[bright tone]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[electronic whirring]
[vibrant operatic music]
- [singing Italian aria]
♪ ♪
[vocalizing]
♪ ♪
- It wasn't that long ago that in order to get away
from the hustle and bustle
and that never-ending grind of everyday life,
you'd get on a plane, fly somewhere warm--
like Los Angeles--
and spend a week bopping
from one tourist attraction to another:
the Hollywood sign,
strolling along Venice Beach,
admiring the architecture,
and zipping through the canyons and the coastlines
and taking in the sparkle of Tinseltown.
♪ ♪
Now people get on a plane, fly to LA,
and go to a pink wall to take selfies.
In fact, that pink wall
is one of LA's top tourist destinations,
written about in everything from "Fodor's"
to "Travel + Leisure,"
and is cited on more lists of places
to snap an Instagram photo
than most tourist destinations on the entire planet.
♪ ♪
People come here from all over the world
just to take a picture.
♪ ♪
Families do it.
Locals do it.
You see these women?
They're from England, and they paid $2,000 each
to come here on an Instagram vacation
just to take a photo against a flat pink wall.
Why? What are they looking for?
- [singing Italian aria]
- That's easy.
They're looking for this:
likes,
which translates to more followers,
which is the current currency
of the most important thing on Earth today,
what everyone seems to be obsessed with.
They want to be famous.
[chorus singing in Italian]
♪ ♪
- [singing Italian aria]
♪ ♪
- Let me ask you a question.
It's a question that everyone has been asked
at one time or another.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
For decades, when researchers asked kids this,
the answer was often the same.
Today kids in America say
they want to be this
more than any other occupation on Earth...
- Good morning from paradise.
I'm wearing a big sweater.
- A famous influencer.
[tires squealing]
- Cheers, guys. - Cheers.
- It's understandable.
Influencers lead a grand life.
- This is our first real day in Tulum.
- We're at the Victoria's Secret pre-party.
- Had a really fun night last night,
and then now we came to Purobeach.
- This is the new room for the next three days.
- But is that actual fame?
Is that number--
that indicator of how many followers you have,
how many likes you get,
how many people comment on your post--
is that all real?
- Good morning, guys.
I went to sleep realizing
I had 2 million followers last night.
- There are over 40 million people
who have over 1 million followers on Instagram.
Are they all famous?
There are over 100 million people
who have more than 100,000 followers.
Are they famous too?
If they are, how can over 140 million people--
the equivalent of almost half
of the population of the United States--
all be considered famous?
[overlapping chatter]
[bright orchestral music]
♪ ♪
To find out, we want to do an experiment
to see if we can take some random people
with a tiny following online
and make them into famous influencers.
Now, we genuinely have no idea how this is going to play out.
Can we get someone to, say, 10,000 followers,
100,000, a million, even?
And if we can, will people look at them differently?
Will their life change for the better,
or are there unintended consequences
for the worse?
- You can take Chris, and you can take Sophia,
and you can take Sergio into the waiting room.
It's gonna be Chris, Sophia, then Sergio.
- Chris, Sophia, Sergio.
- Great. Thank you so much.
- To start, we put out a casting call
with one very simple question:
"Do you want to be famous?"
- We got probably
around 4,000 submissions.
- I take really cool pictures.
I surf. I snowboard.
- I've been a traveling nomadic yoga teacher.
- One of my goals is to visit all the national parks.
- Then we put together a panel of social media experts,
casting agents, and stylists
to help us narrow down our thousands of applicants
to just three people.
- This is the day.
Your life is changing, girl.
I love you.
- Are you ready? - I am ready.
- Once we pick three people from this group,
we're going to try to make them famous
or at least appear that way.
- All right, everybody, this is Lo.
- Hi, Lo. - Hi, Lo!
- All right, could you just tell us
your name, where you're from,
and how many followers you have on Instagram
into the camera?
- Yes. Hello.
My name is Lo Mardell.
I am from southeast Washington, D.C.,
and I have about 4,100 followers on Instagram.
- I'm from Overland Park, Kansas.
- I'm from Juárez, Chihuahua.
- My name's Wylie, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia,
and I have 2,443 Instagram followers.
[laughs] I counted. I checked.
I'm an assistant,
but my boss doesn't have a lot of boundaries.
I do, like, real estate stuff and personal stuff
and, like, gofer things.
Like, all the assistants have-- - Does he know you're here?
- No, I called in sick.
[laughter]
- That's so funny. - What do you do for work?
- Right now, I'm just doing, like, modeling and acting.
- I do modeling and acting.
- I model and I act.
- I act and I model.
- Can you tell me how many Instagram followers you have?
- I think I've got about 230 followers on Instagram.
- I currently have 1,100 followers.
- 13.2K.
- I don't know how many followers I got.
- Who are your followers?
- Thirsty men,
a lot of thirsty men. [laughter]
- They want to see me half-naked or in a bikini.
- What's your passion?
- Right now, I'm focusing on roller-skating.
♪ ♪
- I am a princess on the weekends.
[gentle tone] Well, hello, everyone.
It's so good to be here today.
My name is Cinderella.
- ♪ Mi piace è bello, bello ♪
♪ ♪
- And would you like to be famous?
- Absolutely. [laughs]
- Yes, I want to be famous.
I will be.
- I wouldn't say "famous."
I want to just have a platform to where I can change the world
in the ways that I want to change it.
- I mean, I guess all my life,
I said I wanted to be famous, but at this point,
I don't even feel like I want to.
I feel like I deserve to, you know what I'm saying, so...
- Why is that?
- 'Cause I need people to feel this.
I need people to feel what charisma and passion
is like in real life.
This ain't no act.
Like, all my life, I been the biggest outcast
in all situations,
like, high school, everything--
like, everything. - Mm-hmm.
- But I feel like I'm doing all of this stuff for a reason.
- I want to share with people, like,
"This kind of person exists in the world."
- Now's my chance to maybe be someone
that people look up to.
But I think I would be more authentic
on social media with a greater following
knowing that I'm reaching more people.
- And how many hours a day
do you think you would spend on social media?
- Phew. A lot.
[laughter]
A lot.
- If I'm not working out,
I'm usually on social media,
just constantly scrolling.
- And what are you doing, exactly?
- Looking at people in bathing suits,
getting... [laughs]
Super jealous that I don't have abs yet.
- I spend most of my time looking at, like,
memes and boys on there.
- At least three to four hours.
- Four to six hours.
- Like, half the day.
- I average 12.
- I would love to have at least a million followers.
I hung out with a girl that has 1.3 million followers,
and her lifestyle is 1.3 million followers.
[laughter]
It's like a fan base, you know?
So she's a musician.
She's, like, a little pop star,
and it's so much more reach.
Brands want you. It's great.
- Are you trying to increase your Instagram followers?
Is it something you focus on?
- That's kind of been actually a big problem for me
with Instagram is that I feel like I don't have a formula.
- It seems like nowadays
that selfies are the most popular.
[camera shutters snapping]
- That's where I find I get more likes
is just solo pictures.
And unfortunately, I care about that.
[laughs]
[camera shutters snapping]
- So this is my process for a selfie,
like, for real.
So I look pretty shiny.
But you want the dewy. You want the dew these days.
[camera shutters snapping]
- Oh. Ah! - There you go.
- Okay. - Ah, there you go.
- If someone snapped their fingers
and you had a million followers on Instagram,
what would you do?
- Yo. Sign me up!
I will do anything if I get to sit on a beach all day.
[laughter]
[camera shutters snapping]
♪ ♪
- [chuckles] I'ma delete it.
- Thank you. - No problem. Thank you.
- Yeah.
[crowd screaming]
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- Fame is such an obscure, strange thing.
You can't touch it, and yet it's more powerful
than almost any object on Earth.
♪ ♪
You can't see it, and yet almost everyone wants it.
♪ ♪
And whoever actually gets it
has absolutely no control over it.
