Hey Bud, glad it's helpful - have a look at Duncan's work (his arguments are always clear, well-laid out, and supported by data). Also, if I were you, I'd ask whether this was always the case (that the influencer theory was wrong - I think yes, but the roots of its prominence go back to Durkheim and his social symbols. If another stream of sociology had won, the one of Gabriel Tarde, we would have realized that all social organization has a more or less the properties of networks). Anyway, I think it's super interesting to explore these real-world examples - and also what the possible shortcomings of the absence of a leader are (e.g. difficulty to explain what the movement is about: I heard so many times people asking "what does occupy wall street want?").