The other night my fiancé and I laid in bed and had an interesting debate. We were debating the # of followers that individuals’ had on Instagram and what this data is telling us. I have been filling my mind with nothing, but positivity and spiritual teachings for well over a year and I was convinced that inspirational souls like Oprah would have more followers than some of the people that were included in the documentary Fyre Festival (for example). I lost this debate and it brought me back to why the world needs more Oprah’s, Gabbie Bernstein’s, Depaak Choprah’s, and Marianne Williamson’s. It brought me back to the purpose of this site and its mission.
It’s amazing how a scantily clad and attractive body brings in millions more followers than an individual who portrays substance. I gave people more credit than what my fiancé did in our debate. I was insistent that more people were drawn to substance, meaning, and depth than what the data actually showed. Kim Kardashian for example had 130M followers compared to Oprah’s 16M followers. I was incredibly surprised by this. Maybe I’ve been living in the world with rose colored glasses as a result of how I’ve been training my brain to see and think, but I was fairly surprised and disappointed in this. I’m not saying this to bash Kim Kardashian in any way, but Oprah has been impacting the world since 1986 with the Oprah Winfrey Show and has been putting out meaningful messages, interviews, and content for at least 33 years. When we think about who is contributing more meaningfully to society, there is no competition.
From there we went on a tirade of searching for people on Instagram to see who would “win” each time. I lost more than I’d like to admit. For example Bella Hadid (Fyre Festival model) had 23.2M followers. Upon scrolling through the photos, 99% of the were photos of her with no substance in each caption. Michelle Obama had 27.5M and her husband Barak Obama only had 21.3M. I was flabbergasted by this. Kendall Jenner has 105M. I’ve always liked Kendall Jenner, but I still don’t understand why 105M people would follow her. What has she done? Who has she helped? How has she changed the world or tried to change the world for the better?
The pope, an incredibly loving, wise, and caring soul, only has 5.9M followers, which is jarring to me. How can a man who stands for hope, love, unity and faith only attract this many followers in comparison to the Kardashian clan? Even Lil Pump has 17.9M followers and hard as I try I don’t know that I can understand it. It makes me consider what this world places importance on. It seems that people would rather level up their wardrobe, image, and makeup rather than their own soul. There is so much fascination with people who have created an illusory image that isn’t real rather than those who are authentic. The draw to smoke and mirrors, imagery, and artificial beauty is staggering. Even the models admit that they aren’t real in 98% of the photos that we see on their accounts, so why are people so drawn to fakery over what is real?
In our conversation, my thought was that people are drawn to this because they like to find the flaws in people that come across as “perfect” because it makes them feel better about their own imperfect lives. Maybe they are also drawn to it because it sparks the innate desire we all have somewhere inside to be “larger than life” or “living the dream.” The people that sell the illusion that they are living the dream without a care in the world draw people in whereas the people who speak about reality remind us that there are real issues in the world that need to be solved and that is just too hard to look at sometimes. It’s as though people are enamored with this illusion and are subconsciously looking for the secret of perfection, fame, and riches by tuning in.
I’m utterly confused concerning this phenomenon, but I’m trying to understand as I know that if I want to impact this world in a more positive manner, I need to first understand it… not judge it, but understand it. If I inevitably want people to pay attention to what matters, I’ll need to discover the keys to attraction so that the work I create will have impact and gain traction.
What do you think it is? Have you ever stopped to consider what you give your attention to and why? If you follow some of the people I’ve mentioned or some in the same category, why? I’m curious.