Nick Bilton‘s HBO documentary Fake Famous portrays influencers as superficial, purposeless and purveyors of staging their lives, followings and engagement. The film is compelling and certainly exposes the worst practices of social media influencers trying to just create fame. But it leaves out the rest of influencers, I would argue most of them, that build genuine trust and engagement with real followers through great content and personality.
Bilton joined me on Winfluence to have a little intellectual sparring match over the issues I had with the show. The discussion was, frankly, an amazing back and forth and exploration of some of the problems with influence marketing we both agree are problems and should be addressed. Bilton’s overall point in making the film aligns with a notion I think we can all get behind—social media’s impact on society needs a good cleaning up.
But he sees influencers as being overrun with the peace sign, duck lips, selfie-addicts who do buy followers and engagement. I see that segment as a problem, but not nearly the majority of what’s out there. The back and forth was healthy and fun. I applaud Bilton, who is a seasoned journalist who writes for Vanity Fair and formerly wrote about technology and politics for the New York Times from 2013-16, for agreeing to an interview he had to know would potentially be combative.
It was, but in a very respectful, friendly discussion. Yes, I believe the film misses the boat on the full spectrum of influencers. Nick doesn’t. And that’s fine.
Does he see validity and merit to the types of influencers I report are the majority? Listen to find out.
The movie is well made and written and is certainly worth watching. You can find it on HBO and HBO Max. Just keep in mind there’s some disagreement on whether or not his portrayal of influencers is representative of them all.
And a hat tip to Kevin Hunt at General Mills and the Talking Points Podcast who tagged me in a post about watching the movie and suggested I reach out to Nick for the podcast! Good lookin’ out Kev!
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Winfluence Transcript – Nick Bilton – Director, Fake Famous
Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. Fake Famous debuted last week on HBO and HBO max. The documentary film is from writer director and producer Nick Bilton of both Vanity Fair and New York Times acclaim. In the movie, Nick takes three people who want to be famous but don’t have big online followings, and proceeds to try and buy followers, comments and engagements to manufacture fame. The experiment works for one of them, the other two drop out of their own accord one gets wigged out. The other says he wants to build his fame the real way for being him.
Jason Falls
The film is well written and well done. It’s interesting and exposes the underbelly of a segment of influencers that you’ve heard me refer to many times as the “peace sign-duck lips” crowd. But Bilton’s film seems to imply the fake followers and fake likes and fake engagement is how all or at least the majority of influencers are. And that’s where I called bullshit.
Jason Falls
I reached out and invited Nick to come on the show to have a little sparring match about the film and he agreed. Today on the show my conversation with Nick Bilton. It did not turn out to be what I expected. We do have a healthy discussion about the state of social media, where there are problems flaring up with its impact on our world, and what role influencers consumers and the social networks play in the difficulties. Give Nick a ton of credit, he knew he was coming to a conversation with someone who probably didn’t care for the implications of his new movie. But he is a seasoned journalist who points out at the start of the discussion that he doesn’t see negative reactions to the film as bad, but as a continuation of the conversation and the movie is certainly worth watching.
Jason Falls
You can find it on HBO and HBO max. Just keep in mind there’s some disagreement on whether or not his portrayal of influencers is representative of them all. Your ringside seat to a little intellectual sparring match is here. I go toe to toe with fake famous writer, director and producer Nick Bilton, next, on Winfluence.
Jason Falls
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Jason Falls
Nick, I spent a few hours digging through the press around the movie this weekend and from the people that work in and around the influence marketing space. You seem to have been taking a beating. Did you expect that kind of reaction from folks to this film?
Nick Bilton
I don’t see it as taking a beating. I I see quite differently. I think that when you, when you say something people don’t like it doesn’t doesn’t imply that you’re getting beat up, it just means you’re, you’re contributing to the conversation. I’ve been a journalist for 15 years covering tech and politics and culture and written things a lot of people don’t like and I, you know, it’s it’s all just part of the conversation as far as I’m concerned.