[unintelligible shouting]
- No, no. No, no, no.
- Being famous is a little bit like being a toddler
in the sense that everything you do is praised.
So I think the desire to be famous
is just a desire to be loved,
just to get that sort of feeling.
- Jared!
[crowd shouting]
- It used to be that somebody'd be famous
for certain skills and talents,
like acting or music or sports.
And then as media expanded
and needed more and more material
for its 24 hours of entertainment,
it opened a lot more avenues for fame.
- The tribe has spoken.
- That's when we got reality TV,
where you could be famous simply for being famous.
- [bleep]!
- Ah, [bleep]. Stop! - [screams]
- Now we have a new kind of fame,
one where you're famous simply for a number...
- Hi, guys.
- Hey, guys, how is it going? - Well, hello there.
- Just letting you know we have launched...
- Come on in. It's hot out here. Come on.
- The famous influencer.
[wondrous music]
♪ ♪
For more than a decade,
I was the guy who went on TV
defending social media.
As a reporter for "The New York Times"
and "Vanity Fair,"
my beat was covering the impact
of technology on society.
Now as almost 4 billion people
spend a collective 100 billion hours a day
on sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter,
I've realized that there are
vast unintended consequences to these platforms,
not least of which is people's obsession with fame.
Hence this social experiment.
- Okay, so page one.
- Lo I liked. - Taylor.
Probably Kyoshi, yeah?
- We can make this foolproof by picking the opera singer,
the model, or the professional basketball player.
But they could easily end up
being famous for their talents,
so instead we decided
to go with three less obvious choices:
Dominique, Wylie, and Chris.
[camera shutter snaps]
[soft piano music]
- This is my home.
♪ ♪
I just got a fish.
Her name is Kitty Smalls.
She's still alive a week and a half later.
[laughs] I'm impressed with myself.
I just spilt yogurt... on my crotch area.
[camera shutter snaps]
- You go! - Oh, my God.
- I grew up in Miami Beach.
I moved to LA right after college
to pursue my acting career.
♪ ♪
The first big audition I had,
it was not a role I wanted at all
because she had to do, like, a simulated sex scene.
My agent was just like,
"Honestly, this is a really good move for you.
I think you should be doing it."
♪ ♪
And that looks sort of better.
I set hard limits for myself after that.
I don't think Meryl Streep has ever
showed her boob on-screen.
Why should I, you know?
- All right, just stay here for a minute.
I'm gonna go snag Mom.
I've been in a few student films.
I played a robot.
Good morning, Richard.
I actually really enjoyed that role.
[electronic chirp]
Your shoes are on the wrong feet.
I get cast a lot as, like, angsty teen.
[ethereal music]
[grunts] [flesh squelches]
Shit.
Still waiting for my big break.
Where's Richard?
He sent a stranger to take me to the doctor?
Ugh.
He sent a stranger...
[chuckling] To take me to the doctor.
He sent a stranger to take me to the doctor?
- Where is Richard?
both: He sent a stranger to take me to the doctor?
- Not exactly a stranger, so...
You're into animals, huh?
both: Get lost.
[gentle piano music]
♪ ♪
[line trills]
- Hey, good morning.
- Hi, Mom. How are you?
- Good. How come you're up so early?
- [laughing] I have work at 9:00.
- Ah.
- We have that regional manager coming.
You know, she and I don't get along.
- Well, be positive, remember.
- Yeah.
- You're the boo-boo girl.
- Yup.
All right. - All right, sweetie.
Well, I hope you have a great day.
I love you. - I love you too.
I'll talk to you later.
♪ ♪
- Good morning. - Good morning.
Sorry I'm late. - No, you're okay.
- [sighs] I'm out of breath.
♪ ♪
I love making people laugh.
Oh, I'd love to be a series regular on a TV show.
But I have not been, like, auditioning every week,
and, like, when I'm here, on Thursdays before class,
I'm, like, running lines back here
while I'm, like, pulling inventory.
Absolutely when you're meeting with an agent,
they want to see, like, how many followers you have,
like, all of the social media, like, package,
that you're well-branded already.
I used to think it was, like, because of your efforts
or, like, you put the work in
and people admire your work
and, like, recognize that you have done something,
and now it's just like, anybody can kind of do it...
Because you're an Instagrammer.
And I'm kind of just like, I'll play the game
so that I can do what I want,
but in the meantime, I'll fill online orders.
[camera shutter snaps]
[dramatic piano music]
♪ ♪
- Today is October 4th.
October 22nd makes one year since I've been in LA.
[camera shutter snaps]
If you want to be something, if you want to be somebody,
then you gotta get the fuck out of Tucson, Arizona,
at all costs necessary, bro.
[camera shutter snaps]
That place is hell.
I was making moves, yo.
Like, I was doing shit.
I was doing events. I was doing pop-ups.
I was making merch.
People were coming through having a good time.
Like, I was creating this whole,
like, culture and everything,
but, like, it's too small.
It's where people go to live the last chapter,
not, like, be in your prime.
♪ ♪
The thoughts that were going through my mind
when I was in Arizona were so negative
and were so, like-- I was so down on myself.
Like, I couldn't go nowhere but up,
so hon--like, coming out here,
I just knew I was gonna have a new outlook.
I was just gonna have a new future,
you know what I'm saying?
[camera shutter snaps]
So I just got in my car.
I just told my grandma, I was like,
"I'm leaving. I'm out."
My grandma was like, "You should be out."
[camera shutter snaps]
♪ ♪
[cell phone chirps]
That your phone?
[unintelligible chatter]
When I first got to LA, it was tough.
But I've got a good squad, got a lot of friends out here.
[sewing machine whirring]
In high school, I just had this love for clothes.
[muttering unintelligibly]
The avenue of music brought me into fashion,
and my interest for both of them grew.
♪ ♪
My grandma and my grandpa had, like,
an ancient sewing machine,
and they taught me how to use it.
And I wanted to make a brand
that every piece was one of one.
♪ ♪
The concept behind 1-OFF
is that I apply graphics to a secondhand garment.
Everybody wants to be known for something,
you know what I'm saying?
Even if it's only by a few people
or if it's the whole world,
like, everybody wants to be known.
I was voted in high school most likely to be famous
and best-dressed every year.
We gonna have to find a yearbook
so I could show ya,
but that's the facts.
♪ ♪
[camera shutter snaps]
[camera shutter snapping]
[line trilling]
- Oh, these are cute homes.
- Good morning. - Hey.
I was wondering if you could help me.
I'm trying to find a bow tie
that my boss has bought in the past.
Could you look up two names?
It's either under his name or his husband's name.
I work for a real estate agent in Beverly Hills.
[camera shutter snaps]
[sighs] It's, like, 40% personal,
60% real estate stuff.
So I do, like, open houses and showings,
and then, like, I'm also, like, picking up laundry
and, like, filling pill boxes.
I have two phones because you have to have
all of his contacts in his iCloud on one phone,
so we have, like, 12,000 contacts on this one,
and then this is my personal one.
[camera shutter snaps]
I moved here a year ago.
It's the first time I've been away from home.
I used to be a lot heavier, a lot thicker.
I lived above a calzone restaurant,
so that's probably why.
♪ ♪
And Atlanta didn't really have that much of a gay community.
Out here, like, most of my friends are gay guys.
There's so much pressure, I think, to look good out here,
especially, like, in the gay community.
It's honestly just so exacerbating
and just so daunting.
But everyone out here keeps up with it,
so I felt like I sort of just had to join the culture.
♪ ♪
It's been fine; it just isn't as fun
as it used to be when I could eat a calzone.
♪ ♪
Hi.
Good. How are you?
When I was in high school, I realized I was pretty OCD.
You know, I got out here,
and it just manifested into something else.
The combination of the social media,
the combination of being around so many beautiful people,
it's very competitive.
I take, like, antianxiety pills,
but I mean, who doesn't these days?
