And I think almost everyone who spends time online has fallen into the trap at some point.

The reason is because respect is invisible. So your brain interprets whatever it sees as evidence of respect or reputation.

Before the existence of social media, if a crowd gathered around someone in the town square, you’d probably assume they knew something.

Most of the time, following the crowd was reasonable. If everyone ran in one direction, you ran too. If everyone listened to one person, there was probably a reason.

That instinct is what’s still being exploited across platfrms.

There’s an increasing incentive to chase visibility in a system that rewards visibility whether or not a person has a reputation.

The platforms don’t show you someone’s reputation.

They place the popularity metrics right beside their name like a badge of honour.

Before you read a single sentence they’ve written, you’ve already been told, “4.2 million people follow this person,” and your brain starts forming an impression about them.

On the other hand, reputation is built from an accumulation of predictions or patterns you have about someone or something. Your brain compresses those patterns into predictions so it doesn’t have to evaluate them from scratch.

Let’s say you’ve worked with someone four times. The first time they were late. The second time they were prepared. The third time they missed a deadline but apologized and fixed it. Then the fourth time they anticipated a problem before anyone saw it.

You most likely wouldn’t judge their reputation based on one single event.

They were late once, but delivered three times after that, so you’d expect them to deliver the fifth time.

If the person continues to be dependable long enough, you’d expect them to be dependable all the time.

Seeing them consistently keep promises, make good decisions, admit mistakes, or produce good work builds their reputation.