Good Enough Imposters: The Market for Instagram Followers in Indonesia and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter examines the market for fake followers on Instagram, which has developed as follower counts have become a key metric for social media influence and economic value. Beginning with the Indonesian actors who work within this shadow economy, the chapter describes the ‘arms race’ between Instagram and the providers and sellers of fake followers that has developed as the former attempt to regulate the latter. It is in this process that the ‘good-enough follower’ takes shape and finds a place as an imposter within Instagram’s user base. The chapter reveals how a range of different practices and technologies are involved in temporarily assembling this imposter. This moves the discussion beyond dichotomies such as ‘real’ and ‘fake’ to question how the boundaries between the two are shaped, constituted, and contested in the current ‘post-truth era’ of digital capitalism and politics.