When Did Popularity Become the Prerequisite for Recognizing Talent?

I have a genuine question for the person reading this blog, and before I even ask it, I want to encourage you to be part of the conversation. Whether you have an answer or simply a perspective to offer, I want to hear your thoughts. Even if your opinion differs from mine, that’s perfectly fine. I believe some of the most meaningful conversations happen when we’re willing to explore perspectives beyond our own. The goal isn’t to get everyone to agree, but to encourage independent thinking, challenge the way we see things, and create space for conversations that are genuinely thought provoking. So, with that being said, here’s my question….

When did popularity become the prerequisite for recognizing someone’s talent? No, seriously, I want us to sit with that question for a second. Because I’ve been thinking about something lately, and I really want to unpack it. Why is it that we live in a society where somebody almost has to become popular before people decide they’re worth supporting? And I’m not just talking about social media. I’m talking about art, literature, music, poetry, entrepreneurship, all of it.

Why do we support celebrities more enthusiastically than emerging artists? Why does someone have to tell us that someone is talented before we decide to recognize that talent for ourselves? At what point did we become so comfortable allowing popularity to determine what’s valuable? And listen, before anybody takes this the wrong way, this is not an anti celebrity conversation. I love seeing people succeed. I love seeing people celebrated for their work.

But why does our willingness to celebrate somebody seem to increase once the rest of the world starts celebrating them? And here’s what’s interesting. There’s actually research that helps explain some of this.

In 2006, researchers Matthew Salganik, Peter Dodds, and Duncan Watts published a study in the scientific journal Science. They created an artificial music market involving 14,341 participants who were introduced to songs by unfamiliar artists. Some participants made their decisions independently, while others could see which songs previous participants had downloaded. And what did the researchers discover?

They discover , when people had access to see what others were choosing, success became more unequal and less predictable. In other words, knowing what other people liked influenced which songs became successful. Now the researchers didn’t say quality didn’t matter. They actually found that quality played a role, but it wasn’t the only thing determining success. And I want us to think about that for a second.

If somebody’s work can receive different levels of recognition depending on what other people are already paying attention to, how much of our judgment is really our own?

Because this brings me to something called social proof. Social proof is a psychological concept that explains how people sometimes look toward the actions and opinions of others to determine their own behavior, especially when they’re uncertain about something.

And this isn’t just about music.

In 2013, researchers conducted another study, also published in Science, examining how people responded to online comments when the researchers randomly manipulated their initial ratings.

When a comment received an artificially assigned positive vote, the likelihood of receiving another positive rating increased by 32%. The positive influence also contributed to final ratings that were, on average, 25% higher. Now, this study wasn’t about TikTok or poetry specifically, but it demonstrates something interesting about human behavior.

Sometimes what other people appear to think influences what we think.

So when I ask why somebody’s work suddenly becomes more valuable in the eyes of the public after a celebrity reposts it, I’m not just asking a random question. I’m asking whether we’re genuinely responding to the art itself or to the recognition surrounding it. Because think about it.

You can have an emerging poet, author, musician, or creative putting out meaningful work every single day. People are watching. They’re consuming the content. They’re listening. But the engagement? Sometimes it’s almost nonexistent.

Then imagine somebody with a major platform shares that same person’s work….

Now everybody wants to know who they are. Everybody wants to repost. Everybody wants to say they’ve been supporting them. But what changed?

Did the art suddenly become better? Did their words become more meaningful? Or did somebody else’s recognition make us more comfortable recognizing them outloud ourselves? And this is where I want to talk about celebrity culture.

According to a 2024 Pew Research Center analysis of American TikTok users, 70 of the 100 individual accounts followed by the largest shares of U.S. adults belonged to internet celebrities or influencers. Another 25 belonged to traditional celebrities.

That’s 95 out of 100 accounts.

Now, that doesn’t mean people aren’t following or supporting smaller creators. But it does show how prominent established personalities are among the most widely followed accounts. And I find that interesting.

Because we will enthusiastically engage with celebrities who may never even know we exist. We’ll comment under their pictures, repost their announcements, celebrate their accomplishments, and defend people we’ve never met. And listen, there’s nothing inherently wrong with admiring somebody’s work.

