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Why Does Your Brain Think Influencers Are Your Friends?
How social media gives us a uniquely skewed image into what’s real
As I was telling my mom that one of my friends swears by a certain face product in a bid to convince my mom to try it, I had the unusual realization that my “friend” was actually one of my favorite influencers, who had recently posted a video showcasing the product.
We all know influencer marketing is insidious, but it’s one thing to acknowledge that fact and another entirely to automatically categorize an influencer as a friend. This happens to all of us, and we don’t yet know how dangerous that can be.
Celebrities affect our body image — but not as much as our friends do
Humans are visual creatures, which is dangerous in the face of social media. We trust our eyes to tell us the truth, even when we know that people can’t really be that thin, or that pretty, or that happy. And yet we see it, so a part of us believes it.
Humans are prone to a phenomenon psychologists call “social comparison.” To improve our status in life, we look to the most successful folks we know and try to be more like them.
So what happens when you soak up pretty people all…