♪ ♪
I really don't have a lot of experience with it,
but fame, I guess, from what I know,
it just seems great.
It really does seem like a good thing,
and everyone wants it, so I kind of was just like,
"I mean, if everybody else wants it,
I don't see why I wouldn't."
♪ ♪
I kind of do think that fame is something that I could use
as a tool to fix my own issues or whatever or--
I don't know; I just don't know enough about it
to kind of figure out what I have not--
I don't know. Am I making sense?
- People ask me all the time,
like, "What is an influencer?
"Give us a one-word,
you know, definition."
It's really hard to do that.
I am cited in the Merriam-Webster dictionary
in the definition of "influencer,"
so I should have a better answer.
But I would say it's somebody
who is half entrepreneur and half celebrity, kind of.
- Madison Guest and I are on our way
to our very first
New York Fashion Week party tonight.
We're very excited. - So excited.
- An influencer, I think,
technically is just someone
who has a lot of followers
on some of these platforms.
- Anyone who has access to a large following,
whether it's real or fake,
and they are able to promote themselves
or promote brands.
- Good morning.
So I just got to the hangar here
where we are shooting some planes today,
but most importantly,
we are shooting some watches today.
Look at this beauty.
- What's up, you guys?
I know you've heard me talk about Regi
a few times before in my feed.
Regi is this incredible booking platform.
- This deep conditioner is everything in a jar.
- It does also seem to mean "not employed"
or "person without sense of purpose."
[inquisitive music]
- Whoo!
- I think the term "influencer" has--
generally has a negative connotation
for whatever reason.
- People associate influencers
with bloggers
or models who aren't signed
or things like that.
- It really is about
presenting a lifestyle
that people want to mimic.
You're really trying
to show people,
"This is my life, and if you
"want to be more like me,
you should follow me."
- Influencer is really a rage.
It could be anything from a micro-influencer
who has, say, like, 5,000 followers
to somebody with a million-plus.
There's the style influencers,
there's the fashion influencers,
the lifestyle influencers,
the home and interior design influencers,
the wellness influencers,
the health and fitness influencers.
There's so many different kinds.
- We livin' today.
- There's a lot of positive to it too,
especially for people, for instance,
that didn't have a voice in traditional media.
- We're gonna talk about how you can run
digital voter registration drives.
- Everything that used to be centralized
and vetted and controlled and gatekept,
those gates have been blown open
heavily by technology.
We've seen it in activist communities
from MeToo to Black Lives Matter,
an environmental movement,
the climate crisis.
- We are on school strike for the climate.
- There are groups of people
fighting for their freedom around the world
who are now aware of each other
because they can be connected across that world.
[protestors chanting unintelligibly]
[hopeful music]
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
- All right, let's do this thing.
- Let me see what we got.
- You know what the deal is.
- Do you have any thoughts of what you want to do,
or you're just open?
- I'm open. - Okay.
We're gonna cut it shorter. - Cool.
[Ratchét's "Put in Work"]
- All right. What's your dream here?
- I don't know; I think I always liked curly hair.
- We always want what we don't have, right?
- Yeah.
- ♪ Checkin' for 'em, always keep it movin' ♪
♪ Only Rolex, please, no G-SHOCKs, who you foolin' ♪
♪ Cute brown skin twinnin' with some boobies ♪
- There are millions of people
who have millions of followers on Instagram.
That means everyone
knows somebody who knows somebody
who is famous on Instagram.
- What's up? This lady's about to do my nails, I guess.
Yeah, what's up?
Are you gonna pamper me?
- [laughs] Yes. - All right, good.
- But fame on Instagram,
it's not the only goal.
Likes, followers, views--
all those metrics have become this marker in our society
for being a person who is well-liked
who has an interesting life.
And that matters for getting hired.
That matters for getting into relationships,
for dating.
If you don't participate,
you're really locked out of a lot of opportunities
that other people get.
- But for real, look at this pattern.
You gotta take a picture of it.
- I shall.
- I look like my mom.
- ♪ I'm a boss, ain't no L, let 'em see me in Chanel ♪
♪ I be drippin', and I'm killing everything ♪
♪ Wish 'em well, never checkin' for 'em ♪
♪ Always keep it movin' ♪
- They did such a good job with your haircut too.
- Yeah, I love the cut. - It looks so good.
It looks so natural.
- I like it behind my ears too. Wow.
- ♪ Put in work ♪ - ♪ Put in work ♪
both: ♪ Put in work, put in work, put in work ♪
- ♪ Put in work ♪ - ♪ Put in work ♪
both: ♪ Put in work, put in work, put in work ♪
- Next up on the road to fame,
we have to get these up-and-coming influencers
more followers.
- ♪ Put in work ♪ - ♪ Put in work ♪
both: ♪ Put in work, put in work, put in work ♪
- So online, you don't have to go
to the dark web or anything.
You just go to the straight-up Internet,
and you can pretty much buy anything you want.
And right now, I'm about to buy
Dom, Wylie, and Chris some fake friends.
One website that we've been using
for this story, of course, is called Famoid,
F-A-M-O-I-D.
And I'm gonna go there right now,
and I'm gonna buy Dominique 7,500 followers today
for the grand price of $119.60.
Kay.
[inquisitive music]
And there you go. The order has been placed.
So now it says,
"Estimated delivery time: three days."
It'll actually take a lot less time than that.
It'll probably take about 24 hours.
You'll probably start to see it happen pretty quickly.
I'm now gonna do it again for Wylie.
♪ ♪
Get a screenshot.
And we're gonna buy Chris 7,500 followers.
He'll start to see them come in
in the next probably couple of hours,
and it'll trickle in over the next few days.
The companies do that so that they don't alert
Instagram's software that notices, you know,
a huge jump.
♪ ♪
- Yeah, my Instagram is crazy right now.
Like, this just happened three hours ago.
What the hell did Nick do?
- I bought him 7,500 bots.
So what exactly is a bot?
Well, in short, it's an algorithm
that pretends to be a real person on the Internet.
[electronic whirring]
These bots are created by hackers and programmers
who write code that scour the web
to steal countless random identities online
by pilfering people's photos and names and bios.
Then their code jumbles all the stuff up together
to create millions of fake people
who can be used to like, comment, and follow
millions of real people on social media.
crowd: [chanting] USA! USA! USA! USA!
- You likely heard about these bots
during recent elections,
Brexit, and the rise of the alt-right,
where social media was being used
to drive division around the globe,
all done with fake people sharing fake news.
- Your social media feed may have been part
of Russia's interference in the election.
The issue is how sophisticated computer bots
distribute online content and articles
that could help Trump and hurt Clinton.
- But they also serve a bigger role
in a more mainstream deception
by making people appear more popular
than they really are.
And they're not just used on social media.
For a few dollars,
you can buy fake bidders on your listings on eBay.
You can pay for fake song downloads
on music websites,
fake sales of books, and fake reviews of movies.
You can pick if your bots are male or female,
American or Chinese,
liberal or conservative.
And right now, there are hundreds of millions of them
blending in online, and most people
can't tell them apart from you and me.
♪ ♪
I don't have real chocolates, so I'm gonna make some.
Cocoa powder and butter.
I can keep it like this.
Here we go.
All right, Wylie, I'm gonna give you 50 bucks
if you eat one of those pats of butter.
[laughs] - I'll eat it. I like butter.
[laughs]
- Dom, you're gonna go to the Four Seasons.
Wylie, you seem more like a Viceroy kind of guy.
- Ooh.
- How should she sit, Ash? - Yeah.
- If you extend that right leg out a little more.
Yeah, perfect. [camera shutter snapping]
And then look out that way for me.
Beautiful. [camera shutter snapping]
Just like that, yeah.
[lively orchestral music]
♪ ♪
Perfect. Yeah, I love that.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
Beautiful.
Ah, cute, I love that.
[cell phone buzzing]
Is there a way to get both elbows up?