But isn’t it interesting how much energy we’re willing to invest in people who already have enormous platforms, while overlooking emerging creatives who are actively trying to build genuine connections with their audiences?

Some of these emerging artists are literally right in your community.

You can have a conversation with them. Attend their events. Ask them questions. Watch their journey unfold.

And yet, sometimes we don’t recognize the value of that accessibility until they’re no longer as accessible. Why does somebody have to become difficult to reach before we recognize that they were worth reaching for?

Because baby, support is FREE.

I’m not saying you have to purchase everybody’s book, attend every event, or financially invest in everybody’s dream. That’s unrealistic. But liking somebody’s work? Sharing something that genuinely resonates with you? Leaving an encouraging comment?

Sometimes those small gestures can make a real difference. And I think there’s something else worth discussing here. We’ve created this interesting relationship between visibility, talent, and opportunity, where sometimes we treat those three things like they’re interchangeable. But they’re not….

Talent is somebody’s ability to do something well. Visibility is how many people actually get the opportunity to see that ability. And opportunity is having access to the spaces, resources, or connections that allow that ability to develop into something more. You can be talented without being visible. You can be visible without necessarily being the most talented person in your field. And you can have both talent and visibility while still struggling to access certain opportunities.

So why do we sometimes use a person’s follower count, popularity, or social status as evidence of how talented they are? Because a person having 500 followers doesn’t automatically mean their work is less meaningful than somebody with 500,000. And somebody having a million followers doesn’t automatically mean they don’t deserve their success either. That’s not what I’m saying.

What I’m questioning is how often we confuse recognition with ability.

And the research on social influence makes that question even more interesting because it suggests that popularity isn’t always a straightforward reflection of quality.

Sometimes popularity helps create more popularity.

If that’s the case, how many talented people are we overlooking simply because they haven’t had the same exposure? Now, being from New Jersey, I want to talk about something else. Because I think there’s an interesting conversation to be had about what local support actually looks like. And I’m not going to sit here and say everybody in Jersey is unsupportive. That wouldn’t be fair, and that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

But from what I’ve experienced and observed, I do think there’s sometimes a strange disconnect between being known locally and being genuinely supported locally.

People know you. They see what you’re building. They’re familiar with your work. But sometimes it feels like your accomplishments don’t become something worth celebrating until somebody outside your community recognizes you first. And I want to know why that is genuinely.

Is it familiarity? Is it comparison? Is it the way we perceive success? Does being close to somebody make their accomplishments seem less extraordinary? Or have we become so conditioned to associate success with fame that we struggle to recognize it while it’s still developing? And I want to be clear that my personal experiences in New Jersey aren’t evidence that everybody here behaves that way. There are people who genuinely support local artists, businesses, writers, and creatives.

But I think this conversation goes beyond New Jersey anyway.

When we talk about local creative communities, we also have to talk about access. Not every artist has the same connections, financial resources, promotional opportunities, or access to spaces where their work can be discovered. And sometimes when we look at somebody who hasn’t reached a certain level of success, we assume they haven’t worked hard enough or that their work simply isn’t good enough.

But what if they haven’t had the same opportunity to be seen?

What if they’re talented, but they’re still trying to figure out how to get their work in front of the right audience? What if they don’t have the money to constantly promote themselves, travel to networking events, or pay for professional marketing? Does that make them less talented? Or does it mean that talent and opportunity aren’t always distributed equally?

I think this is where we have to be careful about how we define success.

Because if we’re only celebrating people once they’ve reached a certain level of visibility, we might be ignoring the work, dedication, and creativity that existed long before the recognition came. And here’s another thing I want to unpack, because I think this is where the conversation gets even more interesting. Why do people overlook talent? And why do some people act like they don’t recognize talent when it’s right in front of them?

Because those are two different conversations.

I understand not everybody is going to connect with your work. Not everybody is going to think you’re talented. Art is subjective, and I understand that. But what about the people who genuinely recognize somebody’s abilities and still hesitate to acknowledge them? Where does that come from? Is it comparison? Is it insecurity? Is it the idea that celebrating somebody else’s gifts somehow takes something away from our own? Or is it simply that we’ve become so accustomed to associating talent with status that we struggle to recognize it in somebody who hasn’t achieved that status yet?

