The Social Media Clone Wars

How Influencers Are Taking Over Hollywood

Adrien Book
3 min readMar 31

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Have you ever felt like you’re seeing the same thing over and over again on social media? That’s because you are. In recent years, social media platforms have become more and more alike, copying each other’s features and formats in a desperate attempt to keep users engaged and advertisers happy.

Instagram has Reels, which is basically TikTok. Twitter has Fleets, which is basically Instagram Stories, which is basically Snapchat. Snapchat has Spotlight, which is also basically TikTok. And TikTok is basically Vine 2.0, but with more dancing and lip-syncing. All of them are powered by some level of Artificial Intelligence, usually serving up content from people you’ve never met.

Why are all these platforms looking so similar? Well, it’s simple: they’re all competing for the same thing: attention. Attention is the currency of the internet (thanks, advertising), and whoever has the most of it wins. And right now, TikTok is winning big time.

TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users, and its average user spends 52 minutes per day on the app. That’s a lot of eyeballs and a lot of time that could be spent on other platforms. So it’s no wonder that Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and others are trying to emulate TikTok’s success by offering similar features and content.

But copying TikTok is not enough to stand out in a crowded market. Social media platforms need to differentiate themselves from each other, and offer something unique and valuable to their users. And that’s where influencers come in.

Influencers are people who have a large and loyal following on social media, and who can influence their fans’ opinions, behaviors, and purchases. They are the stars of the internet, and wield an immense power.

In fact, they have so much power that they are starting to challenge the traditional media industry, especially Hollywood. Influencers are not just content creators; they are also content distributors. They can reach millions of people directly, without relying on intermediaries like studios, networks, or agencies.

This gives them a lot of leverage when it comes to negotiating deals with brands and platforms. And they are using it to…

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Adrien Book

Strategy Consultant | Tech writer | Somewhat French