The Top 7 HunterGirl is a 23-year-old music therapist who is originally from Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee. She was one of the three American Idol season 20 platinum ticket winners, earning her ticket after her Nashville audition. After her Top 20 performance of her original country song, "Heartbreak Down," HunterGirl was thrilled to see the tune climbing the charts, along with her EP One Day. HunterGirl documents all of these achievements in her humble and gracious Instagram posts, in which she thanks her fans for their daily.
Although Instagram followers are not the only predictor of an American Idol victory, they can be a good indication as to who has the most fans and therefore who might be accumulating the most votes. The three finalists who were recently eliminated from the American Idol Top 10 had some of the lowest amounts of Instagram followers, including Emyrson Flora with 33.5k , Lady K with 32.4k, and Mike Parker with 28.1k, which could have been a sign that they would earn the lowest number of votes. However, the fact that Emyrson is 16-years-old and she had only a few posts before her American Idol debut, actually makes her count impressive. Although Lady K and Mike announced the release of their original music on their Instagram s, they were not very active on them until they appeared on American Idol.
HunterGirl, on the other hand, uses social media to interact with fans and keep them up-to-date with her music and performances, and she has been doing so since her first post in 2015. During the American Idol season 20 audition rounds before the live shows, she often went live on Instagram to interact with her fans and perform for them. She has shared photographs and videos of herself performing live ever since she created her Instagram . HunterGirl has accumulated 86.3k Instagram followers—almost double the number of any other American Idol season 20 contestant. HunterGirl seems to have already amassed a fan following before she ever graced the American Idol stage, and it continued to grow because of her musical talent and relatable personality.
The other of the American Idol season 20 Top 7 all have about the same number of Instagram followers, including Leah Marlene with 54.2k, Nicolina with 48.8k, Fritz Hager with 46.8k, Christian Guardino with 45.9k, and Noah Thompson with 45.6k. The only exception is platinum ticket winner Jay Copeland, who has 24.3k followers, but is much less active on Instagram than the others. The fact that most of the Top 7 all have about the same number of followers implies that most of them are American Idol fans who followed all of them throughout the season. HunterGirl is the only one who seems to have come into the competition with an already strong fanbase.
HunterGirl's Instagram follower count might indicate that she could be crowned the next winner. Although Instagram is not the only way to gauge the contestants' popularity, the fact that she has almost double, or in some cases triple, the amount of followers as the rest of the American Idol season 20 finalists has to mean something. It's no wonder that fans have gravitated toward HunterGirl. With her genuine personality, natural stage presence, and talent and artistry as a country singer, HunterGirl would be the perfect American Idol winner.
American Idol airs Sundays & Mondays at 8 p.m. EDT on ABC.
Source: HunterGirl/Instagram