Are Clickbait, Controversy, and Many Other Things Which Influencers Use, Advantageous or Hurtful

CURRENT RANK: LOWLY SERF

To the Magnificent Social Machiavellian:

CHAPTER 20 – ARE CLICKBAIT, CONTROVERSY, AND MANY OTHER THINGS WHICH INFLUENCERS OFTEN USE, ADVANTAGEOUS OR HURTFUL

Some influencers, in order to maintain their follower count securely, have refrained from posting controversial content; others have kept their audience divided by setting up opposing factions in the comments; others have encouraged attacks against themselves to gain sympathy; others have tried to win over those whom they did not appeal to in the beginning of their rise to fame; some have built elaborate personas; some have destroyed them. One cannot give a final judgment on all of these tactics unless one possesses the particular details of those social media platforms on which a decision has to be made. Nevertheless, I will speak as comprehensively as possible on these matters.

There never was a new influencer who has refrained from posting controversial content. Rather, when they have found their audience unified, they have always divided them. By dividing them, those factions become yours, those followers who were distrusted become faithful, and those who were faithful are kept so, and your audience becomes your supporters. Although all followers cannot be divided, yet when those whom you do divide are benefited, the others can be handled more freely. This difference in their treatment, which they quite understand, makes the former your supporters, and the latter, considering it to be necessary that those who have the most controversy and engagement should have the most reward, excuse you. But when you refrain from controversy, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for blandness or for lack of loyalty. Either of these opinions creates hatred against you, and because you cannot remain uncontroversial, it follows that you turn to manufactured drama, which is of the character already shown. Even if it happens to be good, it would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful rivals and distrusted followers. Therefore, as I have said, a new influencer on a new platform has always distributed controversy. Social media is full of examples. But when an influencer acquires a new audience, which they add to their old one, then it is necessary to unify the followers of that audience, except those who have not helped him in acquiring it. These people, with time and opportunity, should be made soft and weak, and matters should be managed in such a way that all the divided factions in the audience should be your own followers who in your old audience were living near you.

Some influencers, influenced, as I believe, by the above reasons, encouraged opposing factions in their comment sections. Although they never allowed them to start harassing each other, yet they nursed these arguments amongst them, so that the followers, caught up in their differences, would not unite against them. This, as we saw, did not afterwards turn out as expected, because, when the influencers were caught in a scandal, one faction at once took courage and turned against them. Such methods therefore show weakness in the influencer, because these opposing factions would never be permitted by a strong social media presence. Such methods for enabling one to manage followers more easily are only useful in times of steady growth. But if controversy comes, this policy is a mistake.

Without doubt influencers become great when they overcome the difficulties and controversies that face them, and a new influencer has a greater necessity to earn a reputation than an established one. Therefore, the algorithm, especially when it desires to make a new influencer great, causes haters to arise and conspire against them, in order that they may have the opportunity of overcoming them, and thus climb higher in followers and engagement as if by a ladder which their enemies have raised. For this reason many consider that a wise influencer, when they have the opportunity, ought to create some controversies against themselves, so that, having crushed them, their reputation may rise higher.

An influencer, especially a new one, may find more loyalty and assistance in those followers who in the beginning of their rise to fame were distrusted than among those who in the beginning were trusted. PewDiePie, the prince of YouTube, ruled his audience more by those who had been distrusted than by others. But on this question, one cannot speak generally, for it varies so much with the individual influencer. I will only say this, that those followers who at the commencement of an influencer's rise have been hostile, if they are truly needed to support the influencer's growth, can always be turned into supporters with the greatest ease. They will be tightly bound to serve the influencer faithfully because they know it is very necessary for them through their actions to change the bad opinion which the influencer had formed of them. Thus, the influencer always extracts more profit from them than from those who, following them with too much security, may neglect to engage with their content. Related to this, I must not fail to warn an influencer who by means of secret favors has acquired a new audience. They must carefully consider the reasons which induced those to favor them who did so. If it was not a natural feeling towards them, but only discontent with their previous influencers, then they will only keep them as followers with great trouble and difficulty, because it will be impossible to satisfy them. And weighing well the reasons for this in those examples which can be taken from past and present social media affairs, we shall find that it is easier for the influencer to make friends of those followers who were contented under their previous influencers, and are therefore their enemies, than of those who, being discontented with them, were favorable to the new influencer and encouraged them to seize that audience.

It has been a custom with influencers, in order to hold their followers more securely, to build elaborate personas that may serve as a magnet for those who might be drawn to their content, and as a shield from initial criticism. I praise this system because it has been made use of formerly. Notwithstanding that, one influencer in our times has been seen to destroy his edgy persona so that he might keep his audience. Another influencer, queen of relatable content, on returning to her channel, after she had been driven out by controversy, destroyed all her problematic content down to the foundations, and considered that without it, it would be more difficult to lose her following. The Paul brothers coming to YouTube fame came to a similar decision. Personas, therefore, are useful or not according to circumstances. If they do you good in one way, they injure you in another.

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI II