Winner takes all in a "Universal Bazaar"
Last tended to 3 months, 1 week ago
A hypothesis that, in India, 'small town influencers' have bigger social impact whereas 'big city influencers' have a more economic impact
If you have an Instagram / YouTube account and are active on it, there is a high chance that you are living under a rock!
You must be like - "Mohit, what?"
Well, hear me out!
It is a known fact that the algorithms on social media are, generally, designed to populate our feeds with content that is similar to what we engage the most with. As such, over a period of time, we often end up in echo chamber of our own thoughts and likes.
Last year, I got a new TV, and did not log in to my YouTube account for a while. The kind of suggestions that I kept receiving were pretty strange and honestly a little terrifying. It piqued my curiousity and I wanted to understand the reason behind these unwanted recommendations from YouTube. Apparently, YouTube picks up your location and suggests you content basis the most popular content in the surrounding few hundred meters of your determined location 1. Even if you have been mindful of what you are viewing, you may still end up receiving content recommendations that are far beyond your interests. Ideally, this should be a boon. Though, for me, this new-found feed was quite a shocker.
I decided to make a new account to see what kind of feeds would turn up on my Instagram 2. The Instagram feeds were even more horrendous (for the lack of a better word), and it truly made me rethink how I view people around me and their use of social media. If you have never done this before, I would recommend doing this once in order to understand the kind of society that we live in, a little better.
After a few repeat attempts and reset of my feeds' data, a slight but noticeable pattern became started to emerge - something that I intend to debunk during the course of this write-up.
The Hypothesis:
Small-town creators have a stronger cultural impact on our country's youth whereas metros and tier-1 city creators are responsible for a bigger economic impact by the way of affecting monetary numbers by promoting aspirational lifestyle.
Notes to be expanded later:
Small Town Creators:
- Driven by local thought process
- People think of them as their own - More relatability
- Larger groups of less-aware small city audiences
- Driven by ignorance -> hence, worse thoughts and lack of critical thinking
Big City Creators:
- Have better economic means.
- Educated / Literate opinion.
- More aspirational life.
- Thought process comes from a place of privilege, hence, unable to comprehend real world and real world problems better.
- First world problems and solutions.
- Concentrated audience but high per capita income audience with more disposable income.