Tag: instagram

The public prosecution yesterday detained a well known fashion blogger in Kuwait for 10 days and referred her to the criminal court on charges of forgery. She allegedly left the using her friend’s passport before the forgery was discovered at Dubai airport and she was returned to Kuwait. [Source]

Since I like gossip, does anyone have any idea which fashion blogger Kuwait Times is talking about?

I don’t post about food as much anymore since there rarely is anything that really sticks out for me but this caught my attention. The Fat Duck is a newly opened restaurant that makes one dish, Peking Duck. They don’t have dine in just delivery and they literally just have one dish which is pictured above.

Their speciality is Peking duck that comes along with its condiments including pancake bread, sliced cucumber, onions, hoisin sauce, a vegetable salad and spring rolls. The meal is enough for 5 people and costs KD30.

I haven’t tried them since I’m not a big duck fan but if you’re interested, check out their instagram account @thefatduck.kw

Update: There is another account that also just serves duck and for a more accessible price of KD15. Check it out @quack.kw

Ten days ago when I posted about Taiba, the 15 year old fashion instagrammer whose work I really liked, a lot of people took to the comments to voice their disapproval. Some were extremely judgmental, others were just simply mean. I don’t know how people don’t see the possibilities Taiba has in the long run if she’s this good doing what she’s doing today. Even if you don’t see the talent in her work that’s fine, at least her parents can and are being very supportive which is what really matters. If my parents didn’t support my passion when I was 15 (which was mostly browsing the internet trying to find porn), I might never have become a blogger today.

In any case, Taiba decided to set the record straight on some of the accusations about her and she published a post over the weekend on her blog. If you’d like to see what she says, you can check out her post [Here]

A friend of mine told me about this instagram account that sells fresh home made pasta. I found that different from the usual baked goods people are selling so I thought I’d share it here. They have three kinds of pasta, lemon, pumpkin, and tomato and garlic. Costs KD3.5 for 200 grams and you need to order it at least 48 hours in advance since it’s made to order. The account is @mariarustica

Update: A reader informed me of a professional Italian pastry chef that sells 300 grams of fresh pasta for KD3.5. You can check that account as well by clicking the following link [@italiafoodk8]

A friend of mine wanted me to post about this but I told him unless it was a really slow news day and I was desperate for content I wouldn’t. Well I’m desperate for content so it looks like I’m posting about this. There are a bunch of people in Kuwait who have setup Instagram accounts for their pets with two being pretty popular. Those two accounts actually have more followers than me which I’m not sure what to think of. Below are five animal accounts I was told about, if you know of anymore let me know.

@Agent_Dianaa (15.8k followers)
@BERtheBunny (6,289 followers)
@Guntherthebulldog (698 followers)
@Holly_Malamute (257 followers)
@Sa3ad_515 (214 followers)

Update: Here are some more…
@MrFluffyQ8 (5,368 followers)
@DrogbaTheFrenchie (2,492 followers)
@bald_bros (3,431 followers)

Not sure if this is new but I just found out about it yesterday and find it very odd. Instagram is blocking alcohol related accounts in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (and maybe other countries as well). If you try accessing accounts like @absolutvodka, @heineken or @jackdaniels_us you’ll be met with a message stating you can’t follow them in your region. I don’t understand the reasoning for this and if it’s Instagram or the brands themselves blocking access. It’s not like we can drink any alcohol by visiting those accounts. Plus the ministry doesn’t even ban alcohol related websites in Kuwait, you can visit Heineken.com now and it’s not blocked. Oddly enough @budweiser, @greygoose and @stoli are accessible on Instagram and so is @playboy. To add to the confusion, if you visit the blocked Instagram accounts from your browser they’re accessible.

via @ahmed

It looks like Instagram ads have started popping up in our region. I spotted the ad above in my feed while another user spotted a Kraft ad. As I mentioned in my previous post, they’re soft launching at first with some preset partners, two of which seem to be Kraft Foods and Unilever. If you run into any ads let me know in the comments, I’m trying to figure out who all their partners for this soft launch are. On the other hand according to a blog post by Instagram, they’ve opened Instagram advertising to all businesses in the US market so Kuwait will most likely follow before the end of the year.

As some of you might have heard, Instagram advertising soft launched awhile back in the States, but what you might not be aware of is that it will also be soft launching in our region very soon. Advertisers will soon be able to place ads within your photo stream which will most likely have a big impact on Instagrammers who currently charge for posts.

Not only will advertisers no longer need to pay Instagrammers, but by placing ads directly with Instagram they can accurately target their customer base. Right now there is no way for example to tell where the followers of a certain Instagrammer are residing, that will all change with Instagram advertising since advertisers would be able to specify who they want their ads to be seen by.

