A viral video making the social media rounds shows The Rock laying the verbal smackdown on Instagram’s most-followed celebrity. Although the video is currently gaining traction, it’s actually from two years ago. Still, I promise it’s relevant.
Ashley Roberts interviewed Dwayne Johnson, otherwise known as the Rock, and Emily Blunt for the Heart YouTube channel, when the topic of Instagram followers came up. Roberts points out that the Rock had 255 million IG followers, to which he responds, “I’m the most followed American.” As it turns out, this is no longer true.
Though the Rock now has 397 million followers on Instagram, Selena Gomez has surpassed him, with 429 million followers. For those keeping track, I have nine IG followers — not nine million, just straight up nine.
So, who was — and still is — the most followed person on IG? Well, soccer superstar Lionel Messi has more than the Rock, boasting 500 million followers. But the answer is another soccer superstar: Cristiano Ronaldo has 623 million followers on Instagram. However, the Rock aimed a playful jab at Ronaldo — one that seemed to have a twist of truth to it.
The Rock said about Ronaldo, “He’s been paying for his followers for years.”
Immediately thereafter, the Rock insisted he was kidding — but the humorous thing is, this pay-for-followers situation has been suspected of Ronaldo for a while, based on the footballer’s obsession with being popular, and the fact that “fake followers” can be checked by multiple different services. One such service claims that as many as 150 million of Ronaldo’s followers are not real.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Ronaldo buys his followers — though he certainly easily can, and might be, because many fake profiles follow popular accounts. It’s also true that many popular accounts buy followers, partly because the more popular an account is, the more opportunities it will have for sponsorships. Thus, buying followers is more common than most might think, and many different social media boosting services offer the option.
So, even though the Rock is kidding, he is likely accurate. However, it also means he unintentionally has a lot of fake followers, too.
