Influencers can make ideas visible, but they can also trap them in social bubbles. Real change happens when an idea leaves the bubble and becomes part of everyday life.
Influencers have become one of the newest forms of advocacy and marketing in the 21st century. Want to spread an idea, sell a product, or start a social movement? The usual advice is simple: find someone with a large audience and get them to promote it.
Of course, using famous people to shape public opinion is not new. Celebrities have been used in advertising for decades, long before social media turned everyone’s personality into a potential platform. Part of what makes this strategy effective is the “halo effect,” a cognitive bias where our positive impression of someone in one area spills over into unrelated areas. Taylor Swift recommends a new drink? If you like her music, you’ll suddenly have more confidence in her taste in drinks.
Many social media users don’t just follow influencers for fun; they begin to absorb their preferences, routines, opinions and values. Over time, this can develop into a new kind of social identity. We don’t just buy a product or try a habit—we begin to model ourselves after the personality and tribe associated with it.
But this is also where influencer-driven change starts to run into problems. If a behavior becomes too closely associated with an individual or a tribe, people outside that circle may reject it before they ever consider whether it has value.
New research entitled The Paradox of Influence helps explain this problem. Popular people with lots of connections are not always better at spreading ideas in the wider culture. If an idea comes from one individual or one cohesive group, outsiders may dismiss it as “theirs.” But when the same idea starts popping up in multiple circles of trust—friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, and regular people—it starts to feel more normal. Real change doesn’t just happen because behavior becomes visible. This occurs when the behavior begins to feel socially available and is reinforced from multiple sources.
In the study, researchers examined how health-related behaviors spread through real-world social networks in rural Honduras. The basic idea was simple: if you want a new behavior to spread, should you start with the most connected people in the village? The surprising answer was: not always. For simple behaviors that don’t require much persuasion, such as getting residents to take multivitamins, one popular person may be enough to get the word out. But for behaviors that require more trust or confidence, such as adding chlorine to drinking water, people often need to see the behavior adopted in several places before they will adopt it. It is not enough that the idea came from one corner of the village. It becomes more believable when it is reinforced from several angles.
Influencers may introduce a new idea, but the culture decides whether it becomes the norm. Real change doesn’t happen just because one visible figure tells people what to do. This happens when behaviors are reinforced in multiple social circles that intersect with our daily lives.
Without an ecosystem of support, influencer-driven change can become wrapped up in narrow social identities. We start to associate certain habits with certain groups: “It’s a tech bro,” “It’s a left-wing activist,” or “It’s a TikTok trend.” As soon as an idea becomes too closely tied to a certain tribe, people stop judging it in their own way. They value the identity that comes with it. We may reject behavior not because it has no value, but because we don’t want to be mistaken for the person who does it.
Instead of changing the world, influencers create enclaves for themselves where they are highly respected by a select group of people but have little to no influence outside of their bubbles.
Different influence structures can even become antagonistic to each other. Instead of working together towards a common goal, people are becoming more invested in protecting their favorite person online and attacking rival influencers. The activity boils down to online gossip and drama.
Celebrities and influencers can still play a role in promoting social change, but only as one node in a larger and more powerful network. A significant number of celebrities rely on efforts that already have the support of broader political, corporate, and social institutions. They can become reinforcers of the status quo just as easily as they can become agents of change. After all, a celebrity’s influence depends on the network they connect to.
Real, lasting social change is about more than visibility and attention. We are talking about universal normalization. New behaviors must be woven into various aspects of everyday life: discussed among friends, practiced in families, replicated in workplaces, supported by institutions, and reinforced by the surrounding culture. An influencer can help introduce an idea, but an idea only becomes powerful when it no longer depends on the influencer. He must leave the bunker and become part of the social world.
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