The official word from Instagram MENA is that they will be beta launching the program shortly with a limited group of advertisers. They wouldn’t give me a specific launch date since it still hasn’t been finalized, but from what I’ve been hearing in the grapevine, its expected to launch within the next couple of months. The partners for this launch have already been set and I know one of them but I sadly can’t share who they are because I was told off the record.

Instagram advertisers will have two buying mechanisms once this program launches:

Self-serve: This will work similar to how Facebook Ads work and, similarly, will be priced by an auction.

Insertion Order: Managed clients will also be able to book these which are sold on a fixed price, but rates aren’t yet established for the region.

The targeting aspect of these ads will function similarly to how Facebook targeting currently works.

As I mentioned, Instagram will be soft launching soon with a limited group of advertising partners. This means for now Instagrammers will not be losing a lot of income. But once this program launches officially and to everyone, they’ll most likely feel the pinch.

Update: I just opened Instagram and noticed the ad below so I’m guessing the soft launch might take place this month.

Last month I posted about an image that was going viral of a butt naked man posing with the Kuwait City landscape in the background. I thought it was funny, a lot thought it was offensive and many were curious to how he didn’t get caught. So for this week I decided to interview @myassthetics and try and get some answers. Since he’s not in Kuwait I ended up doing the interview by email, here is it:

How long were you in kuwait for?
I was in Kuwait for about 4 days visiting a friend.

What did you think of the country?
I thought the country was really cool! What stood out most to me was the restaurant scene in Kuwait, there were some really trendy spots with really delicious food and drinks. My favorite was probably this spot called Almakan, but I also went out to farm a bit outside the city and had a really nice farm to table meal. We also saw some very cool art while we were there and I was surprised to see how prevalent the kind of underground street culture was there. Lastly the people were incredibly nice and hospitable in Kuwait, very interesting to talk to and all in all a very intellectual and worldly group of people (at least the ones I interacted with).

Where did you stay?
I stayed with a friend I had met outside of Kuwait and his family.

You’ve got a project in which you go around the world taking photos of your backside naked in front of different monuments, whats that all about?
Ya it all started kind of by accident. I was in South Africa and had just been swimming in a lake with some friends, and as we were changing back my friend took a picture on the dock because “the contrast of my pale ass and the red sunset was too funny”. The picture turned out to be a great one and people thought it was hilarious so it kind of stuck with me. The next picture was about a year later in Iceland, and I had to take my pants off to wade through some water to a waterfall, which reminded me of the other picture so i stripped down and took another one. This one got an even better response from everyone I showed it to. The third one came about a year after that on a little island in the British Virgin Islands that was just sand and 1 single palm tree. After that picture it became a thing and now I actually look for places to take them. In the last year and a half I’ve taken well over a hundred of them.

That was the origin of it but now I think of it kind of like a project or even a social test, and I’ve gotten some really interesting responses out of it. Some people think it is brilliant, others think I am an idiot, some think its really artistic and some even think its a weird sexual fantasy of mine (I can assure you that it is not haha). I just think that its fascinating how you take a picture of a beautiful landscape with a person in it and everyone focuses entirely on the landscape as if the person isn’t there, but as soon as that person is naked they become the sole focus of the image no matter how small or inconsequential they are to the picture. My favorite pictures of mine are the ones where you barely even see me because you really see how people’s perception of the picture changes when they realize there is a naked person in it. Call it whatever you want, I just enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to push the boundaries and keep people’s interest along a theme that could be quick to lose its appeal.

What made you choose Kuwait?
Kuwait was particularly appealing because it adds a whole new daring aspect to the picture. In most places if people saw you they would laugh or even if you got caught it would just be a stern warning or maybe a fine. In Kuwait the stakes are raised so again you have this picture of the skyline which people would have no interest in if I were clothed, and now because my ass is in it it’s practically gone viral.

Did anyone see you while taking the photos?
Aside from the person who took them, no. I want people to enjoy the pictures if they seek them out or are shown them, but I understand that this may be offensive to some people and I respect that. I would never want a kid to come walking around the corner and see me naked and be scarred. Obviously you can never be 100% sure but I scouted out the spot a bit first to make sure nobody would come by and I’ve gotten very quick at getting undressed and dressed again haha.

What time of day was it?
It was right in the middle of the afternoon, probably 1 or 2 PM. Definitely not the easiest time to pull it off but maybe we got lucky by hiding in plain sight.

