Think of an influencer sitting alone in a quiet room at 11:58 p.m. on the eve of 29N. They have just pressed “publish.” A million followers wait on the other side of the screen, but the influencer cannot see them, cannot hear them, cannot know whether their words will disappear into the digital noise or spread like a spark across dry grass. This is the strange condition of digital power in our time, and the article from Demócrata, with its brilliant reference to Schrödinger’s cat, captures it perfectly. In quantum physics, a cat locked in a box is both alive and dead until someone opens the lid and observes it. In the political world of modern platforms, an influencer with a million followers is simultaneously powerful and powerless, trusted and ignored, scientifically persuasive and dangerously misleading, all at once. The moment before 29N is like that unopened box: a strange suspense in which every political post, every viral video, every celebrity endorsement contains infinite possibilities. We scroll through our feeds, and we feel the pulse of a conversation that is everywhere and nowhere. We see influencers speak with absolute confidence about topics they barely understand, and we also see scientists and journalists trying to use the same platforms for good. The result is a digital landscape that feels both exciting and exhausting, a space where a single meme can change the tone of a national debate but where no one can guarantee that the debate will end in truth. The Demócrata piece invites us to sit with that uncertainty, not to be paralyzed by it, but to understand that the real power of any influencer is not in their follower count. It is in the action that their audience takes after seeing the post. The cat is still in the box, but we are the ones who will open it.
Behind the idea of “a million followers” lies a fascinating illusion: the belief that reach is the same as influence. The article reminds us that numbers can lie. A million followers may include bots, inactive accounts, bored teenagers, and people who followed to mock the influencer. The real measure of digital power is not how many people see a message, but how many believe it, remember it, and change their behavior because of it. Social media platforms have created a new kind of celebrity whose worth is calculated in likes, shares, and views. But human beings do not trust algorithms; they trust other human beings. That is why the most effective influencers are often not the famous ones with massive audiences, but the micro-influencers, the people with twenty thousand or fifty thousand followers who feel like friends. They answer comments. They share their failures. They show their real faces, their messy kitchens, their doubts. When they speak about medicine, politics, or science, their audience listens not because the influencer has a degree, but because the relationship feels personal. This is the human heart of the problem. The Demócrata article uses Schrödinger’s cat to show that a follower is in a kind of suspended state: half trusting, half doubting, waiting for a signal that will push them one way or another. An influencer with a million followers may have no real power if their audience does not trust them. Meanwhile, a small voice with a strong connection to a community can move mountains. We need to remember this when we watch politicians court big names, when brands pay enormous sums for a single post, and when we ourselves scroll past news that seems authoritative because it comes from a familiar face. Influence is not a number. It is a relationship. And relationships are built on credibility, consistency, and emotional truth, not on the size of a virtual audience.
The title of the article puts “science and disinformation” side by side because, in the world of influencers, these two forces are locked in a constant battle. Science is the most reliable method we have for understanding reality. It changes its mind in the face of new evidence. It questions its own conclusions. But scientific language is also one of the most powerful weapons used by disinformation. Influencers with no scientific training often wear white coats, cite vague “studies,” and use complicated jargon to make falsehoods look credible. They talk about quantum energy, miracle cures, and suppressed truths. Schrödinger’s cat, which is an actual thought experiment from physics, is used by wellness gurus and conspiracy theorists as if it proved that consciousness controls the universe. It does not. The article warns us that science alone is not enough; we need scientific literacy, the ability to distinguish between a real study and a product advertisement, between an expert and a performer. Disinformation is effective because it wraps itself in the cloak of authority. It says “do your own research” while drowning the audience in cherry-picked data. It creates a parallel world where every claim is supported by a YouTube video and every counterclaim is dismissed as brainwashing. This is the dark magic of the influencer economy. A person with a million followers can repeat a lie and make it look like a consensus. They can speak with the calm confidence that real experts often lack, because real experts know how much they do not know. The challenge of 29N is not simply to replace bad influence with good influence. It is to create a culture in which we are all humbler, more curious, and more willing to say, “This evidence does not convince me.” The cat is alive in some feeds and dead in others. The box is our own mind, and observation requires courage.
