At the time of Instagram’s debut, Facebook existed for people to share words and photographs with their friends. But Instagram was built to be an open network. You were invited to follow everyone. Facebook photo sharing had been animated by our social connections, our family ties, our inside jokes and idiosyncrasies. The photos were presented for the pleasure and approval of the people we knew. But on Instagram, our sphere of influence blew up. Suddenly we were in league with rich people, beautiful people, famous people. We were all jostling on the same platform. The way we photograph sunsets, dinners, our children, ourselves: All are influenced by everyone else who is snapping and branding and uploading around us.

Along the way, the whole proposition of celebrity flipped. Regular people became a little bit famous for doing celebrity-like things: for how they appointed their homes and did their makeup and dressed themselves. Our cats and dogs became stars, and our domesticated raccoons, and our hedgehogs. This occurred on such a vast scale that it required a new word to describe these figures, one ensconced in a new form of commerce: “influencer.”