Were you scared you would get caught?
I guess I was a little nervous because I know they take it a lot more serious in Kuwait than other places (that’s probably an understatement), but I tried to make sure I could get away with it and had a little bit of safety in being a foreigner. I’m actually somewhat shocked that I haven’t gotten caught yet but Kuwait certainly would not be the best place to start!

Were you aware of the law in Kuwait regarding public indecency?
No honestly I still have no idea what it is. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out the hard way.

Planning on visiting any neighboring countries soon? Saudi maybe?
So I actually have a picture in Saudi (well 2 but the other was in the hotel pool so it doesn’t really count), wearing only a shemagh and you can see the Kingdom Tower in it. I’ve showed it to some of my Saudi friends and they think it is hilarious but believe it or not I don’t think I quite have the guts to post it publicly at the moment. I honestly didn’t expect the Kuwait pictures to get as much of a response as they did and I’d be a bit nervous about what that could mean in Saudi.

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@myassthetics doesn’t have any nudity if you’re interested in checking it since all the nudity has been blurred. I don’t have an interview lined up for next week yet so if you have anyone in mind let me know.

Snapchat has really been picking up traction in Kuwait recently and I’m finding it a lot more enjoyable than Instagram. Just like on Instagram, I only follow my friends on Snapchat and I mostly use Snapchat for the stories. For those of you who don’t know how Snapchat works, there are two ways, the first is you send a self destructing video or image to a friend directly and the second is by adding an image or video to your stories wall which then self destruct after 24 hours. It’s actually pretty annoying to get a direct snap (unless nudity is involved) since you get a notification every time but right now 99% of the people I follow only use stories.

Recently I’ve also started following Snapchat celebrities. The first one I followed was Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah (Snapchat: majedalsabah) based on a recommendation. His snapchats are like a reality show of his life and he snaps an average of like a 1,000 seconds a day which is just insane. The second Snapchat celebrity I started following was Bibi Alabdulmohsen (Snapchat: bibii_63). I’m not a big fan of her Instagram but I met her yesterday and found out she was on Snapchat so I started following her. Surprisingly, not only am I finding her really entertaining to watch but she’s also pretty hilarious and really good at Snapchat. She has an advice segment similar to “Dear Abby” where people ask her for her opinion and she replies with very witty and funny comments. Definitely worth following.

Both those Snapchat accounts are in Arabic so for non-Arabic speakers they won’t be very useful. But, if you have any recommendation of interesting local Snapchatters to follow (English or Arabic) let me know in the comments.

A couple of weeks back I posted a list of prices some local instagrammers charge for paid posts. Many readers felt the prices were absurd while finding the whole processes unethical, but how do brands feel about paid influencers?

Ali Ashkanani, the owner of Elevation Burger (whom also advertise on this blog) posted his view about this on LinkedIn and with his permission I’ve gone ahead and posted it below:

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Paid Influencers: Yay or Nay?

Mark Makhoul, the profound blogger mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com, blogged about the card rate of number of influencers in the social media. The post has raised some controversial questions that I summarize in two sides;1) the value to money of the practice, and 2) the ethical side of advertising without declaring it. I personally worked with many of the influencers that Mark has mentioned in his blog. And I like to share my experience on the buy-side of this practice in Kuwait.

In 2012 I met for the first time with a sale’s rep of one of the social media management companies, and the service he was offering was new to me. He had a list of tweeps with high number of followers and a price per tweet. I’m not going to hide my first reaction, I really thought the prices are exaggerated and could not find the rationality of value to money in the pricing. At that time I only asked questions, and didn’t sign up for the services.

I thought that I need to look at the practice more thoroughly. At first, why are they called influencers? And why do they get paid for endorsing something they already like! The simple answer is they have a significant number of followers on social media, which translates into high exposure for what they post. The high number of people came from the fact that people find what they share is interesting. And as their pages becomes more popular, just like any other media, the value of what appears there increases. I believe people working at Ghaliah Tech or influencers can better explain these specifics.

The other way I liked to look at the influencers is simply to compare them with athletes, models, actors, or other conventional celebrities. The rate card for advertising by conventional celebrities are substantially higher than influencers, yet we don’t question their value to money. In fact, big brands, like Coke and Nike, invest heavily in conventional celebrities, and the results are clear from their brand awareness and company’s results.

Social media has helped us all evolve our practices, from connecting with friends to doing business and exploiting new markets. Part of the evolution was the emergence of new class of celebrities, those celebrities who don’t have their photos taken by experts and don’t have their videos edited by a whole production staff. The influencers are casual cool people that we like. Most of the time they shoot their own photos and videos by their smart phones, with no extra or unnecessary efforts to deliver their messages.

