There was an HBO documentary in 2021 called Fake Famous.

The producers auditioned a bunch of unknown wannabees, selecting 4 of them. They 'zhuzhed' them up a bit with fresh haircuts and makeup, assigned them professional stylists who put them in borrowed clothes, shoes, jewelry, sunglasses and manufactured fake situations in fake locations made to look like real locations and utilized professional photographers to capture it all.

They created them out of whole cloth.

Then the producers purchased thousand and thousands of FAKE FOLLOWERS and Russian bots for each of them for pennies, nearly.

Suddenly, these unknown nobodies with no particular talent went viral and became seen as 'influencers' and garnered thousands of real followers, including businesses who reached out to them to give them free things, job opportunities, etc.....

It was a real eye opener. Worth watching.