VIP-club phenomenon: Emergence of elites and masterminds in social networks

Hubs, or vertices with large degrees, play massive roles in, for example, epidemic dynamics, innovation diffusion, and synchronization on networks. However, costs of owning edges can motivate agents to decrease their degrees and avoid becoming hubs, whereas they would somehow like to keep access to a major part of the network. By analyzing a model and tennis players’ partnership networks, we show that combination of vertex fitness and homophily yields a VIP club made of elite vertices that are influential but not easily accessed from the majority. Intentionally formed VIP members can even serve as masterminds, which manipulate hubs to control the entire network without exposing themselves to a large mass. From conventional viewpoints based on network topology and edge direction, elites are not distinguished from many other vertices. Understanding network data is far from sufficient; individualistic factors greatly affect network structure and functions per se.