Yeah. - Hey.
- There we go.
Beautiful.
- No, it's in the group text.
You said you only look at the group text.
If you look at the text, it's right there.
- All right, ready.
[camera shutter snaps]
- T-U-J-U-N-G-A.
North Hollywood.
- Dominique, could you look at me
and do the same smile with your glasses up?
- Who's that?
- My boss. [chuckles]
He thinks I'm at my aunt's birthday right now.
- Wylie, you're up.
- [giggles] I'm so uncomfortable.
[laughter]
Just direct me, please. [laughs]
- You can be looking off your shoulder
and then be mid taking off your robe.
- Oh, my God, okay. - [laughs]
- This is... - [laughs]
You got it. That's perfect. - Something else.
♪ ♪
- Perfect.
- We'll do one of you reaching for a chocolate.
Maybe drink as you're doing it.
- Ooh, yeah.
[camera shutter snaps]
♪ ♪
- So what are we doing here?
Why are we making pretend chocolates out of butter
and filling up an old, dirty kiddie pool with roses?
It's gonna be great.
And why is Chris pretending he's working out
at a private gym in Beverly Hills
when he's really just in a warehouse downtown?
[curious music]
♪ ♪
- All right, y'all ready to get it?
[vibrant operatic music]
♪ ♪
- [singing Italian aria]
- How's it look? - So good.
- Okay, cool.
We're simply doing what so many other influencers do.
We're faking it.
♪ ♪
- So much of it is so contrived and fake.
I've worked with influencers for projects
where, you know, you select them
off of their Instagram and their images
and then you ask them to come in
and do a shoot or an interview,
and they will refuse to take photos
because they highly edit their own images
and they won't be comfortable with whatever we shoot.
- All right, should we do some cucumbers?
- Ah. Perfect.
♪ ♪
- Online, there are thousands of tutorials
explaining how to pretend that you're
on an elaborate vacation
when you're really just in your bedroom.
Or as this influencer pulled off...
- I went on a luxury dream vacation to Bali.
♪ ♪
Only problem is, I was actually at IKEA.
- And almost everyone does this
in one form or another.
People fake private gym trainings
so that later, they can go and get
a free training at a private gym.
♪ ♪
These fake photos quickly become a currency
that you can use to get free real experiences,
products, and sponsorships.
[Chris grunting]
♪ ♪
- [whistles] - [laughs]
That boy did most of it.
- Whoa. Whew.
- Jesus. - Wow, man.
- That's crazy.
[bright orchestral music]
- All right, ready. Go.
[camera shutter snaps]
- [laughs] - Get it high.
- Yeah, get it high.
[camera shutter snaps]
- [laughs]
- Try a little higher. - Okay.
♪ ♪
- [laughs]
You're just getting it, like, behind you.
♪ ♪
- They fake all-expense-paid camping trips
so that later, they can get
a free all-expense-paid camping trip.
There you go. - That was it.
- That's it.
They fake hikes in the redwoods
so that they can try and get
free hiking gear and sponsorships.
♪ ♪
- Perfect. One more.
[camera shutter snaps]
- Do we have the toilet seat?
They fake free upgrades to first class
or trips on private jets,
and all you really need to do that
is a $12 toilet seat.
[camera shutter snaps]
- We work with a lot of celebrities,
and everything they post
isn't necessarily, like, genuine and of that day.
It's very curated and, you know,
contrived in a lot of ways.
- Look like you're relaxed.
- [laughs] - Further this way.
♪ ♪
- So it's not necessarily only influencers doing it.
I think it's like, the platform
has created basically this one formula
for how to use it.
- [mimics whoosh] Turbulence!
No! [laughs]
- The damaging part
to this whole influencer world is,
most of the time, it's not real.
You can fake instances
where it looks like you live in a mansion
when you live in, like, a studio apartment.
Like, in one of your photos
where she was at Sequoia National Park,
there's, like, a fence beam there.
[laughs]
But to the average user, I don't think
they would pick up on that.
- Sometimes people even fake things without realizing it,
like Liz.
- I have faked it. - What do you mean?
- I moved to LA for two years, and no one knew.
- Liz is the face of the hugely popular
@newyorkcity Instagram account.
- I did, like,
a year-and-a-half, two-year stint in Los Angeles
and kept running the account.
People would think I was in New York
and I was, like, in Los Angeles at the beach.
[camera shutter snaps]
That's so fucked up, isn't it?
- All right, so here we go.
We're gonna hang these down a little.
[festive music]
- Perfect.
♪ ♪
Yeah, like this. - That looks good, Wylie.
[camera shutter snaps]
♪ ♪
[cell phone buzzing] [laughter]
- Your phone's ringing, and I honestly...
- Mine? - Think it might be your boss.
- Uh-oh. - [laughs]
- No, everyone, shut up. Everyone, shut up.
Hey.
[stifled laughter]
- [speaking unintelligibly over phone]
- Sure, and her listing appointment
was moved till 2:00.
You just have to go up the driveway.
I'll tell Shane.
You just have to go up the driveway.
- [speaking unintelligibly over phone]
- She said, "When you get to the listing appointment,
you just go up the driveway."
- Got it. - Got it.
Bye.
- [laughs] - Oh, my God, he's so rude.
- He's so rude. [laughs]
- Okay, where were we?
- God. [laughs]
[drone whirring]
[dramatic music]
- Yeah, I can't see a damn thing.
♪ ♪
Oh, he's about to whup my ass.
- And of course, you have to have
the fake drone footage of the fake boxing fight.
♪ ♪
- Jab, jab, right. Let me see that jab.
There you go.
♪ ♪
- When you buy all these fake bots,
they don't automatically start
liking and commenting your fake photos.
So now you have to start buying that engagement too.
♪ ♪
How's it going?
- It's good. - Yeah?
You want to see how this magic works?
- I do. Yeah, let me see. - All right.
So this is my Insta phone.
It's my bots and my... - Your burner phone.
- My--all these different things on it.
So I have this app,
and I can give you 25 followers right now.
It might take a minute to get started,
so while we're waiting, I'll show you how to do likes.
So let's pick a photo.
- Let's do this one from May 5th.
- All right, I'm gonna click this.
So there, I just purchased you 15 likes.
So you're gonna get those likes coming in.
- Okay.
- I can also do comments.
All I do is press a button,
and it will just start auto-commenting.
And it uses hacked accounts. It uses bots.
It uses everything. - Okay.
- And so that's essentially how that works.
And it's not just influencers.
Journalists, politicians, and even A-list celebrities
all purchase bots.
Why is there so little done
to try and stop all this from happening?
[suspenseful music]
Money.
- Why wouldn't Instagram stop this?
Because it inflates their numbers.
- If you think about what these companies monetize,
it's engagement and user growth,
and bots generate both of those.
- Everyone's trying to show
that their Instagram strategy has great metrics.
And so there's really no incentive
for anyone to get rid of these bots.
- It starts at the top,
Wall Street, where they invest so much money
into these tech companies
because the return on their investment
is unlike any other opportunity
on the entire planet.
Exactly how big?
Trillions and trillions of dollars big.
As you can imagine,
it's not really in the best interest of bankers
to ask if the people on the platforms are real
because the money surely is.
Now, the tech companies,
they love to gloat
about how many active users they have
so that the value of their companies
continue to grow.
So while places like Instagram and Twitter
do a little policing of the bots,
they largely turn a blind eye
to their platforms being filled
with so many fake accounts.
♪ ♪
Just ask this guy.
He is a bot broker
who can help make you famous for a price.
- Instagram used to be about 7% to 9% bots,
but that number has, of course, risen.
Some of the most famous people in the world
have 50%, 60% bots on their page.
- It goes without saying that the people
making, buying, and selling those fake accounts
are also making a small fortune.
One small vendor told us
you can make around $3 million a month
from a little bot farm.
Some of the bigger bot dealers,
they make about ten times that.
