Don’t Believe the Hype About Fake Fans
So the image above has been circulating on the internets, reposted far and wide like the #BIGDEAL that it is. It is accusing David Guetta, Deadmau5, Avicii, Steve Aoki and Excision of – literally – buying fans on Facebook. Ostensibly, to… sell more records? Wait. What is the logic here? What does an artist with 6 Million facebook fans gain, besides 6 Million facebook fans? These pages do not get remunerated.
This is not Youtube, where page views can get you money. It’s just a fan count. And we all knew that these DJs are popular. Buying fans that don’t listen to your music serves no purpose on Facebook. #Strangely, their most popular demographic is also between 18 and 24 years of age. What a shocker. “For what it’s worth” never punctuated a sentence better. EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION: I have no insider’s knowledge about the situation. They may be buying fans for all I care, but that does not concern me. My point here is that if mischief is being done, this is no proof of it. It is however showing pretty strong bias against non-US markets.
See, the “Most popular city” of your Insights page points to where most people that are interacting with the page come from. It is not an indication of where the “fans” come from. David Guetta has 32 Million “fans” worldwide (and yes, that is worth a wtf) but only 300k have even mentioned him in a Facebook post. The above statistic was generated from the number of people worldwide, and a majority of them (most likely 10 or 12%) are located in DF Mexico who have EVER posted a video or mentioned Guetta in a post. Including such meaningfully relevant posts as ****OMG love THIS SONG1!!!2!!*** And “David Guetta Sucks!”
Mixmag and their exemplary top-notch journalism have pointed out that “at the time of writing, none have events listed in the area.” Obviously, this ignores the fact that there is such a thing as the past, when people might have been to their previous shows or even just talked about these artists. Incidentally, unless there is a company based out of Mexico that caters especially to DJs, it would seem that these six DJs have contracted that same company to buy their fans. Oh, and U2. And Michael Jackson. So did The Beatles. Apparently, it seems to be a choice destination for outsourcing fandom, as – I’m sure – fake fans from Mexico come cheaper than fake fans in the US.
The only way this assumption of these DJs buying fans works is if: 1) you don’t like any of them 2) you think Mexico is a poor ass country where kids have nothing better to do than sell their expert clicking services for a few cents, when they could be outside getting down to some Avicii (do they even have radios?). Mixmag support the argument with the fact that less than 30% of Mexicans have internet access. But the numbers shown here refer to the Distrito Federal of Mexico, i.e. a part of Mexico City, the third largest city in the goddamn world, home to about 9 million Mexicans. Not exactly peasants. And speaking of peasants, this is the same country were Marcos was circulating information about his army through his website, as early as 1996.
So of course, nobody likes most of these DJs. They’re obnoxious gimmicky (barely) overgrown teenagers that are making more money than any of us for mashing a couple of buttons and turning a couple of knobs per night. But nevertheless, think about what you are saying about yourself when you repost a meme, however much you agree with its basic argument. Deep down you might be kind of a racist.
- Gnou
May 30th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Y U KNO GO TO MEXICO CITY SKRILLEX. I AM UR NUMERO FAN
May 30th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
these sites do exist though… http://soundcloudpromotion.com/plans-pricing-2/
May 30th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Oh sure, they exist. There ARE idiots out there using them. They’re still virtually useless on Facebook (where you can buy legit ads that will bring you legit traffic) and the Great EDM Conspiracy will not be dismantled by observably wrong data.
May 30th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Gnou, they are not useless at all. Many major companies are employing services such as these as they DO WORK….having fans brings prestige for better or worse. If they didn’t raise your brand awareness in some way then companies wouldn’t be paying for them.
In terms of DJs, yeah that might be silly but I guess tell that to their labels.
May 30th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
IF major labels are using these sites, I will need conclusive proof.
I am sure it is part of some people’s online strategy, “for better or worse”, you’re right. But assuming that it works, the metric is not “how many fans are talking about this or that artist in this or that city.”
It is probably impossible to measure, actually – even with exact numbers and dates for commercial success, which one came first? Fake internet fame or real internet fame? I’m of the opinion that they’re both ultimately equally irrelevant, but that’s for another rant I guess.
Excision, Aoki and Deadmau5 release their music on their own labels. Excision and Skrillex are signed to Deadmau5′s label. Deadmau5 and Avicii release music on Ministry of Sound. David Guetta has worked with Avicii. Skrillex has remixed Avicii. They all fuck with one another, it’s a scene – they will obviously be famous in the same places.
Guetta is actually in a league of his own since he has zero work ethic (also he’s older than all of the others). He was pseudo-famous before Facebook.
But this is a scene that is currently popular – and Mexico is currently an emerging economy with vibrant youth. There is no mystery in these successes. In the little research I did, it seems that Sao Paulo is next on the list.
Again, my overarching point is not about shadowy practices in the music industry. It’s about the first world frame of mind that is everywhere from listeners to executives. The guy who believes that inflated Facebook numbers will boost his artists’ popularity and the guy who believes that Mexicans cannot possibly like EDM share the same contempt for the human race.
May 30th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Judging from the twitter comments I think most people missed the point of your post and just thought you were piling on artists with “fake facebook friends.”
May 30th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
More “fans” mean higher booking rates for DJs. A lot of the big artists labels buy all their big releases on beatport and such as well. “He is all over the beat port top 10 and has a million facebook likes, we need 100k for a gig.”
Fuck the term “EDM” as well…
May 30th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
I have to agree with Kev. The number of “fans,” “likes” or whatever does carry some significance. It’s reach and it does help in booking shows or just anything in general when you can point to something that’s a tangible number… regardless of if all of them are genuine, or bought. At the end of the day the larger the number, the better it is for you.
May 30th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
@Kev: I think that artists/labels buying their own releases is as old as the music business…
@My Pal: The joke’s on them because I was actually trying to get more twitter followers!
I’m going to edit the post though, I require too much attention span for the internet.
May 30th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Payola is alive and well…
May 30th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
yawn
May 30th, 2012 at 11:16 pm
I have a lot of family in Mexico and have been there many times and from my experience I would say that those DJ’s (Sorry Deadmau5) really do have all those fans in Mexico. They have a way of taking what is “popular” in the States and running with it. Although I would say electronic music has been much more popular in Mexico than it was in the States until recently. Especially Mexico City, which according to my cousins has been Mexico’s Mecca for underground raves since the early 90′s.