@FreddyAmazin
Age: 17
Twitter followers: 3.09M
The web’s greatest digital currency isn’t bitcoin, it’s followers. Keeping your follower-to-following ratio up is important, too, says @FreddyAmazin, whose real name is Freddy Cabrales. Freddy was just 14 when he created #TeamFollowBack—a so-called system that helped people get more followers: a hashtag that peer-pressured Twitter users (including celebrities) to politely return a Twitter follow in kind, by following back. It solved a problem, says Cabrales. “You know how Twitter is boring if you don’t have any followers? Nobody talks to you, nobody really cares about you.” #TeamFollowBack spread across Twitter bios like wildfire, and the biggest winner was Cabrales, just a random high-school kid from San Diego, but one with millions of people who cared enough about him enough to hit “follow.”