No. 12: FOLLOWED BY: THE NEW WHO'S WHO FOR WHO?

There's an overlooked shadow social media network that no one is talking about.

And it's creating new forms of clout and anxiety for the chronically online.

It all starts with the humble "follow" button.

We’ve all touched one.

They’re rendered in kindergarten colors, most white text on blue background.

In fact, this near-universal agreement on color palette may be the only common ground left for conformity in our Techno King commanded 16:9 chamfered rectangles.

Just before that fateful multitouch press whirlpools you into a new stream of content to en-shittify your feed, you must confront the hallowed “Followed By” feature.

The idea is pretty simple — social platforms automatically show you who else from your followers list also follows that same account. And you’re more likely to follow that account if lots of people you know also do. It’s kind of like those things that we used to call mutual friends, but much less annoying.

And yet, this simple concept sets off an array of questions — from the pointless to the profound — that all of us, or at least we — answer mostly subliminally.

Sometimes literally.

If 25+ of my friends already follow @InterGalacticDankMemes420 am I a mere sheep?

Or am I perhaps missing out on rib-tickling, life-altering cultural commentary?

Do I want to be associated with that person, however tenuously, from middle school or college or work who I never really liked but now follow on this platform?

And what if it transpires that we both follow an unsavory account, @PonziSchemeBestPractices?

Or am I going to be revealed as a fraud if my friends find out that I’ve been mining a niche account with very few followers in order to manufacture an important part of my personality? Like, say, my whole worldview?

There’s judgment galore, too.

@LaVieEnParis? Give me a break @JimmyMakesLayups you’re a Caucasian male from the suburbs of Bethesda.

@SambasAndCigs follows @CBGB? It closed in 2006. You were maybe ten.

Finally, there’s the elusive virgin ground "Not followed by anyone you know”.

This is the Rubicon, the Xanadu of clout — potentially.

On the one hand, perhaps you just found something or someone so out there, so damn original, that not even the most plugged-in, downtown-out mutual follower could reach…

A print-only German language Drum & Bass appreciation account?

A Lower East Side creative consultancy that activates brands with nothing but their minds?

On the other hand, maybe you just accidentally tapped on a FreshDirect in-feed display ad while sitting on the ivory throne.

In any case, for the more entrepreneurially inclined, Followed By is the next great platform waiting in the wings.

For the rest of us, it’s another brief, fleeting moment in which we can make ourselves feel better about our own taste, or confirm the lack thereof among our fellow intrepid digital voyagers.

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