In this paper, I will evaluate Richter and Ye’s 2023 article Influencers’ Instagram imaginaries as a global phenomenon: Negotiating precarious interdependencies on followers, the platform environment, and commercial expectations through the lens of its sample selection. The study examines the Instagram accounts, personal websites, and publicly available interviews of 13 female users from the beauty, fashion, and fitness sectors, whose follower counts range from 320,000 to 12.6 million. The methodological framework is constituted by the walkthrough method and critical discourse analysis. My critique centers on the authors’ exclusion of users who, despite possessing fewer followers, hold the potential to generate greater influence, as well as their failure to incorporate the broader influencer categories outlined by Razo (2021), whom they cite as a source. While content analyses conducted through social media platforms consistently make substantial contributions to communication studies and sociology, restricting the research scope to only three categories and exclusively to users with high follower counts produces a markedly limited analytical terrain.
The analysis of users with high follower counts alone leaves unanswered the question of what Instagram renders visible and what it renders invisible. Drawing on Mention’s report, the authors note that the proportion of users who can generate income through Instagram is merely 0.27%. I would presume that the 13 users included in the sample fall within this segment. But why is the voice of the remaining 99.73% not amplified? Why are non-mega influencers excluded from the research? At minimum, two users from Japan, Germany, and the United States could have been incorporated into the sample to represent this demographic. Such inclusion would have enabled a more substantive analysis of both Cotter’s (2019) concept of the “visibility game” and Duffy’s (2017) notion of “aspirational labor.” Aspirational labor, by definition, encompasses everyone who harbors the prospect of monetary gain in the future, not solely those with high follower counts. Furthermore, these 13 accounts have not consistently maintained active content production. Some users have taken extended breaks, while others have undergone considerable shifts in the personas they project to their followers. Conducting an analysis based solely on follower count appears insufficient for a comprehensive examination of platform imaginaries.
Another notable omission in the study is the absence of any data regarding these influencers’ post engagement metrics—likes, comments, and shares—as well as algorithmic performance indicators and follower demographics. Only discursive expressions are subjected to analysis: Bibi Claßen states that she “treats her followers like family”; Maya Miyagawa claims to “seek their advice”; Sophia Thiel asserts that she is “transparent with her community.” Yet do these discursive performances generate any quantifiable transformation? Setting that question aside, how have followers responded to these statements through their comments? While this might constitute the subject of a separate study, the quantitative and qualitative data of followers—who form an integral component of the platform ecosystem—could at least have been briefly addressed.
Although it may fall outside the immediate scope of the article, the fact that the users with the highest influencer ratios are women, and that these accounts predominantly produce body-centered content, reproduces the perception that women possess leisure time while men engage in paid labor outside the home. I consider this a significant gap in the article. At the very least, addressing how many followers any given male influencer commands, what this might reveal about gendered labor practices, and how platform imaginaries are differentially perceived across genders could have opened a productive line of inquiry.