#followme - The Dark Economy Behind Your Timeline

What happens when one billion people use a platform where popularity can be manipulated? A platform, where we teach our children that it is OK to cheat? #followme delves into the financial world behind Instagram. This social media platform has become a real industry where likes and followers have become currencies in a shadow economy. What is real and what is fake? Can we fight the algorithm? Who are the winners and who are the losers? And do we notice any of this when scrolling our feeds? Welcome to the Wild West of Instagram, where the colourful world of ‘boost boys’, ‘bots’, ‘shoutouts’ and paid comments from Russia is revealed. This is the very first documentary about Instagram on Instagram. It developed as a transparent, cross-media documentary-in-progress on the account @followme.doc, as Nicolaas explored all tips and tricks to gain popularity. The non-linear stories on Instagram ultimately produced the full length documentary in vertical IG- and horizontal TV-format. The vertical documentary premiered on IGTV (Instagram TV) on 21.11.2018 and the horizontal TV version aired on NPO3 a day later. Just a week before the release of the documentary, Instagram announced that it would take action and initiate a clean up of fake accounts.