Audience rate in the Arab world: the real, the false and what’s in between

In recent years, the measure of success for some Arab artists has shifted to the number of views and likes they get or get through their work on social media.

But the numbers game itself, especially the ‘weirdly’ high numbers, raises a lot of question marks, especially when the artist or producer tries to hide the feature of paid media promotion, which puts followers and the public in the trap of false success.

Years ago, the “Instagram” app removed a number of fake subscribers from the pages of artists and singers around the world. It revealed that dozens of celebrities have resorted to buying fans and subscribers in order to inflate their popularity, looking for opportunities to make a profit and work through social media apps.

But the movement of “Instagram” and with it other sites like “Twitter” and “Facebook” have not completely succeeded in curbing the false popularity, and the accusations continue to sue this or that artist by buying “bots” “distributing likes and random posts.

The occasion for the conversation is what the Egyptian artist Khaled Selim posted a few days ago, on the “History” section of his Instagram page. Selem said that the number of followers of the promotional advertisement for the program “Qada Man” (the third season, which will air on September 26 of this year on osn), has reached more than one million views. The number that may be normal does not appear to be the case when looking at the page view rates of Saleem itself, as its videos do not exceed the 100,000 view threshold. Promotional advertising of the program itself on the page of his colleagues who share the presentation of the show with him did not exceed 38,000 viewers, as is the case, for example, on the actor’s page Syrian Qais Sheikh Najib.

Questioning and celebrating the numbers doesn’t just include Khaled Selim, of course. Rather, it is a plan used by most of the “stars” and behind them their business leaders and the production companies that process them, with the aim of signing artistic and advertising contracts which bring in hundreds of thousands. benefits to the whole team: from the artist to the workers With him.

Also, the manipulated numbers make the evaluation of the success of this or that artist, and of this work or the other difficult, so that the competition loses its objective components. As a result, a large number of critics and awards committees are currently investigating factors other than the numbers on social media.

Take for example the song “Maaken Al-Sihr” that Egyptian star Amr Diab released two weeks ago. To date, more than 10 million people have viewed the video on YouTube, a number that seems normal for many reasons: Actress Dina El Sherbiny starred in the act, months after announcing her romance. with Diab. The second factor is the broadcast of the song on the channel “Vodafone”, with the channel of the Egyptian artist. The third factor is the song itself, its timing, melody and lyrics, and above all, the fame of Diab himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytRwbnEloI

Also, the figure of 10 million does not seem surprising if we take a tour of the various works on the “plateau”. Let’s take a look at, for example, the song “Ya Baladna Al-Hilweh” that he released a month ago: 36 million views. It is a number that is repeated frequently with the Egyptian artist. Therefore, based on the above, the number of views loses its real value if they are isolated from the production itself, its content and the actual interaction with it, which poses challenges for a fake type of star creation that emerged with the penetration of social media into Arab life.