Dear lovely women,
I have read all the threads related to School of Affluence and Aija Räty Darling/Anna Bey and I must say that you are the best! The detective work is beyond compelling in every way and I had to give you a big THANK YOU for all your work and perseverance.
I only discovered the threads last week as I noticed that the podcast IG account was missing and a quick search revealed the schoolofaffluenceisascam IG account. Of course I googled the Aija Räty/Darling name when I discovered it together with the claims on this IG account which led me here. You have supplied me with many hours of priceless entertainment as well as valuable insights that I could never have worked out myself!
I can see here on Tattle that some of us were lured in by her older YT videos but had a bad gut feeling that was hard to articulate properly without seeing the big picture. I was just an occasional follower since sometime in 2019. I never interacted/commented on her posts on neither YT nor IG (also didn’t check these) and I never analysed whether it was all just a charade. But I should have trusted my gut a lot more!
From the moment I started following her first on YT, I instinctively found it embarrassing because of the whole “date a billionaire and throw out your average Joe” aspect and the obvious superficial social climbing aspirations. Her image/brand had this weird leprous quality to it. However, I stayed because I felt the etiquette and body shape/colour theory parts were interesting. I also enjoyed that she was advocating more conservative styles and values than what is usually portrayed in social media. Being from Denmark, I noticed her accent and wondered where she was from as it didn’t sound Swedish or Finnish. I know exactly how Scandi accents in English sound.
After a while I felt like she was just stating the same opinions/tips/tricks and she never went more in depth in new videos. Her four videos leading up to the new course were horrendous. No new info just blabbering and only in the end it occurred to me that she was trying to sell a new course. At first I was a bit intrigued but when I saw the price and thought about how much new info she had provided on the subjects of my interest recently it ended with a big nope from my side. I also wondered a lot about her distasteful restaurant/clubbing IG stories with Lina Hadid and that crowd not to mention the vile updates from her vacations especially St. Tropez. I felt she went to all the well known has-been type of places and her infantile admiration for champagne trains and the like blew me out. I seriously started questioning the posh and elegant side of this. And her ridiculous name dropping w.r.t. partying with celebrities! I don’t aspire to these things at all and it seemed to me as if she was a starstruck derailed 15 year old. Her sudden flashing of logos and standard items was just off. Especially a lot of the entry level stuff. Her podcast was uncurated - just blabbering without any coherent structure...
And then I found Tattle and Lipstick Alley. It suddenly all made so much sense!!! You made me realise the whole truth and that my type of life is what she apparently calls affluent and elegant and wants to portray (= upper middle class). Without the scamming, bad taste and lies. Holy mother of Christ...