Instagram’s 2014 bot purge pushed Influencers to perform authenticity strategically.
Evidence
In December 2014, Instagram responded to the proliferation of artificial inflation by initiating the first of several attempts to delete bots, fake accounts, and inactive accounts from their database systemically. This was dubbed “the Instagram Purge,” “the Instagram Rapture,” and “the Instagram Clean-up” by users and popular press outlets alike. As a result, prolific Instagram users with high follower counts, such as traditional media celebrities and Influencers, experienced huge losses. Influencers who were affected by the Purge reacted in two main ways: those who had lost a sizable proportion of their followers immediately set their accounts to private amidst condemnation and critique from fellow Influencers and followers; others who had emerged relatively unscathed capitalized on the exposé to reassert their authenticity through narratives of disclosure. They began to announce their “drop count” voluntarily on various social media in a bid to display a sense of honesty and integrity, and to subtly reaffirm that their “slight drop” in numbers was merely attributed to inactive accounts rather than bought followers. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 235
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Abidin’s broader thesis about ‘vernacular’ and performed authenticity; the drop-count disclosure is a performative-gesture parallel to earlier chapters on calibrated amateurism. — connects to: Civil-service women Influencers accept gifts instead of cash payments — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 226; Influencers weaponized the bot purge to perform authenticity. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 236; Instagram authenticity markers resist manipulation more than Twitter’s text does — Alice E. Marwick, Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the…, 35
- SEED: Article angle: how platform crackdowns on fraud inadvertently manufacture new authenticity theater — the ‘honest drop count’ as self-serving performance.
Broader Connections
- Influencers weaponized the bot purge to perform authenticity.
#corroborates(0.95) — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 236