Essena O’Neill had half a million followers and made an income off her posts. She boldly quit the platform last week to bring attention to problems spawned from social media.
I generally don’t link to articles I read on Facebook but I felt this one relates a lot with whats going on in Kuwait with most of the female celebrity instagrammers. [Link]
17 replies on “Paid to Look Pretty”
To borrow from Forrest Gump: Vapid is, as vapid does.
It’s an article from the Guardian that you happened to see on someone’s Facebook feed… not sure why that disclaimer
because it has nothing to do with kuwait
True but I bet the first thing that popped into your mind was Kuwait’s ridiculous number of Instagram “stars”
lol exactly
thanks for the insight. very valuable contribution to the topic.
There should be laws or at least some kind of common sense surrounding people making money off of social media in Kuwait/M.E. I follow people on instagram/youtube because they’re entertaining, insightful, or funny, and I would gladly support them making money off of it (its a job just like any other, really).
The main difference though, is that professional vloggers etc will explicitly state when stuff is sponsored and paid for. And they usually get paid by companies they already like. There’s a logic. But in Kuwait its really difficult to be able to tell the difference, and a lot of times no one will declare if they’re being sponsored at all.
laws? like what?
and why does it matter who sponsors whom u follow?
it matters because of brand identity. If you wanna be instafamous then by all means, but if you give fashion/make-up advice and a cookie company sends you some cookies and asks you to post a video, it doesn’t make sense with the brand/image you’re trying to push. Especially if a) you don’t even like cookies, and b) everyone else in the region is posting the same video/caption/cookie endorsement. It would make more sense in this case if a make-up brand sent over some make-up and brushes for the insta-celeb to endorse.
When everyone is posting The same stuff from the same restaurants, it becomes clear that they do it for the money and not because they actually believe in the product/company.
I still don’t get it.
do we follow for the advertisements in those accounts?
the thing is why would I care what is being advertised in the 1st place.
I personally don’t follow any of those “celebs”. So I don’t really give a shit what they post.
But generally, people follow for the image/lifestyle this person conveys so they have something to attain, look at, or live vicariously through. You probably wouldn’t care about what ads are being posted, but an aspiring make-up artist that looks up to Fouz, for example, doesn’t want to see posts about a salad she ate at a restaurant (that they paid her to post about). They want to see something relevant to the reason why they followed her – make-up reviews, beauty tutorials, etc.
I feel like in Kuwait especially, they give themselves a title/occupation just to have that identity (in this case Make Up Artist) just to build a following so that companies can pay them to advertise irrelevant products. Money talks.
thanks for the insight..
my advice to those following such celebs is don’t waste your time following what other ppl ate, instead,, do something useful for yourself or the community.
As an example the FDA recently fined Kim Kardashian for promoting a medication type product without approval on her instagram. There are laws for this everywhere.
When I saw the link and article, the first thing that popped into my mind was ‘The Real Fouz’ here in Kuwait. (https://instagram.com/therealfouz/)
Her Instagram fits this article to a ‘T’ and judging by the comments, most of her followers are just guys happy to get the Fouz photo of the day, and couldn’t care less about whatever products she’s schlepping.
Like Football players, fashionistas have a limited window of opportunity to get rich, after which they become too old, or get replaced by younger people. Some might go into campaigning like the miss in the post. Note that the “seeking approval and attention” disease is still there, otherwise they would just retire from social media, or get a normal job.
this reality check was needed here in Kuwait. I follow some of the Instagram celebrities and it makes me sad how they are all the time engaged in this, the need to be connected to their followers, keeping them updated. when do they have time for real stuff. and then if there are hate comments they get upset and have all the drama. i don’t support the haters but when you post fake stuff your asking for the haters deal with it and let go. social media is all about people and not everyone is going to love it.
she is a buff thing!!