The Bahian influencer Emelly Souza, 24 years old, decided to change her look and switched from brown to blonde hair. The aesthetic transformation came with an unexpected surprise in the numbers on her social media. After the change, she began observing an increase of approximately 50% in the reach of some posts on Instagram, compared to the period when she appeared with brown hair.
Emelly says she did not significantly modify the posting routine or the content format after the transformation. In other words, the only variable changed was the hair color, which drew even more of her attention to the difference in results. The difference in the numbers made her begin to question to what extent appearance characteristics can influence content distribution on the platform.
The experience led the influencer to reflect on the possible existence of a "beauty standard" in social media algorithms as well. She started wondering if the platform may privilege certain types of appearance when deciding which content will reach more people, raising questions about transparency and algorithmic bias on social media.