- This is big business.
These larger companies would be valued at least--
if I had to give it a figure, it'd be at least
$10 million, $20 million, maybe more, because--
- All based on fake bots.
- Yes.
- And then there's the influencers.
- There's so much money in the social media ecosystem.
It's insane.
- I'm working with some brands
that put 100% of their advertising budget
into social media.
- It is a real economy.
I mean, we built an entire business around it.
- The influencer agency that Liz helped create
sold for tens of millions of dollars.
- This is the big box of Lippie Pencils.
- I got a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer
from Best Buy.
- So how much can these people actually make?
- These influencers right now are hot shit.
- We offered, I think it was
these two 16-year-old mega-Youtubers,
like, $36,000 each to post a few frames on Snapchat.
- A majority of these influencers
are anywhere between 18 and 25 years old.
- I've paid influencers $80,000
for one post and two tweets before.
- They're working with "Fortune" 500 companies.
- They are a distribution platform.
They're a media company in and of themselves.
- Kim Kardashian charges as much as $500,000
for a single post on Instagram.
- I have been obsessed
with the two-step elixir kit by Queen Pegasus.
- Yet in 2019, a research study sparked press
that many celebrity accounts like Kim Kardashian's
have tens of millions of fake bots.
So with all that money sloshing around,
it's really in no one's best interest
to call bullshit on any of this.
- Hi! - Hi!
- How are you?
- Nice to meet you.
- Yes. This is gonna be so much fun.
- I'm so excited. - I know. I know.
- This is Kenzie from the casting call,
who offered to come by and teach Dom the ropes.
She has 15,000 real followers
and is considered a micro-influencer.
- How'd you get into the whole influencing?
- Well, I just--
I mean, kind of for modeling and acting stuff,
but I was just like,
I would much rather be an influencer
than working at a restaurant, you know?
- Yeah, totally.
- Or, like, all these odd jobs
that we kind of have to work.
- This is, like, the longest thing I own in LA.
- Oh, wait, no, this would be great.
This would be great. - Okay, cool.
Hopefully it still fits. - Let's take this--yes.
- [laughs] - That's perfect.
Okay.
The first look is old Hollywood glam.
So this will be great.
I always pick kind of a muse and a story line to follow,
and then from there, we just can, like,
bang out as many-- - Create it.
- Yeah.
- It's a lot of work keeping up with an audience.
Traditional celebrities, they can just go on camera,
do some interviews, post some shots, you know.
They don't have to engage 24-7 with their audience
the way that influencers are expected to.
- You know, some of, like, the top influencers,
they're posting, like, three or four times a day.
People just want to see your content
and what you're creating all the time.
But we're gonna get you up there, girl.
- All right. - We gonna do it.
- Okay, great. - We gonna do it. Yeah.
[bright orchestral music]
I mean, we're not gonna wear all of these,
but we have options. - That's great.
- Kenzie and her crew of photographers,
stylists, and makeup artists
are using an entire mansion for today's photo shoot,
which only cost us $613.20,
which is not bad to pretend you live like this.
- Okay, and I have everything separated into the looks.
- That's good.
- This is look four.
Look one. Look one, look one.
Nice.
This is perfect for the last, like, glam.
[gasps] I love this yellow room.
Okay, amazing.
- We just did a photo shoot,
and now we're doing another one.
That's because the previous shoot
only lasted us a few days.
Now it's time to feed the beast again.
- Oh, my gosh. Keep those eyes there.
- And if we want to get our up-and-coming stars
some free stuff or even get them paid,
we have to make it seem like they live
an influential lifestyle.
♪ ♪
- Quite the production.
♪ ♪
It's crazy. It's crazy.
- Can you hold your martini in the other arm?
- Yes.
- That's cute.
- Stunning.
- What people don't realize when they look
at these influencers and they think,
"Wow, this is an amazing life," and oftentimes, it is,
is how much work goes into that.
It is so much work.
- Beautiful.
- You're a copywriter,
you're a content production team,
you are building your own entity of sorts,
and that takes a tremendous amount of smarts.
- I don't know; is this-- yeah, someone called you.
- I love that. - Yeah, gorgeous.
- Okay! - Oh!
- She's gonna do some dirty things
in the White House.
- Right? - Oh, yes.
- Wow. These are amazing.
♪ ♪
- Here we are, the private jet.
Literally anything is available to you
to help fake your shoots,
including fake private jets.
Can I get you a drink, sir? - Yeah, sure.
What you got? - [chuckles]
- I can't believe some clowns actually book this thing.
- It's $49.99 an hour-- 50 bucks an hour.
We tried to get it last week,
and it was booked round the clock.
Let's see, what else do we have here?
That's it. - Nice.
- So we'll put this on here, and then we're gonna
do a little photo shoot.
- Are these pretzels gluten-free?
- [chuckles] - I've been trying to get away
from gluten, you know?
- All right, let me get some pictures of you
while you're on your jet. - Mm, mm, mm.
- Do you want to look out the window?
- Oh, yeah. What a nice view.
I love having the window seat.
♪ ♪
- I'd be curious to see if any of your friends
knew it was fake.
[camera shutter snaps]
Would you post this on your Instagram?
- No.
It feels not right for me.
It's a circus.
It's a complete circus.
- Look at me a second.
[camera shutter snaps]
- I'd much rather just show me
and document the things that I do
because I believe that,
you know, I'm an influential person,
Instagram or not.
You know, I would say I influence
every person that I touch and every person that,
you know, gets to spend some time around me and, like,
absorb the energy and, like, witness who I am.
Like, I don't need to do any more fake private jets.
I don't need to do any of this.
There's so much that goes into planning the fakeness
and, like, portraying something that's not really there.
That's pretty crazy to me.
- Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my God.
Keep everything about that. Wait.
- I'm stuck. - It's fine.
- Eyes at me for one.
Beautiful.
- Influencers who are just getting started now
are trying to get in there really quickly
and cash in while they can before the platform, you know,
changes and evolves or fades away.
- Yeah, these shoots get just so exhausting,
but we bang out, you know, four different looks.
- Just, like, look away on these.
Yeah, perfect.
- People are buying lighting rigs
for their average lives so that they look amazing
for the people who might want to be
a part of those lives,
because we're all making our own movies,
and we're trying to be the star.
♪ ♪
- Beautiful. - All right.
We gotta go back into glam.
- Everyone is trying to beat the algorithm,
getting more followers, getting more eyeballs.
- You have to kind of be gross
and be self-promotional to get anywhere.
- All right.
- Fame is just fake anyway, right?
And so, like, why not hustle and put yourself out there
and try to get what you want?
- And then--oh, I love that.
- It is truly some of the easiest
and some of the hardest money you'll ever make.
- One, two, and three.
One, two, and three.
♪ ♪
- When we started this project, I thought it would be simple.
I'd buy some bots, some likes, some comments,
and that would be it.
But once we got on this hamster wheel,
it only started to go faster and faster,
and before we knew it, none of us could get off.
Mmm. - Pepperoni is my favorite.
- [muffled] Pepperoni is your favorite?
- Mm-hmm. - Mmm.
[inquisitive music]
That's because the more fake accounts you buy,
the more fake likes and comments
you need on your posts.
♪ ♪
Before you know it, you're me, buying your "influencers"
all these fake interactions several times a day...
♪ ♪
All while hoping that you don't alert the algorithm
that could kick them off the service
and trying to ensure that your fake audience
arrives at the exact time you post
in order for everything to appear real.
♪ ♪
- Honey, when are you gonna go to sleep?
- Just buying some bots. Give me a second.
♪ ♪
On top of all that,
Wylie and Dom are worried that they're not getting
enough likes and comments on their photos.
Chris isn't happy about all the fake bots
because he says it's ruining his Instagram account.
♪ ♪
- It's a good one.
Let me tag them.
- And I keep getting ripped off
by a 14-year-old kid in Egypt
who is posing as a major bot dealer.