And I think familiarity plays a role in this conversation, too.

In some cases people have known you for so long that they struggle to see you outside of the version of you they’ve already created in their minds.

They remember who you were in high school, where you grew up, who your family is, or what you used to do.

But why should any of that determine how we recognize somebody’s growth or abilities today? Does talent become less impressive because you personally know the person who possesses it? Because think about how strange that is. No offense to anyone.

Somebody can spend years perfecting their craft, developing their voice, building something meaningful, and putting themselves out there. And the people closest to their journey might be the last ones to publicly acknowledge it. But let that same person receive recognition from somebody famous, land a major opportunity, or go viral.

Now the conversation changes.

Now it’s, “I always knew you were talented!” And maybe some people genuinely did. But it raises another question. If you always knew, what stopped you from saying it before everybody else did?

Now I’m not suggesting that everybody who doesn’t publicly support somebody is jealous or intentionally withholding recognition. People have different interests, different priorities, and different ways of showing support. But I do think we need to examine why external validation can sometimes change how we perceive somebody whose abilities were already there.

Because at what point do we stop waiting for the world to give us permission to recognize what’s standing right in front of us?

And more importantly, how much talent are we overlooking simply because it hasn’t become popular enough for us to pay attention?

And then there’s the creator’s perspective.

Imagine consistently putting your work into the world, knowing how much thought, time, vulnerability, and effort went into creating it, and watching people consume it without much visible engagement.

What does that do to somebody’s confidence over time? And there’s research that makes this question even more important. In 2024, a study published in Science Advances examined how young people respond to social media feedback. The researchers analyzed Instagram data involving 16,613 users and more than 1.6 million posts. They also conducted an experiment involving 194 participants to examine how receiving different amounts of likes affected people’s moods.

They found that adolescents were more sensitive to social media feedback than adults, and reductions in likes had a stronger negative effect on their mood. Now, that doesn’t mean everybody who gets fewer likes is going to feel discouraged, and the research doesn’t prove that every emerging artist experiences social media the same way. But it does tell us that online feedback can have a real psychological impact.

I think we need to talk about that.

Because social media has created this environment where we can measure attention in numbers. Views, likes, comments, shares, followers.

And while those numbers can be useful, I think we’ve also gotten comfortable allowing them to influence how we evaluate ourselves and other people. You can post something that means the world to you, something you spent hours writing, creating, or perfecting, and it might barely receive any engagement.

Then you can post something completely random, something that took you two minutes to create, and suddenly everybody wants to interact with it. And I think that can be frustrating, especially when you’re trying to build something meaningful.

Because how many talented people have stopped creating because they started believing that nobody cared?

How many writers have stopped sharing their work? How many musicians have stopped releasing music? How many artists have convinced themselves that their work wasn’t good enough simply because the numbers weren’t reflecting the effort?

Now, I can’t give you a number of creators who have stopped because of that. And I don’t want to pretend the research tells us something it doesn’t. But I think it’s a question worth asking, especially when we know social feedback can influence people’s moods and motivation.

And I also want to challenge something about the way we consume content. Because sometimes I think we’ve become so accustomed to having constant access to people’s creativity that we forget there’s actual work behind it.

We scroll, we watch, we listen, and then we move on to the next thing.

And that’s not always intentional. Sometimes we’re just consuming content the way these platforms have made it convenient for us to consume it. But what happens when consuming becomes so automatic that we stop thinking about what we’re actually engaging with? What happens when we’re more likely to share somebody’s personal drama than their creative accomplishments? And why is that?

Is it because conflict captures our attention more easily? Is it because we’re curious about other people’s lives? Or is it because we’ve become so accustomed to entertainment that we sometimes overlook the value of education, creativity, and meaningful conversation?

I think there’s a difference between something getting our attention and something actually deserving our attention. And those two things don’t always have to be the same.

