The influencer hunter
NOVEL
The influencer hunter
Description
The Influencer Hunter uses extreme violence to expose a truth about digital culture: in an ecosystem where visibility is the currency of exchange, intimacy becomes a commodity and personal data a product—or a weapon. Through a killer who targets famous influencers, using their most intimate secrets to construct brutal challenges that he records and broadcasts live, the novel shows how overexposure can turn into absolute vulnerability.
The antagonist does not act at random: he gains access to passwords, private messages, hidden confessions, and uses them to manipulate both his victims and the audience. The novel illustrates the risks of oversharing in an environment where everything is just a “click” away. The killer turns every piece of published data (routines, geolocations, habits) into a tool to monitor, locate, and select his targets, demonstrating that personal information and aspects of private life voluntarily shared by the victims themselves are enough to keep them under complete surveillance.
J.S. Sansano pushes the fundamental axiom of the digital age to the extreme: “if something is free, you are the product”, making data cease to be mere commercial assets and instead become a means of total control. The author presents a bloody metaphor for the mass processing of personal information through which many supposedly free platforms generate profits by exploiting personal data, behavioral patterns, and the advertising attention of their users.
Synopsis
The Influencer Hunter is the story of a serial killer who enters the frivolous and superficial world of influencers, selecting as victims figures with significant digital impact. His macabre spectacle consists of kidnapping these social media celebrities and subjecting them to brutal challenges that are broadcast live to a voyeuristic audience, which watches as private secrets, hypocrisies, and vulnerabilities are exposed without filter. The killer does not choose his victims at random: he knows their routines, their intimacies, their secrets, and uses them as mechanisms of control, manipulation and punishment.
As the police investigation progresses, the criminal constructs a narrative that blends justice and spectacle, generating social polarization. For some, he acts as a vigilante who punishes the vanity and falseness of the influencer world; for others, he is a monster seeking attention and notoriety. This duality fuels a debate about morality, responsibility, and where the limits of digital entertainment lie.
The novel shows how social media feeds a culture of permanent exposure in which influencers live under pressure to display perfect lives, turning their secrets into a bargaining chip. Moreover, the public ceases to be a mere spectator as their “likes”, the comments they post, and their participation fuel the spectacle, thus turning them into involuntary accomplices in this macabre trial.
Best lines
“It wasn’t very difficult for me to triangulate your location using the metadata embedded in videos and images: timestamps, GPS coordinates… Do you feel spied on, violated? Well, you should”
“Do you know the apps MixtOURe and SyncSoul? Of course you do. Well, they’re my creations… In addition to providing me with substantial commissions from in-app advertising, they have given me direct access to all of your profiles”
“And I’m sure you didn’t read the terms and conditions either… « By accepting, all your personal data becomes my property. Now we form a team»”
“With a single «click», you gave me absolute control over your devices”
“Marion Moreau is the famous influencer and creator of the #realitylivelovers movement, through which she delegates the most important decisions of her life to her followers, the livelovers”
Link to an excerpt from the novel for free distribution
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