♪ ♪
But putting all of this aside for now,
the craziest part about this whole experiment
is that after just three months,
it's actually starting to work.
- I don't know if I like these.
They're okay.
They were free.
[chuckles]
- A sunglasses outlet reached out to Dom,
offering two free pairs of shades
in exchange for a couple of Instagram posts,
which I then filled up
with a bunch of fake likes and fake comments.
- All right, man. Let's go.
Tell me where we at.
- We're at Royal Personal Training.
We're here to kick some ass,
gonna get a good workout, blood flow.
Just good energy, good vibes.
Let's go. Come on. - All right.
- And Chris got a random message out of nowhere
from a private gym in Beverly Hills
that caters to influencers,
asking if he wanted a free session
in exchange for him posting on Instagram
and, of course, tagging the private gym.
♪ ♪
And then there's Wylie.
- I was getting some anxiety because some people--
or I think it was just this one guy--
kept messaging me about these bots,
and they were increasing really fast,
and one morning, I just woke up
and I had 12,000 followers,
and it was kind of scary.
But I guess he caught on
and was like, "What's going on?"
and was kind of rude about it. [laughs]
And I don't know.
The whole thing just made me feel really uncomfortable.
[slow piano music]
♪ ♪
He's just a random dude from Atlanta
that I sort of know.
But it made me uncomfortable with him calling me out.
♪ ♪
It's not a fun feeling. It's just not.
♪ ♪
And I just put my Instagram account on private.
I don't know what it is about the trolls
that just really get me. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- People are starting to look
at some of the negative effects on social media,
not just interpersonal effects like feeling inadequate
because you don't have enough followers
but also the harassment that comes along with that,
the bullying,
all of that toxicity on social media.
- I have a 14-year-old sister
who's very affected by the social media,
the Snapchat and the Instagram
and the Facebook and everything,
and it's very depressing.
♪ ♪
And I didn't think that I'd be one of the people
who was so affected by it.
I thought that I kind of did this
because I thought I was okay with all that,
but it really happens to everyone.
- I think it's not possible to separate the negatives
of influencer culture, viral mechanics
from the technology platforms that they sit on.
We keep children away from cigarettes
because of the harm,
and we keep them away from weapons,
and yet in this realm,
we have left them to the wolves.
♪ ♪
- The uptick in teen suicides and depression,
I think it's directly related to social media.
♪ ♪
If you're just seeking fame,
if you're just seeking the attention
that you see being paid
in those situations, it's never gonna be enough.
And if any of that dips,
you risk being quite destroyed by it.
♪ ♪
- It is a beautiful, beautiful morning
here in Abu Dhabi today.
- Oh, my gosh, thank you so much
to Marc Jacobs for sending over some birthday flowers.
I really don't deserve you guys.
Oh, my God.
- I just came home to a beautiful package
from Lahana Swim.
- Hey, guys.
So we're gonna use my Vejo blender
for the first time.
[blender whirring]
[curious orchestral music]
But I've gotten some free stuff.
Kashi! And granola, damn.
Cannabis-infused social drink.
Sisel toothpastes.
Oh, I'm excited for that.
♪ ♪
I did my whole, like, "Dominique Druckman,
huge fan of your company,"
and they said, "Hey, Dominique.
"So stoked you'd like to work with us.
"We'd love to gift you one of our cute phone cases
to rep on your IG feed."
My initials
and boobs.
♪ ♪
- Dom is approaching 100,000 followers,
and the free products are piling in from everywhere.
- Wow, five bottles of wine.
[gasps] Oh, my gosh.
[gasps] You guys.
Energy Bombs.
Clay cleansing balm.
A CBD vibrator.
[camera shutter snapping]
Lamo footwear.
[camera shutter snapping]
- As Dom started to get all of this free stuff
and dozens of free opportunities,
all because people perceived
that she was a famous influencer,
something started to happen that we didn't anticipate.
- So we got a package from Gorjana,
which is a jewelry company I really like.
They DM'd me, and I got to pick out, like,
pieces of jewelry.
[camera shutter snapping]
- We had assumed that we would have to reach out
to places and brands
in order to get these free experiences.
But instead they started to find her.
- "Hi, Dominique. My name is Paige."
"Hi, my name is Shayna with Moon Oral Care."
"We'd love to work with you."
Swipe up for my code
and get your teeth white.
- For Wylie, things are going a little differently.
- My boss' car ran out of gas,
so I got a message from him
that I needed to fill it up with gas.
[laughs]
When I moved here from Atlanta,
I did not think I'd be filling other people's cars with gas.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- After Wylie had been harassed by the "troll,"
he'd stopped posting on Instagram.
He became obsessed with the bots,
worried that now that he had almost 30,000 followers,
people would figure out that they weren't real
if he didn't get enough fake likes and fake comments
on his posts.
♪ ♪
- All right, so about to post my first Instagram
in, as Nick says, two months.
I think it was, like, a month.
But not nervous. I'm fine. [laughs]
I was told the automatic likes were back in check.
♪ ♪
All right.
I'm gonna press Share.
♪ ♪
I feel good.
♪ ♪
- How many likes?
- So far, zero.
[laughs] Hold on.
♪ ♪
Just terrifying.
[cell phone chirps] I got one like.
[chuckles]
[cell phone chirps]
Real person.
Oh, I got a comment.
Feeling good.
A little nervous that the bots haven't kicked in.
[laughs]
Sweet. 30 likes.
Here I am, staring at it, watching the likes come in.
38. Not that great.
I'm torn in the process because I wish that I could say
I had 3,000 likes right now.
I still am obviously looking out for them
and would really appreciate if they would come through.
[chuckles]
The number right now is...
165.
Not so hot. Not so hot.
♪ ♪
One of the things is that
I don't know what my dreams are,
I don't know what my goals are,
and I didn't really have an envisionment.
I just kind of wanted to be happy and across the country
and just kind of do something different
and away from my friends and family
that I've already spent my whole life with,
and I've done that.
So I think I accomplished that dream,
but I'm still working on my next step of dreams.
So we got one bot like 14 seconds ago.
See what happens.
All right, I got another bot.
We got a live one.
27 minutes into the post, 176 likes.
Yay. [cell phone chirps]
And I just got my third bot like.
[upbeat music]
- I'm at APL today.
They have a new store in The Grove.
It's beautiful looks like an art gallery.
♪ ♪
- So, so far, what are your favorites?
- I think these. - These ones?
- These for sure.
- Yeah, these are fan favorites.
I love wearing these ones.
- It got to a point where Dom
could simply tag a brand in a photo
and they'd be the ones reaching out,
asking her to take their products for free.
- I'm getting some free sneakers.
- How'd you get the free sneakers?
- [laughs]
We've got a lot of followers, so...
I'm an influencer.
Duh.
♪ ♪
I've been getting so many more auditions and callbacks.
My agent, he's like,
"Yeah, your Instagram has, like, blown up,
"and that's definitely helped you
get into the doors of, like, a lot of casting offices."
♪ ♪
- Then out of nowhere,
Dom got a private message on Instagram,
inviting her to this.
- Oh, my gosh, are you so excited?
- So excited. - Do you have any--
Gabey, can you help her get this?
I think this should fit in the trunk.
- Let's see. Moment of truth.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
See, we got this, guys.
[light classical music]
- Okay, hi, ladies!
We're so freaking excited to have y'all.
We are literally going on a photo shoot road trip.
It's gonna be aggressive at times.
- [laughs]
- But we're gonna have the best time.
If you didn't know where you were going by now,
guess what.
The doors are closed, and you're going.
And I'm so freakin' excited! Go, go, yes!
[all cheering]
♪ ♪
- An all-expense-paid
VIP influencer road trip
valued at $5,000 with free gifts and clothes,
hair and makeup,
and modeling for a clothing line.
- [singing Italian aria]
- Collectively, the women on this bus
have several million followers.