Jason Falls
Okay, that’s, that’s great. So I guess we should level set in case there are people listening who don’t know fully what fake famous is, why don’t you tell the listeners real quickly what your goal was with this experiment that you documented that became this film.
Nick Bilton
So I started I’ve been a reporter, as I said, for 15 years, my, my beat was at the New York Times was covering tech, and it was the very, very, very beginning of social media. Back when I was there, I wrote the first story ever on Snapchat, I think it was the second story of her on Instagram, I, you know, covered Facebook’s very, very, very early days spent time with a lot of these founders. And what was really interesting to me is back in the day, I used to be the person probably on the other side of the conversation that we’re about to have, were ending it, I remember, I got into a very public fight with the editor in chief of the New York Times and almost got fired as a result of it honestly, for defending Twitter and about, you know, talking about how great it was going to be society, I got into an argument with George Packer from the New Yorker about the positive social media.
Nick Bilton
But over time, I have come to see that it has, in my personal opinion, has changed. I think that the companies have taken full advantage of society as a result of it. I think that the the way that social media is used, it’s harming children. I have little kids like cousins and nephews, and all these things. And I’ve seen that. And and I think that it runs the gamut. It’s everything from from, you know, the rise of the alt right to Russian interference in the election, to our our country, its obsession with fame, which was essentially what led us to this film. And the premise of the film is that there’s been research that’s been done that has found that, in some instances, 87% of kids in the United States want to be famous influences when they grow up. And, and I wanted to show that a large part of that industry, not all of it, but a large part of it is is based on kind of a fallacy. It’s not necessarily real. So we we did a casting call in Los Angeles, we asked one question, do you want to be famous 5000 people responded, we got it down to three people. And we wanted to see what we could do with them by buying these people, fake followers and fake comments and fake likes and doing some fake photo shoots, and wanted to see how their lives would change as a result.
Jason Falls
So the the one sort of hiccup that I think I have, or the problem that I have with that premise is that, you know, in my experience in influence marketing, and I’ve been doing this probably since you were writing about technology and whatnot, I’ve been advising brands and whatnot on social media since 2005, is the idea that most of influencers behave this way. Because in my experience, that’s not true. From the perspective of an influencer marketing strategist. You know, you you did two things with these subjects that no legit influencer agency or strategist in around the industry would recommend doing, which is buying followers, and then buying engagement. Now, I know there’s plenty of people out there that do that, but long term, you’re going to be found out, and the people who are found out suffer for it. So I know this was an experiment for you. But I’m curious if the sort of best practices of the industry ever came into play here? Or did they not matter based on what you were doing?
Nick Bilton
There were no best practices, there were literally zero best practices. We, we there were certain instances where we reached out to brands, I mean, so let’s just tell the audience how this how it played out before I before we get to that, so we had three people, one of them dropped out because he didn’t want any of the fake engagement. Another one was called out by certain people for you know, for rising, raising his following by buying fake engagement. And the third this woman, Dominique, she took off we got it to a quarter million followers just by buying them It cost me a couple of $1,000 and brands. First we reached out to a few brands just to see what would happen and they happily center some free things. And next thing we know, her email and her DMS were just blowing up from brands constantly reaching out to give her free stuff, ask they collaborate and so on. We had a you know, look, this is an HBO production. We had a team of lawyers, we ran everything by there was never an instance where we were asked if we had real followers, if we if we had you know, no didn’t even ask to see our engagement levels, you know, right. You know, and so there were no best practices. And I think what was so fascinating to me during the film, and look, I want to preface this. When we set out to do this, we had no idea how it was going to work out, genuinely No idea. And I said this to HBO. I said, Look, there’s a world where this is five minutes of our film, and it’s a dismal failure. And we show Hey, the industry works, it caught us. And there’s a world where it’s the complete opposite. Of course, we ended up with a film that was pretty much the complete opposite. And, and so I think that the look, I agree with you that there are there are some people out there that have incredible influence that do not buy followers that do not buy auto lights, and this, that and the other. There are other people who, who take it to complete extreme. Let’s take the Kardashians as an example. Not only is half of their engagement, fake bots, and there’s been numerous studies that have shown this, they went as far as faking their IRS tax returns to show that they were billionaires so they could get on the cover of Forbes, just to say it doesn’t exist, is it’s just, I mean, come on, it’s right there in the Forbes had to retract a front page article story because they faked their tax returns. And I think that, and then the other thing that we found that was really interesting was that I turned off the fake engagement for Dominique, when she hit a quarter of a million. And she continued to get she got some real followers as a result, but she continued to get fake followers. And I think that when you look at anyone’s engagement on the platform, that is a, an influencer, they have, you know, a huge percentage of their following. It’s fake bots, because the platform’s itself are filled with them. You know, there are estimates that Instagram has 40 to 50% fake bots on its platform that are constantly engaging with people’s accounts, and whether people buy them or not, they are on there.
