Followed By: The New Who's Who for Who?

An oft overlooked social media UX feature that's creating a new form of social clout and anxiety for the chronically online.

The humble follow button.

We’ve all touched one.

They’re rendered in kindergarten colors, most white text on blue background.

In fact, this near-universal agreement on color palette may be the only common ground left for conformity in our Techno King commanded social media dystopia.

But just before that fateful multitouch press whirlpools you into a new stream of content to en-shittify your feed, you must confront the hallowed “Followed By” feature.

The idea is pretty simple — social platforms automatically show you who else from your followers list also follows that same account. And you’re more likely to follow that account if lots of people you know also do. It’s kind of like those things that we used to call mutual friends, but much less annoying.

And yet, this simple concept sets off an array of questions — from the pointless to the profound — that we, or at least me, answer mostly subliminally, sometimes literally.

If 25+ of my friends already follow @InterGalacticDankMemes420 am I a mere sheep?

Or am I perhaps missing out on rib-tickling, life-altering cultural commentary?

Do I want to be associated with that person, however tenuously, from middle school or college or work who I never really liked but now follow on this platform? And what if it transpires that we both follow an unsavory account, @PonziSchemeBestPractices?

Or am I going to be revealed as a fraud if my friends find out that I’ve been mining a niche account with very few followers in order to manufacture an important part of my personality? Like, say, my whole worldview?

There’s judgment galore, too.

@LaVieEnParis? Give me a fucking break @JimmyMakesLayups you’re a Caucasian male from the suburbs of Bethesda.

@SambasAndCigs follows @CBGB? David Byrne just made a Broadway musical. And the venue closed in 2006. You were probably ten.

Finally, there’s the elusive virgin ground "Not followed by anyone you know”.

This is the Rubicon, the Xanadu of clout — potentially.

On the one hand, perhaps you just found something or someone so out there, so damn original, that not even the most plugged-in, downtown-out mutual follower could reach…

A print-only German language Drum & Bass appreciation account?

A Lower East Side creative consultancy that activates brands with nothing but their minds?

On the other hand, maybe you just accidentally tapped on a FreshDirect in-feed display ad while sitting on the ivory throne after a morning coffee.

In any case, for the more entrepreneurially inclined, Followed By is the next great platform waiting in the wings. Link. Build it.

For the rest of us, it’s another brief, fleeting moment in which we can make ourselves feel better about our own taste, or confirm the lack thereof among our fellow intrepid digital voyagers.

So follow the leader. Follow me.