Followers have become new measure of talent

IN a way we can blame Jesus, because he was the one who placed such faith in having followers – although in fairness, the Son of God wasn’t on Twitter or Instagram.

These days, however, your status in some quarters in defined by your number of followers – although they don’t actually follow you anywhere and in most cases, you don’t even know them.

These followers just want to mirror their idol’s existence by wearing the same clothes, putting on the same make-up, listening to the same music and generally living a superstar lifestyle through the prism of social media.

And in fairness, we’ve always been susceptible to the lure of showbiz and celebrity; who didn’t want to be Georgie Best or Paul McCartney when they were in their formative years.

However, there’s a whole new layer now, thanks to that most moronic of phenomena – the ‘social influencer’. Because these are essentially people who aren’t remotely famous outside of their own bedroom but who act like they are.

It used to be that you had to earn the right – through expertise or experience – to have your views and opinions deemed to be of any importance.

Now the world of social media means you don’t even have to know how to spell.

And that’s fine – because that’s called free speech.

But when you see that movie-makers are now relying less on acting auditions to cast their next blockbuster and concentrating more on which ‘star’ has the biggest social-media following, then the world has shifted too far off its axis.

To read Dave O’Connell’s full column, buy this week’s Connacht Tribune.