By noon, the count had settled back down. But it didn't stop at 432. The purge was aggressive. It swept away the bots, but it also seemed to flag Leo's account as spam. When the dust settled, Leo had exactly 87 followers left. Even some of his real friends had unfollowed him, confused by the sudden influx of spam comments that had started appearing on his posts from the cheap app's network.

"Check out this crumb shot!" he captioned it, adding a flurry of hashtags.

"It’s just to get the ball rolling," Leo justified to himself, tapping his credit card details into the sketchy interface. "Social proof. Once people see I have followers, they’ll follow too." He hit 'purchase.'

Leo stared at his phone, his thumb hovering over a glowing button that promised instant fame for just $1.99.

A rush of adrenaline flooded his system. It was working! The numbers were spinning like a slot machine. 500, 1,000, 5,000. Within an hour, Leo was looking at a profile that boasted a proud 10,432 followers. He felt like a digital god. He immediately posted a picture of his latest masterpiece: a rosemary and sea salt boule.

Leo realized the awful truth. He hadn't bought a community; he had bought a graveyard.

Curious, and increasingly anxious, Leo tapped on his follower list to see who these 10,000 new fans were.

But as the hours ticked by, a cold dread began to settle in Leo’s stomach.