In the past, we only recognized celebrities by their profession that allowed them to appear in our lives frequently due to the limited media. And for many of us, we don’t really share much of values or interests with those celebrities, we don’t really know who they really are, but we were stuck with them. Today, our celebrities are our influencers, people who we selectively follow based on our personal interests. And just like brands have always gone after celebrities, other businesses utilized the technological advancement and emergence of new class of celebrities.

The new class of celebrities is a natural and healthy evolution, as this new class is filling significant gaps in the branding and advertising. In the past, only big companies could afford to pay celebrities to bring their brands to public. Today, with the influencers, the new class of celebrities is more affordable for all business scales. Branding is no longer limited to companies with deep pockets, celebrities are available for big and small companies.

At Elevation Burger, I have worked with influencers since the beginning of 2013, specifically at our store openings. We invited @Acsia_AKF, @7amadQalam, and others, who I believe have given us a good brand awareness on social media.

So is their value to money of what they do from business perspective? Probably there is, but is their service priced correctly? Maybe this question requires more digging

On other hand of the controversy comes the ethical question. And I think the answer to this question is straight forward, a paid post is not an endorsement and not having it clear eventually means misleading the followers. I asked many influencers about the ethics of the practice from their perspective and it looked a bit different.

For many influencers they presume that their followers know they are posting paid ads, and this assumption is based on how each has defined themselves on their bio. Also many influencers take pride in what they do and they still consider their paid ads as endorsements as they would only do business with brands with certain values that matches theirs. And there is an increasing number of influencers that are clearly mentioning the related business parties and clearly distinguishing between their posts and paid ads.

I like to observe the evolution of the social media and the businesses that it’s creating. Social media is a total new sphere of networking and relationships, a new market place, and I think it’s interesting to see how it solves it’s problem. Today Mark has raised the awareness of this market on his blog, I have put my comments on LinkedIn, and I’m sure there are many others discussing it on Twitter or Instagram. Eventually the market will shape itself and it will define its standards.

Ali Ashkanani
CEO at TABCo Food

Ever been curious to know how much local instagrammers get paid to post adverts on their accounts? Well then here are a few of the most popular ones and how much they charge per post:

@7amadqalam (323,250 followers) KD400
@abdullahboftain (75,180 followers) KD450
@ahmad_asb (134,700 followers) KD450
@alimubarak1 (68,152 followers) KD450
@ameralshaibani (204,455 followers) KD450
@ascia_akf (1,005,559 followers) KD850
@azizbader (497,708 followers) KD850
@basharnoo (342,316 followers) KD400
@batoul_alkandari (224,233 followers) KD450
@bb_alabdulmohsen (59,123 followers) KD350
@dalalid (866,687 followers) KD850
@daneeda_t (358,396 followers) KD450
@dr_shammat (887,156 followers) KD750
@elham_alfedhalah74 (1,758,795 followers) KD900
@faisalalbasri (474,132 followers) KD850
@fawaz_alfahad (111,874 followers) KD400
@groupwanasah_ (444,647 followers) KD350
@hayaalshuaibi_79 (814,972 followers) KD700
@kaftanusman (516,835 followers) KD500
@nohastyleicon (811,541 followers) KD850
@omaralothman (92,482 followers) KD500
@thedietninja (351,952 followers) KD550
@therealfouz (216,096 followers) KD500
@theveeview (631,973 followers) KD500
@yousif_alblooshi (171,520 followers) KD350
@ygolsharifi (238,247 followers) KD450
@zori_ashkanani (327,100 followers) KD400

There’s a local instagram user going by the handle @cannibal_q8 (pictured above) who has been posting videos of himself killing animals. In the first video I watched he skins a live rabbit on the street using his teeth while in the second video I watched he shows off a cute little desert mouse before biting it’s head off on camera. No idea how instagram is allowing these videos to remain up but supposedly local authorities are looking for him.

Just a fair warning, the videos I’ve linked to above are pretty graphic.

Q8 Awal is an instagram account with the sole purpose of collecting and sharing old photos and videos of Kuwait. There are a few out there that do the same but what I liked about Q8 Awal is that many of the photos I hadn’t seen before and also the fact that they don’t watermark the photos. Check them on instagram @q8_awal

VSCO has featured the very talented local photographer Faisal Al Fouzan and they’ve shared some of their favorite shots for the world to see. The photos are all incredible and I’m extremely jealous that I don’t have Faisal’s skills in recognizing and capturing moments. He’s super talented yet he only has 22,000 followers on instagram which I think is completely unfair when compared to some other instagrammers with the most horrid of shots and subjects. But that’s instagram for you.

Check out the feature [Here] and be sure to follow him on instagram @faisalthef