Dear bloggers, blagging is no way to make a living
et’s start with a caveat: I like free stuff. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t, frankly. This could be because I’m a journalist and have been the grateful beneficiary of free books (for me to review), free theatre or cinema tickets (for pre-research before interviewing an actor) and free lunches (although… is there really ever any such thing? Discuss).
Given that we’re in confessional mode, let me also admit that I have been known to pilfer the small bottles of shampoo from hotel bathrooms, in the belief that they are made small precisely because the management expects them to be taken.
But my love of free things has its limits. I would never take a bathrobe or pillows from a hotel room, as one errant relative of mine used to do. I have never shoplifted – not even from the Pic ’n’ Mix counter in Woolworths back when it still existed. And I haven’t ever asked for a free four-night stay for Valentine’s weekend with my boyfriend in a Dublin hotel so that I can share my thoughts with my 87,000 Youtube subscribers.
This was what vlogger and selfstyled “social influencer” Elle Darby did recently. The subsequent response from the distinctly unimpressed hotel owner (“It takes a lot of balls to send an email like that, if not much selfrespect and dignity… the answer is no”) went viral. As did the response to the response, which was a Youtube video featuring our blogger blagger Darby wearing a lot of pink, weeping and using the personal pronoun approximately 875 times. “As a 22-year-old girl, who’s running her own business from her home, I don’t feel like I did anything wrong,” she said, before accusing the hotel owner, Paul Stenson, of “bullying”.
As is the way of the internet, there was then a response to the response’s response, which involved Stenson presenting Darby with a €4.3million bill plus VAT for “the provision of features in 114 articles across 20 countries with a potential reach of 450 million people”. Modern life, eh?
I have some sympathy for both sides. Darby was essentially doing her “job”, and although I might not quite understand the point of such a “job”, she has obviously worked successfully with other brands using this approach. Stenson quite rightly made the point that, if Darby stayed gratis for four nights, there’d be no one to pay for the chambermaids, waiters, receptionists and hotel staff to look after her.
My bigger problem is with the whole concept of “social media influencers” in the first place. Brands, I’m told, like to use them because of their much-vaunted “realness”. That’s why the Youtube vlogger Zoella, a fresh-faced 27-year-old from Wiltshire, has amassed a £2.5million net worth by posting beauty tips online and why her first book (she’s “written” three, although she was “helped” by a ghost writer) broke records for the highest sales by a debut author. She has 12million Youtube subscribers and 11.2million followers on Instagram.
All because she seems, well, normal. She is not a traditional celebrity and has built up a relationship with her fans based on a degree of authenticity, which is why beauty companies and the rest are falling over themselves for her endorsement. Apparently, she’s relatable. But just how relatable can someone be when they’re a millionaire? If an influencer’s USP is that they can give us their unfiltered, honest opinion, isn’t that thrown into doubt the moment it becomes a moneymaking enterprise?
Zoella’s success has spawned several thousand imitators, so that my Instagram feed is now clogged up with former reality TV contestants posing with packets of stomach-flattening herbal tea or splayed across a palm tree in a resort in the Maldives, each captioned with a rash of promotional hashtags encouraging us all to part with our hard-earned cash while they soak up the good life for free.
The rise of the social media influencer has happened in tandem with the rise of the toxic notion that you can get something for nothing purely by dint of being a screenfriendly version of yourself. In a talent-show culture where children increasingly want to be famous rather than slogging away at a conventional job, it’s little wonder that we’re being sold stuff we don’t need by people who believe they’re entitled to it.
And this sense of entitlement can be astonishing. I have a friend who works in high-end hotels, who says they’ve unofficially banned anyone from the television series Made in Chelsea after one minor cast member demanded a free stay for her birthday and trashed the hotel suite, causing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage.
I am not convinced the opinions of these so-called “influencers” make a blind bit of difference to whether the rest of us want to stay in a hotel or buy a packet of herbal tea. Research published by the Global Web Index in December found that a measly 14per cent of digital consumers say they “discover” brands through influencer endorsements. And who knows if that actually translates into sales?
The figure is slightly higher (17per cent) among the target audience, the 16-to-24 age group, but they are the ones with the least disposable income. Only nine per cent of 45- to 54-yearolds say they discover brands in this way, and the figure dwindles to six per cent for the 55-to-64 age group, who have real money to spend.
In their desperate rush to be down with the kids, corporations have embarrassingly taken leave of their senses and influencers are becoming victims of their own chimeric success. Now that anyone with a smartphone and a passing interest in lip gloss can set themselves up as a “vlogger”, the market is being flooded. The very thing that made influencers stand out in the first place – their individuality – has been lost in a murky soup of sameness. It’s like any market frenzy – from tulip fever to the South Sea bubble and Bitcoin – and it’s long overdue for a crash.
You know what would really influence me? Someone who works hard, pays their way and doesn’t see a selfie as a viable career option.