How Gustave Le Bon’s theory of crowd psychology predicted the behaviour of modern influencers and the crowds that follow them.
The Crowd Influencer
More than a hundred years before social media, the French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon described patterns of group behaviour in his book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.
Le Bon argued that individuals change when they become part of a group, becoming more emotional and more receptive to confident leaders.
In Le Bon’s time these groups gathered in streets and public squares. Today, they gather more and more on-line.
And in today’s digital world a new kind of public figure has emerged: the influencer. And their title describes exactly what their role is.
These personalities gather large audiences and shape how their followers react to events, adopt trends and decide what products to buy.
This is part 1 of a three-part series exploring how modern influencer culture reflects the ideas of early thinkers Gustave Le Bon, Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays.
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Influencers as Crowd Leaders
Gustave Le Bon observed that crowds naturally gather around leaders. These figures become the focus of the group’s attention and guide how the crowd thinks and behaves.
Modern influencers play this same role online. Their followers form loose digital crowds — communities built around a personality, lifestyle, belief or shared interest. Like the leaders described by Le Bon, influencers rely less on detailed reasoning and more on prestige, charisma and certainty. A confident voice with a clear message can attract followers who are looking for direction.
Because of this influence, a single post can easily mobilise a large audience into coordinated action — mass buying of a product, waves of online support or criticism, or the rapid spread of a new trend.
The influencer speaks with certainty and authority. Followers who trust the leader often adopt the message and repeat it, helping the idea spread through the wider online crowd.
Leaders and Suggestibility
Once a crowd accepts a leader, followers become far more receptive to the leader’s suggestions. Gustave Le Bon called this suggestibility — the tendency for individuals in a crowd to adopt ideas and behaviours with little critical resistance.
In influencer communities this often means followers adopting products, beliefs or even identities based on simple, confident claims rather than detailed evidence.
Influencers frequently use three classic techniques that Le Bon recognised in crowd leaders:
Affirmation
Bold statements that leave little room for doubt.
“This is the only morning routine that works.”
Repetition
Repeating the same slogans, aesthetics or products until they feel familiar and obvious.
This form of persuasion is known as the Illusory Truth Effect, and you can read more about it here.
Emotional Framing
Presenting advice through personal stories of struggle, transformation or belonging.
When followers feel familiarity with the influencer — a kind of parasocial friendship — their natural scepticism tends to drop, making suggestions easier to accept.
This form of persuasion which plays on relatibility is known as the Plain Folks technique. You can read more about this here.
Following the Leader
The influencer frames a personal productivity method as a transformative solution. By repeating the claim and linking it to a story of improvement, followers begin to adopt the system themselves — a clear example of suggestibility.
Contagion and Viral Trends
Once an idea takes hold in a crowd, it rarely stays contained. It begins to spread rapidly through imitation. Le Bon called this process contagion.
Le Bon observed that ideas and behaviours can spread rapidly through a crowd. Once a suggestion takes hold, people begin copying one another until the behaviour becomes widespread. He called this process contagion.
On social media, contagion appears as trends. Sounds on TikTok, fashion aesthetics, filters, viral challenges and even political opinions can spread quickly once a high-status influencer demonstrates them. Other creators imitate the idea through duets, remixes and response videos, turning a single example into a repeating template.
Engagement metrics accelerate this process. Likes, views and shares act as public signals that “everyone is doing it,” encouraging more people to join in and strengthening the herd effect.
This form of persuasion is known as the Bandwagon technique. You can read more about this here.
Contagion Effect
The influencer introduces a simple behaviour and frames it as a shared challenge. Followers copy the routine, post their progress and tag friends. What began as a single suggestion quickly becomes a wave of imitation — a modern version of the contagion Le Bon described in crowds.
On-Line Anonymity and Le Bon's Crowd Mind
If contagion explains how ideas spread through a crowd, another factor helps explain why people behave differently once they are part of one. Le Bon believed crowds give individuals a sense of anonymity.
Gustave Le Bon believed that individuals behave differently once they become part of a crowd. One reason is anonymity. When people feel less personally visible or accountable, they are often more willing to follow the emotional direction of the group.
Social media platforms create a similar effect. Users interact through handles, avatars and screens, which can reduce the sense of personal responsibility. In large follower communities this can make it easier for individuals to copy extreme behaviour that appears to be accepted — or encouraged — by the influencer and the wider group.
Comment sections and fan communities reinforce this effect. Instead of acting as separate individuals, users begin to behave as members of a shared online crowd. When an influencer signals outrage or enthusiasm, followers often echo the same language, jokes and emotional reactions, creating what Le Bon described as a temporary crowd mind.
Steering the Crowd Mind
After the influencer signals outrage, followers flood the brand’s page with near-identical comments, emojis and accusations. Acting together as a crowd, individuals respond less like separate consumers and more like a digital mob.
Belonging and Prestige
Le Bon observed that crowds are powerful partly because people want to belong to them. Becoming part of a large, confident group can create a sense of identity and shared purpose.
Influencer culture often builds on this desire for belonging. Followers gather around recognisable communities — a fandom, an aesthetic, a lifestyle or a “tribe” built around the influencer’s personality. Being part of that group can feel rewarding, which encourages followers to adopt its attitudes and behaviours.
Prestige also plays a role. Large follower counts, viral posts and high engagement act as public signals of popularity. The more people appear to follow an influencer, the more credible they can seem. This visible approval can encourage others to suspend their own judgement and follow the crowd.
Marketing analysts sometimes describe this behaviour as acting like “sheeple” — copying what appears popular rather than evaluating it independently. Le Bon made a similar observation more than a century ago when he wrote that crowds are strongly driven by imitation.
Prestige as Credibility
The influencer gained prestige through success in one area — perhaps fashion, fitness or beauty. Followers begin trusting the same voice on completely different topics, not because of expertise, but because the crowd already treats the influencer as authoritative.
More than a century before social media, Gustave Le Bon recognised these patterns in physical crowds.
But a crowd in psychological terms does not have to exist as a physical group of people. Todays crowds appear on digital platforms — not in town squares, but in comment sections, fan communities and influencer audiences.
If you want a deep-dive into how the modern-day influencer can be used to promote all kinds of views, opinions and beliefs, you can download our free eBook which takes a closer look at this recognised form of influence and persuasion.
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These ideas are explored further in our ebook, Trust Me: The Secret Life of the Third Party Technique
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