And then there was poor Dom, who had to really put
her acting skills to the test here.
- On the bus, some of the girls
are super standoffish.
Everybody was on their phones a lot.
But, you know, I want to look good next to them.
What are you doing for Valentine's Day?
- Okay.
- Fun.
- All right.
♪ ♪
- Yeah.
- All right, so if any of the following ladies are ready:
Helen, Zenya, Stewart.
Malachi's gonna shoot with you.
- Our first stop was a desert,
and all the girls are changing on the bus,
and we have to go get our suitcases out of the trunk,
and changing our shoes and, like, all of these things.
♪ ♪
- And then do a couple, like, walking towards me a bit.
♪ ♪
Perfect. And then go back.
♪ ♪
- Yes, that's good.
Yeah, that's great.
♪ ♪
Let's do serious vogue, yeah.
♪ ♪
- Are you ready for the fake laugh?
- I am ready.
Three... - [chuckles]
- [laughing] Two, one.
- Today there's a lot of on, off, be cold,
take photos, back on, be freezing cold, take photos.
Then we went to another location,
which is an abandoned water park.
♪ ♪
- Maybe spin with your coat.
♪ ♪
Yeah. Hold it right there. Perfect.
♪ ♪
- I'm freezing.
I feel like I have, like, icicle boogers.
[laughs]
All these clothes are, like, the cheapest fucking linen.
I love it.
But a lot of the girls are like,
"I don't even know if I can use these photos."
I'm like, "These are incredible photos.
What are you talking about?"
- That's great. Right there. Yeah.
- I think all of our standards are very different.
- Three, two, one. - Smile.
[laughter]
[lively music]
- [vocalizing]
♪ ♪
- What feels like 20 hours later,
we finally made it to Las Vegas.
- Whoo. Vegas.
- And I'm exhausted.
I've gotta do a whole nother day of this tomorrow.
♪ ♪
Today we are going to the actual trade show.
[unintelligible chatter]
Oh, here she is.
all: Hey! - Hi, guys!
Hey. - Hello.
Okay, say "cheese." Look forward and say "cheese."
- Rachel, she's doing, like, a partnership
with this shoe company called Lamo.
We came over to take some photos.
[cheery music]
And I get a free pair of fuzzy snugs,
so I'm gonna be very happy about that.
Have you done other trips with Rachel?
- I did the Coachella one... - Oh, right.
- Last year; it was really fun. - Okay.
- Have you? - No.
- First one? - First one. Yes.
- It's just a lot of fun events.
- Yeah. - It's my first one too.
- What do you think?
♪ ♪
- [laughs] - Okay.
I think a lot of the girls are over it,
or it's not what they expected.
I think all of these girls
make a lot more money for posting stuff.
That's why they hustle so much more.
- Okay, smile.
- These girls live, breathe, sleep to take photos,
to collaborate, to get a new camera,
to go to a cool location.
- So why don't we just group together
since we're already, like, doing that,
and then you guys-- does that work?
- Yeah. - Yeah, okay, cool.
- Two of the girls have gone to, like, hustle
to different booths.
- Turkey. - Yes.
- Oh, you're from Turkey. - Yes.
- Oh, amazing. - Oh, cool.
- Oh, perfect. - Thank you.
- Yes. - Thank you.
- I think, at the beginning, I was very passé about it,
but now I admire it.
That's their full-time job, and it's not easy.
♪ ♪
At the airport, they were making spreadsheets
of, like, all the people they spoke to
and the contact there and, like,
what the brand was about.
♪ ♪
- I'll carry your bag.
- Three, two, one.
♪ ♪
- I'm so tired, but I'm really glad I went.
♪ ♪
If I got paid a lot of money to not have another job,
I would do this all the time.
♪ ♪
- Chris' path in this social experiment
has become its own unexpected story.
- This is this new song.
This is the instrumental.
[upbeat electronic music playing]
I wrote it, like, over the Christmas break
when I went to go see my family.
♪ This from a place I used to call H-O-M-E ♪
♪ Same place where you can't trust your homies ♪
♪ 'Cause they been lyin' where you lay ♪
♪ So you can't get no sleep ♪
♪ Uh ♪
♪ Know what I'm sayin' ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
I be seeing people out here.
You know, usually you just put it in there
and you just, you know, chill out for a few minutes
and then let it do its thing,
but when you're broke, you can't do all that.
You gotta be watching this motherfucker,
because, you know, you gotta pull it at the right time.
Yup. That's it. We good.
Gonna get to the crib.
[solemn piano music]
- As I was buying all this fake engagement for Chris,
he was doing everything he could to delete it.
- Like, I don't need to be
looking at all these fake comments.
Like, I deleted all the comments
'cause they're super corny.
Hold on. I'm gonna read you guys some.
"All people should be like you."
"Excellent and elegant."
"Love you." Praying hands.
"Oh, wow, look at you." Heart face emoji.
"Looking so great, love."
"You simply the best."
- [chuckles] - What else do they have?
"The top influencer is you."
That's the best comment I got.
But still from a bot, so it's whatever.
- The social experiment here is,
we want to take three people
and see if we can make them fake famous.
And with the-- this is what has happened.
We have Dominique, who has been like,
"I will do anything."
But you want to be famous for being you
and nothing else,
and you're not willing to do anything
that is not part of that core goal
and process to get there.
- Yeah, I want to be famous for being me.
I want people to know who I am for being me,
to--for knowing the story,
for knowing the background and all that.
When Dom came in,
she's like a piece of Play-Doh, right?
She's soft, and she just--she-- you guys can mold her.
Y'all done gave her the highlights and the hair,
gave her a haircut.
She is a bra--she--
like, brand-new bitch, you feel me?
Like, she was a brand-new person.
I came in, and I was like a sculpture of stone.
And it's like, "Well, fuck,
what do we add to this sculpture?"
Like, I don't need a makeover.
I don't need a stylist.
So I said, "What are these people
really gonna do for me?"
I'd rather be broke and be real
than be rich and be fake.
And that's the facts.
Like, I'm not gonna do just anything.
- But for us, that's hard
in a social experiment. - It is.
- Because it's like, "Well, what do we do?"
- But if you asked me if I would rather take
100,000 fake followers or 100 real ones,
I'm taking the real ones all day.
- That's not the way I expected it to go,
but I respect that completely.
- I need people to feel this.
Straight up.
I need people to feel this. I can't fake it.
[sentimental piano music]
♪ ♪
- I need to get ready for... [sighs]
Jesus Christ.
This person's birthday party.
It's, like, space, '60s themed.
So I'm going as...
Ziggy Stardust.
[laughter]
- As for Wylie, grappling with his anxieties
around social media took some time.
When I finally turned off all the fake engagement,
it turned out to be the best thing
that could've happen to him.
- I don't know; this outfit's kind of offensive.
[laughs]
Before, when I would post,
I was so uncomfortable with myself
and thinking about what other people are gonna think of me.
Oh, whatever.
It's so embarrassing to think
that I placed my validation in that.
I just learned that it doesn't matter.
This is the wig I got.
♪ ♪
Rock star.
I got a new job.
I work in a place where I'm appreciated,
and it's awesome.
Now that I don't have that stress,
I feel so much more, like, in my body.
[camera shutter snaps]
I think that people take Instagram too seriously,
and I wish I could make my Instagram bio,
"Please don't take this seriously."
But now I don't, and I like it.
Now when I post, like, it's fun again.
♪ ♪
- Given that Chris no longer wanted the fake engagement
and Wylie really didn't want
to be part of the experiment anymore,
that left us with one person...
- Hi! I'm Dominique.
- You ready? - Yeah.
- Come on down! Let's do the damn thing.
- Who just so happens to be thriving
in her new life as an influencer.
- So it just began, okay? - Just began?
[laughter]
- She's getting free beauty regimens now.
- I'm just so chill.
[laughs] - Pun definitely intended.
