The results of my social experiment are in:
I let my "ICRT" Mazda sit overnight to see what kind of traction it got over my original post that went up around the same time (within an hour). The "ICRT" statistics are on the left while the correctly labeled version is on the right.
5 likes to 11 likes, 0 comments to 7 comments, 0 reposts to 5 reposts. I also gained 5 followers overnight out of nowhere. I wasn't gaining any at all on a regular basis before posting this.
So, what I can draw from this is that indeed the ICRT tag will draw certain people to your stuff who otherwise wouldn't care for it whatsoever. Despite the over 50% increase in likes my livery got, I find the kind of people commenting on the livery to be more interesting...
The amount of followers each one of these players has is in red beside their name, rounded to the nearest thousand. Enjoy my terrible handwriting.
So, not a single person with less than 1000 followers commented on my livery, and there were 7 comments and 5 reposts. My properly labeled livery got no comments or reposts. So, a 700% increase in comments and a 500% increase in reposts.
The one thing all of these players had in common is they used ICRT on nearly every one of their posts despite some being Japanese, some being European etc. I wonder if they just sit around all day waiting for people to use the tag so they can go in and shower stuff with comments and likes.
Now, does this prove anything? No, not really. I just like statistics and it was just an interesting thing that happened, seeing all these big players suddenly care about your stuff for using four letters that most players don't understand. Are they here to lift me up? Are they here for themselves to self-advertise? I'm not sure.
(I have since deleted the "ICRT" Mazda. The other one is still available for anyone who is interested.)