When TikTok Becomes the New Wall Street

Remember the GameStop frenzy back in 2021? A Reddit thread turned an almost-dead stock into a global sensation. But that was just the beginning. Today, your next investment tip might come from a 21-year-old with a ring light, shouting “100x stock alert!” on Instagram. Or someone on YouTube, casually predicting the next Tesla from a small home office.

And you know what? People are listening—and acting. In an age where attention equals influence, finance has officially gone viral.

Financial influencers—or “finfluencers”—have helped make investing more accessible. However, they’ve also introduced a new kind of risk. These risks are psychological traps that affect our thinking about money. This article explores how social media is shaping irrational investment behavior, and how it’s quietly hacking our brains.

The Rise of Finfluencers: A New Breed of Financial Gurus

Gone are the days when investment advice came strictly from certified advisors or financial newspapers. In 2025, your stock picks are just as likely to come from someone with no formal training in finance—but millions of followers and a well-edited video.

In India, creators like Ankur Warikoo and Pranjal Kamra are household names. In the U.S., personalities like Graham Stephan and Meet Kevin have built finance empires online. They simplify complex topics and speak the language of the common investor. That’s what makes them relatable. And dangerous.

Why? Because relatability can feel like credibility. When someone who looks and talks like you says, “I bought this stock and made a 60% return in two months,” it feels real. You trust them—not because of their qualifications, but because of their story.

Herd Mentality: “Everyone’s Doing It, So I Will Too”

We humans are wired to follow the crowd. When hundreds of people are liking, commenting, and reposting an investment idea, it creates the illusion that it must be safe or smart. This is known as herd bias—doing what others are doing simply because they’re doing it.

Take the case of Dogecoin. In early 2021, it shot up more than 500% in just weeks—not because of strong fundamentals, but because Elon Musk tweeted about it. The internet piled on, and people who couldn’t explain what a cryptocurrency even was started investing. Not for growth, not for value—just because everyone else was doing it.

It’s like seeing a crowd running and assuming there’s a fire—you run too. But what if the crowd was wrong?

Confirmation Bias: We Hear What We Want to Hear

Once we believe in something—or someone—we start filtering out opposing views. That’s called confirmation bias. We look for information that supports our existing opinion and ignore anything that challenges it.

Let’s say a YouTuber you admire says Zomato is the next Amazon. Excited, you go searching on Google—but instead of typing “Zomato risks” or “Is Zomato overvalued?”, you search “Zomato stock future growth.” You watch videos and read articles that confirm your bias, building false confidence in your decision.

This isn’t research. It’s just reinforcing what you already want to believe.

Overconfidence: “If They Can Do It, So Can I”

Social media is full of people showing off their wins—screenshots of massive gains, flashy cars, success stories. Rarely do they show the losses. That creates a powerful illusion and leads to overconfidence bias.

One Indian influencer once claimed to have turned ₹5 lakhs into ₹50 lakhs within a year through options trading. Thousands of young viewers took that as proof of a repeatable strategy. Some even quit jobs to trade full-time.

But what no one sees are the messages in their inbox from followers who lost money. Or the 90% of trades that went south before that one “big win.” In a world where likes and shares matter more than accuracy, hype sells—and hope becomes costly.

Anchoring Bias: The First Number Sticks

Here’s a simple trick your brain plays on you: it gets stuck on the first number it sees. This is anchoring bias—you give too much importance to the initial figure and base all decisions around it.

A classic example is Paytm’s IPO. Finfluencers and blogs hyped its listing price of ₹2,150, calling it “undervalued” and a “once-in-a-decade opportunity.” Many investors anchored their expectations to that price.

So when the stock crashed, they held on, convinced it would bounce back to ₹2,150—because that’s what it was “worth,” right? Not quite. Anchoring blinds us to changing realities.

The Like-Comment-Subscribe Economy: Content Over Credibility

Let’s be blunt—most finfluencers aren’t rewarded for being accurate. They’re rewarded for being entertaining. Bold predictions, sensational headlines, and 60-second reels do better in the algorithm than nuanced, fact-checked advice.

A video titled “This Penny Stock Will 10x in 2025!” gets thousands more views than “How to Build a Balanced Portfolio.” The system isn’t built for thoughtful advice—it’s built for clicks.

And when financial advice becomes entertainment, your money becomes the price of admission.

Are Traditional Advisors Losing the Race?

Yes, they are. Despite being more qualified, many traditional advisors are struggling to stay relevant with younger investors. Why? Because they feel out of touch.

They use jargon, charge fees, and don’t show up in your feed every day. Meanwhile, finfluencers are everywhere—breaking down SIPs in reels, explaining debt in tweets, and showing “how I made ₹1 lakh in a week” on YouTube.

But here’s the thing—when you need surgery, you go to a doctor, not a YouTube tutorial. Why treat your life savings any differently?

Conclusion: Your Brain Is Being Hacked—and Your Wallet Be Next

Let’s face it—finfluencers are not going away. Many are doing real good by making finance less intimidating and more accessible. But they’re also turning investing into a psychological minefield.

When your financial decisions are shaped more by Instagram algorithms than financial logic, you’re not investing—you’re reacting.

So before you hit “Buy” on the next trending stock, stop and ask yourself:

Am I investing… or just following?