Jason Falls
So I don’t doubt that that is the case, what I think I do doubt is that, when you use most or majority, that’s where I get a little weird, because, you know, one of the things that I do for my clients and the brands that I work with is we use, you know, some of the software to kind of triangulate and figure out, Okay, how much what percentage of this person’s following is legit, I actually did a scan on my own social media channels, which I’ve never done anything to astroturf, or fake anything. And I show a 5% measure of fake folks. So I agree with you that there are bots out there that are following people even that don’t pay for them. So I showed a 5%, I actually did a scan of Dominique and I know that you did for the film as well. And while the scan that I showed showed an 18% level of fake followers, which according to your math and the numbers, you reported the movie was not accurate. I also triangulate a couple of different metrics, because I’ve been doing this a while. And it appeared that 51% of her followers are from the country of Iran. So that tells me that it may not be that they’re showing up as fake. But there’s certainly some something weird going on there. So I think my biggest complaint here is that the movie seems to say that this is the majority or most and it doesn’t really account for the influencers that actually build subject matter expertise and real influence. And I wonder if that’s a fair criticism?
Nick Bilton
Sure. I mean, I’m open to any criticism, but I think that, you know, well, first of all, the fact that it only it only found 18% of Dominic’s followers being fake means that the software, let’s just be frank sucks, right? I mean, so if it found 18% for Dominique and 5%, for you, and in actuality, I would say that, that Dominique is probably got 90 to 95%, fake followers, yours is probably closer to like, maybe 20% 25%, or something like that. So there’s so there’s that right, let’s just do the math. The second thing, I think, is that, look, I would love to have a conversation about how influencer culture Well, there’s two, there’s two parts of this. There’s the first part, which is this, I don’t see how there can be so many influencers out there that are considered legitimate influencers, you know, we talked to, you know, people, experts that had that, that work with directly with Instagram that gave us the numbers where they say that, you know, over 140 million people have over 100,000 followers and over 40 million people have over a million followers. So how is it just from a mathematical standpoint, that there could be 140 million people that are considered famous, I just it doesn’t, that’s the that’s the that’s half of the American population almost. It just doesn’t the math doesn’t add up like I did when we were doing the research for this and it’s not in the film. I was like, well, maybe maybe there’s like, I don’t know, a couple of million a list celebrities and I just don’t know Half of them. There’s like 3000, A and B with celebrities. So So do I believe that there are some legitimate influencers? There’s no question, there’s absolutely no question. But I don’t believe I believe that a majority of them are not legitimate and, and whether they bought the box or the bots found them or whatever, I just, it just so much of it seems inauthentic. And then let me ask you a question. Right? Let’s just say that you, you, you get a free vacation to Bali, and you get food poisoning, and your mattress sucks, and your flights delayed 14 hours, and you’re gonna post that to all your followers. Have you ever seen a single solitary influencer? post that to their followers? No, because they would never get invited back on another free free vacation. And so they, what, what, what bothers me is that there is a lack of authenticity to the audience, by these people. And, and, and I, I personally feel like the industry needs to be more honest with the people that follow them.
