In a previous blog post I talked about fake YouTube videos: Very popular videos that do something extraordinary (such as restore a badly damaged device or build an awesome structure using only extremely primitive tools) which completely and deliberately fail to disclose that it has been completely staged and faked (and there's nothing in context indicating that it's staged rather than genuine). If the video is monetized and gets millions of views, this could be considered at least borderline fraud.
There's another form of online fakery that's less known and less noticed by people: Fake online celebrities.
That doesn't mean that the person him or herself is non-existent. The person is real alright. However, his or her online celebrity status is in big part or completely faked.
Most often this takes the form of such a person having a social media presence that appears on the surface to be extremely popular: Millions of views, hundreds of thousands or millions of likes, tens or hundreds of thousands of responses and reposts, and so on and so forth. The numbers for that person in these big social media sites seem to indicate an immensely popular celebrity.
In reality, however, in the case of these fake "celebrities" those numbers are almost completely fabricated. You see, many... let's say organizations... especially in India (and some other countries in the region) offer paid services to boost the online status of people. For a given fee you are given a certain amount of views, likes, reactions, comments, etc.
All the major social media and video platforms have logic and algorithms in place to stop fake interactions from being counted (eg. ones caused by scripts and bots). These "companies" have found ways to get around those restrictions and actually artificially boost the numbers with fake interactions. Suddenly posts or videos by that person may get tens of thousands of views and likes, all of them purchased with money.
There are actual proven cases of relatively big online "celebrities" who are almost completely fake in this manner: Their actual numbers (likes, views, replies etc.) are relatively moderate if not even low, and the vast, vast majority of the numbers have been purchased from these fakery services. Easily over 90% of the interaction in their posts and videos is fake.
Why would people do this?
There may be many reasons. Some might do it just to feel good about themselves, and to boost their online social status. Some may even do it to gain and boost their real life status. They might for example get invited to rich people parties, or other events, merely because of their online "celebrity" status (without which they would have never been invited). Some might even get job offers based on this fake status.
If this fake celebrity status is directly responsible for them getting money in some form (such as sponsorships, gifts or lucrative jobs), this may also be considered at a very least borderline fraud.
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