A new study reportedly shows just how many fake followers some of the biggest names on Instagram actually have, and none other than Addison Rae can be found right in the middle of the list.
It’s no secret that some of the biggest influencers and celebrities online have their follower numbers padded with accounts that might not be 100% legitimate, but exactly how many is usually anyone’s guess.
However, a new study has come out from UK web hosting and domain site fasthosts, showing that basically a third – or over 9 million – of Addison’s followers are fake/bot accounts… and she’s not even at the top of the list.
According to fasthosts’ list of the Top 25 Instagram influencers with fake followers, Addison comes in right at number 12, just under Drake at 11, and just above Gigi Hadid at number 13.
To break it down by the numbers, the 20-year-old influencer has a total of 37.1 million Instagram followers – not too shabby at all, but some serious inconsistencies start to arise when we take a look at her account’s engagement rate (how many of her followers interact with her posts), which is only 7.28%.
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Now, a low engagement rate by itself doesn’t mean Addison is buying her followers in bulk. Seeing as she made her name on TikTok, it’s not surprising her Instagram isn’t exactly the most popular of her social media platforms.
But using the influencer analytical program HypeAudit, fasthosts were able to determine that 9,089,500 accounts, or a full 32% of her total Instagram following, were fake accounts.
Now, just because a full third of Addison’s followers are fake or suspicious doesn’t mean she went out and bought or paid for them herself. As we’ve learned over the last year, fans (or stans) can be very passionate about supporting their influencer of choice, and it could have even been another party or parties that decided to bump up Rae’s numbers.
So, who were the influencers that had the most fake Instagram followers? You can check out the full list on fasthosts site, but to make things easy on you, the top three are below:
- Kylie Jenner — 63,697,500 fake followers (40% of total)
- Kendall Jenner — 42,867,200 fake followers (37% of total)
- Blake Lively — 7,641,000 fake followers (37% of total)