Jason Falls
So I don’t necessarily disagree with that perspective, or that philosophy. And I will agree with you and say that we are in what I would still consider the upside of the the bell curve on brands engaging with influencers and influencer marketing becoming a sort of mature marketplace, if you will. But I think that where we are with agencies and brands that advise you, or agencies that advise brands on where to spend their money. We’re in the middle of the of the place right now where we’re trying to suss all this out, we’re looking at, you know, how many, what percentage of their followers are fake? How can we figure that out? Which software gives us a reliable Look at that, I would never look at the metrics for Dominique advising a brand and say we should engage with her. Unless I did the math and the percentage we assumed or triangulated, that were real, was an A number of people that we wanted to go after her demographics will have on whatnot,
Nick Bilton
Or unless it was a brand in Iran. Hmm.
Jason Falls
Well, perhaps maybe that would that would be appealing. But I really, truly think that we’re in where we’re not. I don’t think that it’s fair to say that everything is fake and inauthentic and awful. And, you know, we should do away with this. I think we’re still in the early stages where we’re trying to figure it out. Granted, there’s we got a lot of progress to make. But I really feel like the film kind of, again, narrows in on the best practices of the worst offenders, and says that this is the norm. And I don’t agree that to be the case.
Nick Bilton
I mean, look, I mean, you and I can definitely disagree on this. I think that the best practices of the worst offenders are the majority of the people that are quote unquote, influencers. I just, you know, we talked to look, again, there are some that are legitimate I there’s a, there’s a restaurant that just opened up in LA, called grain trades or something like that just opened up middle of pandemic, and the other day, there was a line, a block long of people waiting to get in. And I went there the day after is like what’s going on? Because usually there’s no one no one waiting to get in. It’s a great little restaurant, by the way, check it out. But they said, Oh, we partnered with an influencer to do like a giveaway thing. And I was like, That’s amazing. It works. You know, there are there are without a doubt instances where it works. But we spoke to people that weren’t on film, because they didn’t want to be on film who told us of a million instances where it didn’t work? And I think that there’s two reasons for that. Right? You know, so for one example, we spoke to a bunch of people in Hollywood, who said, you know, we, we cast this influencer with a million followers, we thought that it would, it would drive traffic to this TV show that they were on or film or whatever. And we saw nothing. And we’ve seen that and, you know, spoke to people who work in the reality space that said the same thing. I think there’s two reasons that happens. One is that I think people follow someone online for one specific thing. And they they don’t want to go to the other thing, it’s a big call to action to say go turn on the TV on Friday night at eight o’clock. And I think the other incidences because that some of them don’t have the real engagement and they know that and i think that you know, look, I think that the at the end of the day, you know, Justine Bateman who comes on? Who came on in the film she was she’s the child star who wrote this incredible book on fame that I definitely recommend you reading. She says, you know that that it’s been that the whole thing has been labeled incorrectly, that it’s not fame what influencer culture is. It’s, she says it’s like an infomercial, right? You’re selling something you’re Hawking a product. And I actually think I looked this up. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to go work out advertising. Great that I worked in advertising 20 years ago. Like, I think that but I think to say that someone is famous because they have a number next to their name. And, and and to say that they’re authentic with the thing that they’re Hawking. I just don’t think that’s right. I don’t I have never, ever seen an influencer. And we went through, we spent two years on this film, we went through 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of accounts, I never saw one person say, I got this thing for free. And it sucked, not one, because I don’t think that that’s in their best interest. And so as a result, I think that there is an aspect of this industry that that needs to either lean in one direction or other and say, Hey, we’re advertising. And that’s all we are, or were authentic, and we’re going to be authentic. But the thing that’s in the middle, this tiptoe of two worlds, I just don’t think is, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Jason Falls
So what doesn’t make sense to me is that you couldn’t find any examples. I wish I had some off the top of my head that I can share with you …
Nick Bilton
I would love some. Send them to me,
Jason Falls
I will do my very best to do that. But I wonder what let’s let’s dive into this a little bit. I wonder if the lens through which you were looking might have been too narrow. And here’s what I mean by that. The casting call was in LA, the one city in the world where the top goal of people coming in there is to be famous. Because you did this in the shadow of the entertainment industry, where everyone is an actor or a model. The verticals are very superficial verticals, beauty, fashion style. Yes, those verticals get a lot of attention. But I would argue that’s a fraction of the world of influencers, based on my experience, not in LA. Was the lens too narrow here?
