[arunsupe]

My question was tongue-in-cheek. I feel the Nobel committee, like every other organization, is also trying to stay relevant and topical. Hard to do this by giving out prizes to old scientists from obscure fields, no matter how important their findings. Hence, a congratulatory prize for the first black president of the USA, a consolation prize for another for losing to Bush, now prizes for computer scientists at the center of the AI fad... An influencer is the logical endpoint for this trend. Other examples of such slipping-down-the-slope: "Time's person of the year" is always a person in the limelight, Oscars favor blockbusters rather than movies with great acting, ditto with music awards, companies that rebranded to the .com fad or the iDevice fad...

[WheelsAtLarge]

Social media influencers aren't going away. They will evolve over time and become more ingrained into our society. It wouldn't surprise me if an economist with a large following got a Nobel. Using social media will just become part of many people's careers. It's part of the future.