Now, I also want to make something clear. Nobody is obligated to support everybody. And just because somebody views your content doesn’t mean they’re intentionally refusing to support you ( always assume the best). Sometimes people watch without interacting. Sometimes the content isn’t for them. Sometimes they enjoy it and keep scrolling.

That’s reality.

However I do think we can acknowledge that reality while still having a conversation about the larger culture surrounding recognition and support. Because if we claim to value originality, why are we sometimes so hesitant to embrace it before it becomes popular?

We say we want authenticity. We say we want something different. We say we’re tired of seeing everybody do the same thing. But when somebody shows up with something original, something unfamiliar, something that hasn’t already been validated by millions of people, are we actually giving it a chance?

Or are we scrolling past it because it doesn’t have the numbers attached to it yet? I think this also connects to how we define success. Somewhere along the way, it feels like we’ve started treating being known as the ultimate evidence of being successful.

But being known and being successful aren’t necessarily the same thing. Somebody can have a small audience and still be making a meaningful impact. Somebody can be creating work that changes how people think, helps them understand themselves, or inspires them to create something of their own.

And that impact might not always be reflected in a follower count. At the same time,visibility matters. Especially when you’re trying to make a living from your work. Authors need readers. Musicians need listeners. Entrepreneurs need customers. Artists need opportunities to share what they create. So I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss engagement as something superficial when, for some people, visibility can directly affect their ability to build a career.

And that’s where the conversation becomes complicated.

I don’t believe we should measure somebody’s worth by their popularity, but we also can’t pretend popularity doesn’t influence the opportunities available to them. So how do we create more room for emerging voices without turning everything into another popularity contest? How do we encourage people to develop their own opinions about art, literature, music, and creativity instead of automatically following whatever is already trending? And how do we recognize that somebody can be talented before the rest of the world decides to acknowledge it? I think there’s something powerful about being able to discover somebody’s work and appreciate it without needing everybody else to agree with you first.

You don’t need a celebrity to tell you that a poem moved you. You don’t need a million people to tell you that a book made you think. You don’t need somebody with a blue check to convince you that a person has something meaningful to say. You can experience something, form your own opinion, and decide for yourself whether it has value. And I think that’s something we’re losing sight of. Maybe this isn’t just about who we support. Maybe it’s about how much of our judgment we’ve become comfortable outsourcing to everybody else.

And if we’re constantly waiting for popularity to tell us what’s worth recognizing, I think we have to ask ourselves something. Are we actually recognizing talent, or are we just recognizing recognition? Because those are two completely different things. And that’s something I think is worth sitting with.

I want to leave you with something to think about. The next time you come across an emerging artist, author, musician, entrepreneur, or anybody putting their creativity into the world, ask yourself whether you’re genuinely evaluating what they’re bringing to the table or allowing their level of popularity to influence your perception of their work. Because talent doesn’t begin when the world recognizes it, and somebody’s value doesn’t increase simply because a person with a larger platform decides to acknowledge them.

I think we have to become more intentional about recognizing creativity while it’s still developing, not just celebrating it once it’s successful. And I’m not suggesting that everybody deserves the same recognition or that we’re obligated to support everything we encounter. But I am asking us to think independently, appreciate what genuinely resonates with us, and consider how our willingness to acknowledge somebody’s work might influence their journey. So, I’ll leave you with one final question: If we say we value originality, why are we so often waiting for somebody else to recognize it first?

References & Further Reading

The following research sources were referenced throughout this article to explore social influence, popularity, celebrity culture, and the psychological effects of social media engagement.

1. Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science, 311(5762), 854–856. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121066

2. Muchnik, L., Aral, S., & Taylor, S. J. (2013). Social influence bias: A randomized experiment. Science, 341(6146), 647–651. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240466

3. Widjaya, R., Bestvater, S., & Smith, A. (2024, October 8). Who U.S. adults follow on TikTok. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/10/08/who-u-s-adults-follow-on-tiktok/

4. Pinho, A. da S., Céspedes Izquierdo, V., Lindström, B., & van den Bos, W. (2024). Youths’ sensitivity to social media feedback: A computational account. Science Advances, 10(43), eadp8775. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adp8775