Nick Bilton
Look, I think that it’s a great question. And I will definitely give you that one. I think that, you know, we we did it in LA for a reason we could have done it anywhere. And it wasn’t just because we live here. We did it in LA because I was what I found interesting in the very beginning was that we live in this world where people used to, you know, they used to want to do different things when they grew up, right. And I remember there was we spoke to this woman, Patricia Greenfield from UCLA who is a an incredible researcher, been doing this for 50 years has done a lot of studies and research into fame and society and so on. And one of the one of the research projects she did is that she said, they asked kids over the last 40-50 years, what do you want to be when you grow up? So 40 years ago, it’s I want to be a doctor, I want to be a teacher, I want to be an astronaut. Fast forward to today, you know, we go through these cycles of a basketball player and an actor and actress and there was still trades. And now it’s famous influencer. And, and, and when you think about what, where people go to try to do that they go to these big cities, they go to LA, they go to New York, and so on and so forth. So for our experiment, we decided, let’s do the like, the quintessential version of the person who comes to LA to get famous. And but rather than come to LA to get famous by being a famous actor, on a TV show, or movie, they come here now and they start at Tiktok house or whatever. And they try to get the biggest YouTube channel and things like that. So the whole culture and dynamic of Los Angeles and that that dream of being a famous actor and actress has changed. I do believe, and I truly do believe this. And I would love to do it. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. I do believe we could have gone to, you know, Austin, Texas, or, or Seattle have done the same thing. And I think we could have done it with any demographic, I think you could have picked a kid blue. And Sir, you could have picked an 80 year old grandmother, you I think you could have manufactured anyone where you bought them the engagement, and they started to get free things. And their life changed either for the better or for the worse by doing it. So yes, we did do the LA thing because of a variety of reasons. But I do think that we could have done it somewhere else and I think would have had a very similar result.
Jason Falls
Well, I’ll give you that because yes, it is absolutely possible. I think in the short term to manufacturer this quote unquote fame or influence. I think over the long haul, though, as brands start to suss out whether or not that influencer that you’ve created with all those followers, whether or not they are effective at driving, you’re moving the needle for their business, the opportunities are going to wane. And and and I would say that the people who were giving dominate product and all that kind of stuff. We’re probably just not doing a really good job of sussing out who they weren’t, you know, partnering with. I hope that somewhere along the line, someone partnered with her and it did move the needle for their business where they felt comfortable with it. And this is you know, a free market society brands can spend their money on whoever they want to and if they think Dominic’s a great investment great, but in the midst of all of this aspect turfing fake followers engagement and whatnot, you know, wildly increase two of your three subjects got uncomfortable. I love Chris, frankly, because I think he kind of called you out on the bullshit of it all and didn’t want fake anything. So he kind of stepped away. He only wanted to be real. I would argue to you that in three, four years from now, Chris is going to be someone who has genuine influence, because he’s building it that way. And that I think, is the majority of influencers out there, not people who buy and fake their way to the top.
Nick Bilton
So can I ask you a question? Do you What if I asked you to critique the influencer industry? What what are your What are your critiques of it?
Jason Falls
Well, my critiques do mirror yours into a degree. I do think there is a lot of astroturfing, a lot of fake superficial folks out there. In the book that I’ve written about influence marketing, I call them the the peace sign, duck lips crowd. It’s the people that only take selfies that are very superficial in the depth of content that they provide. But the majority of influencers out there in in my world are sometimes they’re in the cocktail and food space where they do you know, cooking shows, and, and cocktail recipes. Sometimes. They’re in the consumer product, good space, where they try and review products. Sometimes they’re in the b2b space where they speak at conferences and things that aren’t necessarily Instagram, YouTube, but they still have influence and impact over people and brands partner with them to get their product and service in front of those folks. And so when I see someone like a Derrick Wolf at Over the Fire cooking, who has over a million followers online, but he’s done so because he did these really neat 60-second time lapse videos that showed people how to successfully grill over a fire. And he built his own cooking seasonings as as a product of his own brand. But then also partnered with a client of ours Buffalo Trace Bourbon to do an online web series. That’s someone who has true influence and impact over his audience. And my argument is that’s the majority your argument I believe, is that the majority is the duck lips, peace sign folks.
