FROM FEED TO IDENTITY - INFLUENCER-DRIVEN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONCEPTS OF YOUTH IN CONTEMPORARY GEORGIA

The presented article explores how influencer cultures help shape the social and cultural worlds of 14-29-year-olds in a platform-saturated, post-Soviet, economically fragile context. Drawing on a mixed-methods design (survey of 450 young people, 10 in-depth interviews and 3 focus groups) and situating the findings within international research from more than 15 countries, it identifies four key clusters through which influencers structure youth life: norms of online self-presentation, health and risk practices, consumption and lifestyle aspirations, and career and future imaginaries. The analysis shows that young people do not simply imitate influencers, but negotiate continuously between global scripts of authenticity, self-branding and success, and local expectations around family honor, tradition and collective responsibility, producing hybrid identities that are creative yet marked by intensified comparison, emotional pressure and uneven media-literacy resources. In doing so, the article argues that influencers function as new socialization agents whose power depends less on single posts than on their integration into the everyday infrastructures of news, advice and recognition that young people rely on.