I don't know how many people would be interested in this, but HBO just released a documentary called "Fake Famous". The premise was after doing some scouting they would pick 3 normal people with a few thousand followers on Instagram and try to make them an "influencer" with the ultimate goal to be getting a free vacation because of their "influencer status". To do this they employed all kinds of tricks using bots for fake follows, fake likes, fake comments. I don't want to give too much away if anyone watches it, but I found it enjoyable.
While I've never been on Instagram and "influencer" seems to have a bit of a negative connotation, I actually gained quite a bit of respect for some of these people. This is their livelihood, this is their job, and they are making it happen as their career. With that being said, they do numerous photo shoots to make it seem like they're at spas and national forests, and private planes, when they are actually nowhere special. In fact there is a private plane that you can book, so you can take pictures of yourself on it, as if you were on a private plane. In reality they're taking pictures in the shell of a fake plane located in some warehouse in Los Angeles. It's amazing the amount of staging and inauthenticity that are in many photos. That's not even including photoshop and other picture editing tools. People who follow these "influencers" don't really know how much work the influencer put into what seems like a simple picture of them lounging by the pool. Influencers make it seem like they are people who are showing you their true, adventurous life. However, it's a fantasy story. It's like people care more about having a picture of them doing something cool or impressive, rather than actually enjoying experiencing doing it. There is a whole economy revolving around all of this. It's interesting from a sociological standpoint.