Nick Bilton
I yes, I think that I I completely agree and then completely disagree. I think that you know, the cooking channel, folks, the the people who teach you how to grill over an open fire or put sprinkles on a birthday cake or, or you know, those those videos on tik tok, where they’re like, here’s something you didn’t know about your iPhone in 12 seconds. Like, those are people that are they’re giving something they’re giving something back to society and I that I, I’m all for it. Like let’s let’s give those guys the the free sneakers and the free vacations and the free whatever is and and, and pay them there’s no question. My problem is with the other asked the other side of it. And and maybe maybe the algorithm just shows me and all my producers that I was the only man on that was a producer by the way it was all women who worked on the film. You know, I want to maybe that’s just showing us for some reason all of these duck lips What do you call them?
Jason Falls
Peace-sign, duck-lips.
Nick Bilton
Peace-sign duck-lips people know that there are millions of peace sign duck people out there. And and I think that when I look at them, you know the people on the private jets and the on the fancy vacation and with the Lambo and this that the other … the thing that bothers me the most is that not only are they not giving back to society, but but but that their entire premise, their entire reason for being is to make you … can I curse on this podcast? … is to make you feel like shit. It’s to say, and I say this at the end of the film, look at how shitty Your life is. And look at how great mine is. And the only way your life can be as great as mine is if you buy the thing that I did or you come on the vacation I did. That’s who I have a problem with and and that the people who who you know, do the cooking shows and things like that I it’s amazing. I love watching YouTube videos of influencers that teach me stuff. I’m good friends with some people who you know, Casey Neistat is a good friend of mine who I think is just a brilliant entertainer who’s an influencer? And and and I think it’s but the but I think that maybe there’s the what’s interesting is that your perception is that it’s 9% those folks and 10% the others and my perception is it’s 90% the the duck lit people and 10% the others.
Jason Falls
Well, I would say that that’s a rather grumpy old man get off my lawn way of looking at things but not but
Nick Bilton
Hold on a second if that’s the grumpy old man get off my lawn looking at things. How is it so Okay, so 100 and 40 million people that are considered influencers. They’re all they all have. There’s 130 million of them that have that have cooking shows and things like that to give back to society? No, most of them don’t. Most of them are there. They’re not doing things that are helping people. They’re just trying to get free stuff at the end of the day. And I think that, you know, to think that that 130 million people that have over 100,000 followers are, are in it, because they, they, you know, they’re trying to like educate, it’s just that the math doesn’t add up. And then when you actually go and look, and you scroll, and if we did things like to make sure we were covering our bases, we did things where we were, you know, we looked at like, okay, what’s the top 1000 people in this space that have this number of followers over and over and over? It was, it was those the ducklin people that were that, you know, we’re doing everything they could to try to get something out of out of their, their user number and trying to make the user that these 87% of kids that want to be fake, famous influencers, trying to make them feel bad about themselves?
Jason Falls
So do you think that this might be the responsibility for figuring out who the right people who you should follow and who society deems to be worthy here is very similar to sort of sussing out the the political argument as well, I think the responsibility is really on the end user to understand who they’re following. And is there substance there? And if there’s not, then don’t? Is it the responsibility of the user? Or is it someone else’s responsibility to say, this person is mostly fake and superficial? And so therefore, you shouldn’t follow them?
