A couple of days ago we shared the process behind an algorithm designed to determine the most handsome man in the world, and the final result looks a lot like a video game character. But the idea of combining faces can be applied to almost any source, and this time it’s the Top 100 influencers on Instagram. Even though there are men on the list, the female presence is so overwhelming that the algorithm delivered exactly what we expected...
Instagram! More than a billion active users, home to virtual models, YouPorn ambassadors, and narcissism addicts. It’s one of the ‘jewels’ of the Facebook empire, and a destroyer of mental health, to the point that they started hiding likes. I don’t know if that will change the dynamics of the social network, but like it or not, today Instagram is an impressive source of data worth studying more closely.
For example, what would the ideal influencer look like? Regardless of their activities (spending eight hours a day at the gym, living off organic pumpkin spray, and charging thousands of dollars per post, among other things), Instagram is a visual animal, and unless they have another kind of offer for their audience, the Top 100 influencers have to look ‘good.’ Katherine Gillespie from Paper decided to answer that question, and in the process she obtained a spectacular amount of details.
The Top 100 Breakdown
First of all, the majority of the Top 100 influencers on Instagram are white women with brown hair, aspects that condition any algorithm. ‘Model,’ ‘Beauty,’ ‘Lifestyle,’ and ‘Fitness’ are the categories that reach 74 percent of the total, and just over a third live in Los Angeles or its surroundings.
At the same time we learn that almost half of the Top 100 have activity on YouTube, and many took their first steps with Vine, the defunct Twitter video service that was annihilated by Instagram and its direct competitors. Brazil stands out for its number of influencers on the list, while Asian presence is almost nonexistent.
The Money
And now we come to the big questions: How much do they earn? How good is the business? The bottom part of the last image divides the answer into several categories, but what we see there is not the price ‘per post,’ but the average starting point for their negotiation. In other words, 74 percent of the Top 100 earn no less than 41,000 dollars for the ‘recommendation’ of a product.
The Ideal Face
To conclude, the face of the ideal influencer. Something tells me that the creators of virtual influencers are taking notes...
Source: Paper
