Not saying Daryl Aiden bought fake followers, but his Instagram following is highkey sus.
What a week it has been.
The Americans are reeling from the shock of the US withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, the Japanese are recovering from a devastating earthquake in Osaka and us Singaporeans, well, we have influencer drama.
This time, the accused at the dock facing the jury of the Internet is Daryl Aiden Yow, an Insta-famous photographer who was exposed for repurposing and reposting works of others’ and claiming them as his own.
The thing about influencers and celebrities is that no matter what scandal they may face, they will have their die-hard supporters who stand by them. Kanye’s people defended him when he said slavery was choice. Swifties relentlessly protected Taylor to no end during the #TaylorSwiftIsASnake fiasco. Even Nicole Choo had people stand up for her after this article came out.
So that begs the question – where are Daryl Aiden’s supporters?
He still has over 100,000 followers on Instagram, even after the story blew up. But they have mostly stayed silent.
Shortly after the story was published, there were rumblings of how his Instagram following is, well, major sus. As they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and in this case, the smoke is already at a hazardous PSI reading.
Here is a breakdown of his Instagram following:
@darylaiden
Interestingly, while Daryl Aiden is a social media personality based in Singapore, the countries where he has the most followers from (totalling an estimated 38,400) are India, Brazil and Turkey. Worldwide appeal, perhaps, but English (which Daryl uses) isn’t even the most spoken/written language in all three of those countries, nor are they in close proximity to Singapore. Suspicious? I would say so.
For comparison’s sake, Singapore-based Andrea Chong’s Instagram profile shows that her followers come mostly from Singapore, the US, and Malaysia.
@dreachong
Even more telling is the breakdown of the classification of his followers. An overwhelming 75,100 are listed as “Mass followers” – which are defined to be “accounts of shops or public pages who subscribe to an influencer to make them check the account and subscribe back”. Yikes. Over 3,400 accounts are listed as “Suspicious Accounts”, which is probably not the best thing to be listed as.
@darylaiden
Again, for comparison’s sake, Andrea Chong’s report showed that a majority (68.9%, or 213,200) of her audience are determined to be “real people”. That is, her pie chart has way more green than grey.
@dreachong
In the world of social media, more followers equals a higher pay rate for sponsored content. Clients who work with social media personalities are essentially paying for reach. If a substantial number of an influencer’s following aren’t legitimate, and yet said influencer fetches a higher commercial rate over his peers, it’s probably not a stretch to say that that influencer is unethical.
@darylaiden
@dreachong
So… where are Daryl Aiden’s supporters? A bulk of them probably don’t exist, or are sending him moral e-support all the way from India, Brazil and Turkey.