Social media platforms have transformed the way people pursue clout through their actions. People have always performed for audiences throughout history although the desire for attention has existed since the beginning of time. The process of gaining clout used to depend on editors and marketers and venue owners who controlled access to their audiences. The current social media environment operates as an unregulated system which uses algorithms to promote radical content. The creators perform dangerous stunts because their previous attempts at milder content failed to generate any success. The current state of virality has already reached its peak according to my observations. A brand collaboration partner lost his reputation through an over-the-top prank which forced him to start a new brand under a different name to salvage his reputation. The platforms continue to enable this behavior because they generate revenue from the resulting page views. The most effective approach to boost engagement involves rewarding creators who produce meaningful content through emotional storytelling and community-focused posts which achieve viral success without creating destructive content. The trend will improve when financial resources move toward creating meaningful effects instead of destructive behavior. My LinkedIn profile can be accessed at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-carri%C3%A9-7725b417.
Clout chasing feels different these days, it is not just about chasing being seen, it is about chasing being seen all of the time. In the world before social media, attention operated at a cadence. Now, attention is a sprint, in real time, on every platform. The biggest difference now is performance of behavior. Moments of sharing, have moved to making moments to get a reaction. This has lead to the aspect of clout being diminished by many and clout has become a currency, clout chasing a full time job. From my reality of a digital and creative strategist, I see the majority of these actions come from algorithms pressure. When platforms are designed to reward psychosocial behavior, major spikes in attention, the sensationalized opinion vs risk-taking behavior, leaves little in the way of evidence, just shock-value as the alternative, evidence. it isn't also just ego. It's sometimes creative people trying not to sink in a system that elevates insanity. It is intensifying. The gap between courage and foolishness is closing, which is too easily to lose sight of when each view is validation. The only thing that prevents it from spiraling out of control is certifying what we endorse. If that was benchmarked around creativity, authenticity and human connection, not just virality, that would change what people define. Clout is not the poison. But when attention becomes goal instead of product, something valid gets lost in the mix.
1. Clout-chasing wasn't even a thing before social media. We only heard about clout-chasing incidents among celebrities, artists, and famous stars, often taking shots at their competitors in the industry. That was a healthy version of clout-chasing, but post-social media has been a complete disaster. I'm seeing current creators break bones, fall from a cliff while filming a reel, and do life-threatening activities. 3. I guess it's going to get worse. Not because people are craving overnight success and millions of views, but the tactics of virality are limited in all cases. The higher the stakes, the more risk to a creator's life, the better the views they'll be getting. Plus, there's no continuity in content. One viral video would mean nothing if your overall content is trash. Unless creators are willing to risk their lives every day, this hack of virality wouldn't sustain their success.
1. Clout chasing existed even before social media was a thing; however, the scale, reach, and impact it brought in were completely different. Earlier, the clout-chasing tactics were quite slow to spread, and that too locally or at most domestically. These carried higher stakes, since the chances to spread were minimal. How often do people interact with news articles or listen to the radio? However, the times have changed, and the concept of virality continues to influence trends, stunting engagement globally. As a digital expert, in the post-social media era, virality is easy, but strategic planning is important. 3. Shooting a prank video is cheap, but people see the high "virality ROI" as a huge benefit, which comes in the form of sponsored brands, collabs, and attention. The social media algorithms value outrage, whether it's in the form of laughter or even disgust. These algorithms cannot distinguish between the right and wrong forms of content, but only focus on engagement; it spreads like wildfire. Hitting an all-time low for "negative virality" requires more than just digital literacy. These platforms should incorporate an additional review layer into their algorithms, which would downrank cheap tactics. This would also save the brands from falling into the loop of wrongdoing, which would also save them from reputation tampering in the long run.
Clinical Director, Licensed Clinical Social Worker & Counselor at Victory Bay
Answered 5 months ago
The contemporary clout chase is an identity crisis in how young people come to define themselves. The move from hoping for offline validation to online is a symptom of larger social changes. Suspended platforms are not going to solve these problems; societal evolution needs healing. Earlier publicity seeking was confined to small groups working in a continuum of immediate feedback, as opposed to the large mass on unregulated social media where there are no social norms. Clout is fed by the "identity formation disruption" of late adolescence, with social media companies themselves taking advantage of this craving for validation. Users are conditioned by erratic reinforcement, becoming addicted. Instead, I home in on getting people to build an "intrinsic validation system" for self-respect from actual accomplishments and relationships — not the online kind that vanishes in 24 hours. Therapy and family support — particularly for adolescents who have experienced or are facing abuse, trauma or neglect — can help these young people fill their needs of closeness and significance in nononline settings, which can decrease their impulsive need to search for online validation.
-Is it accurate to say that a clout-chasing post-social media is worse than clout chasing pre-social media? Before social media platforms, clout chasing is somewhat limited because the audience is smaller and the shelf life is shorter. I used to work in early blockchain projects and I recall a poorly worded press release making it to only a few thousand people only to disappear within a week. From that type of incident, they experienced embarrassment but truly nothing to worry about long run. Now, with a poorly timed post that reaches 50,000 within an hour and the screenshots last for years, I have seen projects drop 30% of their investor interest in days with no way to walk it back. The permanence makes clout chasing in the pre-social media age so much easier to recover from.
Founding Partner & Digital Marketing Specialist at Espresso Translations
Answered 5 months ago
I am watching artists dismantling their profession in a manner that was unattainable without the presence of social media. Recently, I was asked to translate emergency damage control information by three influencers, who staged fake medical emergencies to gain followers. The staged panic attack video of one of the creators has been viewed more than 2.3 million times within six hours, then plummeted so hard that its creators had to hastily translate their apology into Spanish to keep up with the Latino audiences pulling sponsorship deals out of it more rapidly than they could. We could see the desperation in how they were pleading with us to revise it each time at 3 AM. The pre-social media attention-seekers experienced a short-term local embarrassment. The current globally humiliating clout-chasers are everlasting enemies of the fifteenth languages. I have translated the downfall of the same creator to dozens of languages within days since the international fan accounts are archiving all errors forever. We have already translated translations of crises of individuals who destroyed decades-long careers in thirty minute TikTok videos. The scale is staggering. A single misjudgment will impact the planet and the creation of long-term records and economic catastrophe at a light speed, which past generations had never witnessed.
Estate Lawyer | Owner & Director at Empower Wills and Estate Lawyers
Answered 5 months ago
This is my answer to your question about pranks and my legal view on it. Pranks resulting in injury might result in explicit charges of recklessly causing serious injury with a potential sentence of 15 years, for intentionally causing injury, with a potential sentence of 10 years, and for reckless injury, with a possible sentence of 5 years. Offenses that endanger life carry a potential 10-year sentence, and endangering persons carries a 5-year sentence. For common assault, it could allow for a 3-month penalty of $75 or 15 units. To give you a bigger picture, a false report to police can lead to charges of one year and approximately $120 penalty units. You are also exposed in civil to claims for $3,500 ambulance and emergency costs, $12,000 wage loss for eight weeks, and $1,000 damage to their device(s) with aggravated damages to follow. I would stem such a slide with mandatory public liability cover for stunt content of at least $1,000,000; and proof at the platform level of sufficient assurances to cover medical and or banding matters at the platform level prior to approval of the upload.