Nick Bilton
Look, I think that honestly, for me the responsibility it comes down to, to the, to the platforms, you know, I think Instagram, let’s just take them for example. I think that what they do, look, I’ve been writing about these guys for a long, long time. And I didn’t realize the degree to which they intentionally make social media, a game that you have no choice but to play. And I think that, you know, there was, during the filming of the of the dock, I signed up for a couple of accounts that I would use to like, test out, you know, comments and likes and bots and things like that. And I can’t, I can’t, I literally cannot remember the passwords, and I can’t, I can’t reset it or delete it. And every day my phone gets like 2030 pop ups. It’s like, hey, Nick, you haven’t you haven’t logged in today, you haven’t posted? Why don’t you post something? Oh, look, this person just liked something, maybe you should like it too, that that the that the platform’s front and center is the number of followers you have. Every photo, it’s the number of likes you get, it’s the number of comments, it’s, it is all designed to to benefit the platform, and not the people who use it. And they have created a system where like this become a video game. And the leaderboard is the people who have the most number of followers. And I don’t think that I don’t think they they’re doing anything to try to change any of that. And I think that, you know, that, look, you can we can talk numbers about teen suicides and depression and all these things like, we have a responsibility. I don’t care what industry you’re in, I don’t care if you’re, if you’re an influencer, or you’re in tech, or you or whatever you’re doing, we have a responsibility to try to make this if this thing exists. And it’s something that’s here to stay, we have a responsibility to try to make it work better for kids. Because right now, it doesn’t.
Jason Falls
I don’t disagree with with that sentiment at all. I wonder if there’s a way though, that I can talk you into a sequel called real influence where you profile three people who are experts in their field and build successful brands leverage their influence for the information and entertainment of their audience and don’t do p signs and duck lips. Is that is that in the offing? Maybe?
Nick Bilton
Well, let’s do it. You can be a producer and a will. And then when when you don’t like what I’m filming, you could call me a grumpy old man. And look, I I don’t want this stuff to work. I mean, I I desperately. I you know, I think that there is a side of all of this that is is good. I genuinely do I think there. But you know, I’ve said this to someone recently. So you know, Kevin Kelley is the guy started Wired Magazine.
Jason Falls
Yes.
Nick Bilton
So Kevin, he’s so smart. He, you know, I consider him like a tech philosopher. And he says, I remember getting into an argument with him about technology three years ago, and I said, You know, I feel like it’s just being used for bad more and more and more. And he said, Look, every technology can be used for bad It can be used for good. And he said, but his belief is the technology is is used 51% for good and 49% for bad. And as a result, it is making society better. 2% better, right? Because it’s even though it’s only a little bit more each iteration of a new technology does that right? And so my book But social media is that that was how it started. And how it started was 99% good 1% back. And I think the scale has moved and moved to move to move to move. And I think we’re now at a point where social media is in this as being generous is 51% bad and 49% good. And I think when that happens, it’s time for everyone who works in that industry, whether you’re just posting a picture, you know, of, of your cappuccino, or if it’s your if it’s how you make your, your, your bread and butter, I think that it’s it’s time for us to kind of say, Okay, what can we do to try to make this better? Because the only way that it’s going to change is is it the people who are on the platforms, and especially the biggest users on the platforms are the ones that are calling it out.
Nick Bilton
If, if, if the majority of influences are are or have real followings and really care about how this is impacting their industry, they will be the first ones to go to Instagram and say you guys have to get rid of the bots. You guys have to do this, that and the other. But that doesn’t happen and I think that Instagram has zero incentive to do this because if they legitimately got rid of that the bots and if they legitimately got rid of the user numbers and the and the light numbers in the set the other it would be better for society, but it’d be worse with their business.
Jason Falls
Absolutely fair. The film is called Fake Famous written directed produced by Nick Bilton available now on HBO and HBO. Max. Nick, where can people find or follow you otherwise online?
Nick Bilton
Oh, don’t waste your time. Just go watch the movie. Don’t follow me.
Jason Falls
Well, Nick, thank you so much for the time today. I appreciate the the conversation and hopefully we can circle back at some point and have a little bit more of an arm wrestling match about this.
Nick Bilton
Alright, sounds good. Thanks so much for watching and thanks for having me on and I’m looking forward to reading your book.
Jason Falls
Awesome. Thank you.
Transcribed by otter.ai
The Winfluence theme music is “One More Look” featuring Jacquire King and Stephan Sharp by The K Club found on Facebook Sound Collection.
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