Wait, she has HOW many followers?!?

Have you ever thought about how it seems that certain people's amount of twitter followers doesn't add up to his or her real life persona? Well, if you're like me, you have. "Who is that? How does she have 100,000 followers? She's literally in ninth grade." "How could Justin Bieber have over 54 million followers...there's no way. Who cares that much?" Well, it turns out, there is such a thing as BUYING Twitter followers (and Instagram followers, Facebook likes, YouTube views, etc). It's weird, but it's real, and it's not a very new thing apparently. After a simple Google search of "buy Twitter followers," I found out I can get 1000 followers for $2 and 10,000 for $5. That's cheaper than my meal at Chipotle even without getting guacamole (which, yes, I know is extra).

THERE'S THE PROOF ^^

There's a website called StatusPeople.com created by a social media management company in London that can ascertain how many of your followers are fake or inactive. So, here's the fun part. More than 75% of the accounts following Justin Bieber aren't even being used. I'm not trying to single out Justin (nothing like kicking someone while they're already down) because even the beloved, innocent T-Swift has about half of her followers that seem to be fake and more than a quarter defined as inactive.

 
So what's the deal? Did they buy followers? Who knows, but it's definitely something to think about. Honestly, I think buying social media followers is kind of cheating, but I can see the positives to having some extra "fans" to boost your street cred. What do you think?