As 29N approaches, the political dimension of this digital power becomes impossible to ignore. The article, published by Demócrata, frames the date as a moment of decision, a civic test in which the forces of transparency and manipulation will meet. We are no longer talking only about consumer choices, the latest fashion influencer, or the viral dance challenge. We are talking about votes, streets, governments. Political parties have created entire departments devoted to influencer outreach. They understand that a young person scrolling through Instagram at midnight may pay more attention to a favorite streamer’s political comment than to a formal debate. Protest movements likewise rely on digital storytellers to organize, inform, and inspire. In one sense, this is democracy becoming more organic, more inclusive, more immediate. In another sense, it is democracy becoming more fragile. The platform architecture that allows a video of a police intervention to reach millions in minutes also allows a doctored video to go viral just as quickly. Ahead of 29N, we see the full spectrum: influencers using their power to encourage voting, to help people register, to explain complex policies, to defend human rights; and other influencers spreading rumors, sowing distrust, polarizing entire communities for a few minutes of attention. The same algorithm that rewards empathy also rewards anger. The same feed that can connect us to the latest NASA discovery can also connect us to a falsehood that claims the Earth is flat. The article does not conclude that all influencers are dangerous. It says that we have entered a strange new world in which everyone is an observer and everyone is a participant. The influencer is not outside the box. They are inside it, along with the millions of followers who shape them as much as they shape us.
The deeper danger is not simply that some influencers tell lies. It is that disinformation destroys the conditions that make democracy possible: shared facts, mutual trust, and the belief that disagreement can be honest. When the same event is described in two completely opposite ways on different sides of the feed, we no longer live in the same reality. The Demócrata article reminds us that science and democracy are similar projects. Both depend on the ability to change one’s mind. Both require institutions that can hold people accountable. Both are vulnerable to the seductive appeal of certainty. But in the digital age, certainty is everywhere. Anyone can be a “doctor” on TikTok. Anyone can be a “political analyst” on X. The result is a crisis of epistemic trust: we no longer know whom to believe, so some of us believe everything and others believe nothing. This is where the human cost becomes real. A mother shares a fake warning about a disease because she loves her children. A young voter reposts a manipulated video because it confirms her suspicion that all politicians are corrupt. A grandfather forwards a fabricated quote because he wants to warn his family about a threat he only half-understands. These are not villains. They are people. And that is why the fight against disinformation cannot be simply a war on influencers. It must be a movement for media literacy, for critical thinking, for the kind of education that teaches us to ask who created this message, whose interest does it serve, and what evidence supports it. It must also be a movement for institutional honesty. If governments, media, and experts are indifferent to truth, no influencer can save us. But if we demand better from everyone, including those we admire and those we hate, then the digital space can become a place where the cat is allowed to be alive, real, verifiable, and humane.
Perhaps that is the final message of this reflection: we are not cats waiting passively in a box. We are the observers who can open it. On 29N, millions of people will make decisions, individually and collectively, about the kind of society they want to live in. Influencers will be with them, whispering in their ears, filling their screens with hope or fear, with facts or fantasies. But no influencer can make the final decision for us. The power of a million followers is a collective power, and it can be wasted in a single careless post or redeemed in a single act of conscience. The article from Demócrata does not ask us to abandon social media. It asks us to become more aware. It asks us to hold ourselves to the same standards we demand of others. When we see a shocking headline, stop. When we feel rage, breathe. When we want to share a meme, ask ourselves if it is true. Digital power is real, but it is not magic. It is made by human choices, over and over again. The influencer with a million followers is, in the end, no more powerful than the person who chooses to believe them. The cat is both alive and dead only until we look. Then we must face what we see. The good news is that we can choose to see clearly. We can choose verification over vibes, evidence over emotion, science over spectacle. We can let this 29N be a celebration of our shared ability to think, to doubt, and to act together. That is the only influence that matters. That is the digital power we should all want.