[camera shutter snaps]
- She's become a brand ambassador for a gym.
She's booking commercials
and has had more callbacks and auditions
than ever before.
- So I got to the audition-- or it was the callback,
and the woman comes out, and she goes...
[with French accent] "Are you Dominique?"
[normally] 'Cause they're French.
And I'm like, "Yeah." She goes...
[with French accent] "We are so excited to meet you."
[normally] I was like, "Okay."
Like, I've never been greeted at an audition that way.
It's usually just like, "Write your name down."
And then she goes...
[with French accent] "By the way, the photographer
loves your Instagram."
[normally] I was like, "Oh. Okay."
[laughs]
I just went in, and I took some photos,
and it was fun, and I left,
and then a few hours later, I got it,
which was honestly the fastest turnaround also.
- Do you want more bots?
- Sure. [laughs]
I'll take more bots if you're offering.
- We're almost five months into this experiment,
and it's time to take Dom to the next level.
I just purchased more bots for her,
and she'll soon have 250,000 followers.
[inquisitive music]
With all this fame,
we're gonna see if we can get Dominique
some free vacations, and we're gonna try
to get her paid real money to sell products
to her hundreds of thousands of followers,
even if they're not exactly real.
Now, there's a little caveat here.
When you start going for the big brands
with billions of dollars in revenue,
they have access to fancy software that can tell
if you have fake followers or inauthentic reach,
which for us can be pretty terrifying.
So rather than risk getting caught,
I ran Dom's account
through one of these paid programs.
Not only did the software report
that she had almost 100,000 real and engaged followers,
but it also said that she ranked
in the top 0.01%
of the most famous people on the planet.
How did we pull that off?
Either I'm really fucking good at buying bots,
or the software is a scam too.
- Maybe, like, look over that way.
Yeah.
[line trills]
- Thank you for calling Hotel Bel-Air.
This is Jeremy speaking.
- Hi, my name's Dominique Druckman.
I'm obsessed with your hotel.
Hi, I'm Dominique Druckman.
I'm a huge fan of your brand,
and I have 160,000 followers
and would love to find a way to work together.
I love your bikinis.
We could do a product giveaway together.
I just passed 175,000 followers.
- Honestly, things are happening
for Dominique that we could not have dreamed of
in the beginning of this.
She's got paid partnerships
with a makeup and jewelry company,
and we just got this opportunity,
the hallmark of influencer fame:
a free all-expense-paid vacation,
which includes a free hotel suite
for Dom and a friend, a $1,000 shopping spree,
bottle service at a club,
dinner at a five-star restaurant,
and spa treatment.
What does Dom have to do for all this?
Just post the whole experience on Instagram,
tag the hotels and spa, and make sure
that her hundreds of thousands of followers see it.
♪ ♪
- The warning from the CDC,
the coronavirus is spreading so quickly around the globe.
- [speaking Japanese]
- The sheer numbers of people succumbing
is overwhelming every hospital in northern Italy.
- And U.S. airlines are now suspending some flights.
- The entire state ordered to shelter in place.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- As we were about to leave
for our free influencer vacation,
the world came to a standstill.
Stay-at-home orders were issued around the globe,
and in America, city after city shut down
within hours of each other.
We canceled our trip,
and along with the rest of America,
we instantly went into quarantine
as a global pandemic started to kill
hundreds of thousands of people.
And yet what was so strange was,
when you scrolled through Instagram,
all those influencers we were trying to emulate,
they were still posting photos of themselves
as if everything was perfectly normal.
They were posting pictures of themselves on the beach,
even though the beaches were closed.
♪ ♪
Flights were canceled, hotels shuttered,
and yet you wouldn't know it
from looking at their accounts.
♪ ♪
- No. No.
Jewelry!
That's fun.
[water running]
- As for Dom,
as the global economy started to collapse
and millions of people lost their jobs,
businesses were so desperate to make a sale
that they were still sending her free stuff.
- I got some jewelry from one of the brands.
I feel weird about doing an unboxing right now,
so I'm not going to.
I don't need to brag that I got free stuff
for no reason right now.
[solemn piano music]
♪ ♪
- Can you hear me?
- Yeah.
- Kay, well, I guess this is how
we're doing our final interview.
How's it going?
- It's going fine.
I've had so many realizations
into how, like, fake all of this is.
♪ ♪
Seeing influencers post bikini pictures
while there's opera singers singing on balconies in Italy.
Can't you notice or acknowledge
or call action to something
that's not yourself
and your body on the beach?
It just feels inauthentic
and shows me something I don't want to do.
I think, like, through a lot of the process,
I was very, like, "I don't care about fame,"
but during quarantine, I have seen what fame,
if used properly, can do.
Seeing people like John Legend using his talent and his fame
to bring people joy and happiness
and a sense of relief during a time like this...
[cheers and applause]
Seeing everybody clap for the frontline workers
and first responders in all different cities
and all different countries through social media...
[metallic banging]
[car horns honking]
And people who are able
to reach a lot of their followers
and donate tens of thousands of dollars
to food banks and hospitals has been incredible.
And the "SNL" video when Brad Pitt was on
and he took off his wig and he was just like,
"I want to thank the frontline workers."
- Thank you for your calm and your clarity
in this unnerving time.
♪ ♪
- In the midst of all of this,
Dom even started getting real followers,
thousands of them,
because people holed up at home
were spending more time on social media
and assumed she was actually famous.
She also kept getting countless free stuff,
including a bidet, which she posted online
and which, curiously, went legitimately viral
without me having to buy
the fake likes and fake comments.
- Okay. Stop. That's enough.
I have had so many people say, like,
"This made my week. I was laughing so hard."
So if I can do that for more people,
I think that'd be incredible,
and I think that goes along with fame.
And then there's the influencers.
- We headed to Miami Art Basel.
What up, boo? - What up, boo?
- We've been copying these influencers
by faking it just like them,
and throughout this whole process,
as we peeled back layer after layer
of what really happens behind the scenes,
I kept wondering if any of it was real,
if anything these influencers did
was actually authentic.
- Heading to a workout class here.
- As we dug deeper into this world,
I assumed we would never figure that out.
And we might not have,
had it not been for a global pandemic
and the events that followed...
♪ ♪
- Say his name! - George Floyd!
- Months later, when Black Lives Matter protests
erupted across the country,
while these tragic stories of racism and abuse
might not have been seen
had it not been for social media...
- ♪ My people don't want no trouble ♪
♪ We've had enough struggle ♪
- There was uproar online
when people accused some influencers
of using the opportunity as another photo op.
♪ ♪
It's not just about the fake followers
and the fake photos and the fake fame
that's so troubling here.
At the end of the day,
they don't make you feel better about yourself.
The entire concept of influencing
is to make you feel worse.
It's to say, "Look at this lavish life I live.
"Look at these amazing vacations I go on
and these wonderful products I use,"
even if, in reality, it's not that wonderful.
- So you know that's sewage?
- [laughs]
- This is not fame.
It's all been labeled incorrectly.
- You're not really famous.
You're certainly not being admired
for a particular skill or talent.
- I discovered their body wash
that I also love.
- You are hawking a product.
You are sort of an infomercial host.
- Hey, guys.
So Hismile is offering free express shipping
just in time for Christmas.
- It's so artificial and surface-level.
- So check it out.
- Seeing what all of these girls do,
like, behind the scenes
and then what they put on their feed
and how the world perceives them
is just so sad,
but I think I'm in that boat, too,
'cause people think I'm an influencer
and definitely treat me differently
once they see how many followers I have.
People think so differently of you.
- Yeah. They think you're famous.
And then they think,
"That's what I want to be when I grow up."
♪ ♪
[camera shutters naps]
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[vibrant operatic music]
- [singing Italian aria]
♪ ♪
[vocalizing]
♪ ♪
[chorus singing in Italian]
♪ ♪
[singing Italian aria]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]