of alert­ness or arous­al. It’s about the read­i­ness of the brain to engage with stim­uli or tasks.
  • Attention accord­ing to the assess­ment tra­di­tion. This refers to meas­ur­ing and eval­u­at­ing atten­tion­al pro­cesses, often in clin­ic­al or edu­ca­tion­al set­tings, to identi­fy atten­tion defi­cits or disorders.

Each type of atten­tion plays a cru­cial 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

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Dunbar’s Number

Robin Dunbar - Social Group Sizes - The PR Blog - Doctor Spin
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British anthro­po­lo­gist, evol­u­tion­ary psy­cho­lo­gist, and spe­cial­ist in prim­ate behaviour.
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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

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Typical Social Group Sizes

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Typical Social Group Sizes

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:

  • Support clique (3 – 5 people)
  • Sympathy group (12 – 20 people)
  • Band (30 – 50 people)
  • Clan (150 people)
  • Megaband (500 people)
  • Tribe (1,000 – 2,000 people)

“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)

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The Selfie Generation

Take a selfie, fake a life - The Selfie Generation
The Selfie Generation: Take a selfie, fake a life.
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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

Selfie Generation - Jorvil R
The Selfie Generation. (Illustration: Jorvil R.)
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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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Signature - Jerry Silfwer - Doctor Spin

Thanks for read­ing. Please con­sider shar­ing my pub­lic rela­tions blog with oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tion and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als. If you have ques­tions (or want to retain my PR ser­vices), please con­tact me at jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

PR Resource: Social Media PR Issues

List of Social Media 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:

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

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ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
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 to mim­ic SMIs [Social Media Influencers].” Source: The mech­an­ism by which social media influ­en­cers per­suade con­sumers: The role of con­sumers’ desire to mim­ic.
2 Ki, 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
3 Social 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
4 Silfwer, 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/
5 Shipp, 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
6 Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​i​n​t​e​l​l​.​2​0​0​5​.​0​7​.​001
7 Dunbar, R. I. M. (1998). The social brain hypo­thes­is. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 6(5), 178 – 190.
8 Silfwer, 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/
9 Dunbar’s num­ber. (2023, May 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
10 It’s worth not­ing that the concept of Dunbar’s Number has been debated and scru­tin­ised with­in the sci­entif­ic community.
11 Zhou WX, Sornette D, Hill RA, Dunbar RI. Discrete hier­arch­ic­al organ­iz­a­tion of social group sizes. Proc Biol Sci. 2005 Feb 22;272(1561):439 – 44.
12, 13 Zhou, 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), 439 – 444. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​9​8​/​r​s​p​b​.​2​0​0​4​.​2​970
14 Silfwer, 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/
15 Bernardini, J. (2014, June 30). The Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult and the Figure of Kidult. ResearchGate. https://​www​.researchg​ate​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​2​9​1​2​2​2​5​9​5​_​T​h​e​_​I​n​f​a​n​t​i​l​i​z​a​t​i​o​n​_​o​f​_​t​h​e​_​P​o​s​t​m​o​d​e​r​n​_​A​d​u​l​t​_​a​n​d​_​t​h​e​_​F​i​g​u​r​e​_​o​f​_​K​i​d​ult
16 Silfwer, 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/
17 Silfwer, 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/
18 Silfwer, 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/
19 Silfwer, 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/
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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