Hi everyone. I have been following this thread for a while now and want to share my perspective.
Until a few months ago I was a long time follower of LLL, I fell for the spin and I was very much influenced by her to buy the products. And I bought a lot of them.
However, there was one incident which made me hit the unfollow button. It was after the biopsy drama and a kind cancer survivor sent her a lovely message of encouragement and LLL responds by posting it to her stories in a “look what I have to put up with” kind of way. There was so many ways to handle that situation and she chose to publicly share and play the victim. I didn’t matter to me that the name was hidden, I just felt that was an appalling way to treat another human, who in my mind deserved to be admired not shamed. I had known for sometime I was getting the hard sell, I knew she had sold out for the money, the shameless materialism, the begging for kitchen quartz, the lack of charity, fast fashion, contrived content, it was all getting too much for me. But her treatment of that follower was the final straw.
The whole Instagram Influencer scene is flawed in my opinion. Once these influencers get to a certain number of followers they are enticed by the money that can be made and they sell out and content is never authentic again. I generally unfollow people after they get to a certain size, because of this. LLL has not committed a crime by monetizing her following but she sold herself as something different and that is what is annoying people now. I really thought LLL was different, she came across more genuine. She had her own wealth, her own career, no mortgage, financially independent and seemed to dislike the fake instahun influencer scene. Her content was authentic, she did a lot to promote independent Irish boutiques and only promoted products she really believed in.
Now LLL limited is a company that sells a service, the money that we spend on products she has influenced us to buy is passed onto her, much like a broker. You can call it sponsorship, paid advertising, brand ambassador or commission, whatever - but there is financial reward in return for her influencing us to buy products. So with that should come some accountability. Someone on here has compared her stories to the QVC channel and that is exactly right, except you know what to expect with QVC, but with LLL we are led to believe something different. And whether she will admit it or not she has become something she told us she never was.
The responses by her this week did nothing to help her reputation – if she is so concerned about businesses recovering from covid – why not pay for the services you use, and give back to small business a little. However, the businesses she continues to promote are the ones that pay her the most, the ones that can afford to pay her – not the ones most in need or most deserving - that doesn’t come into it anymore. She can’t claim the morale high ground anymore, she sold out to the highest bidder and lost that right.
As for the trolling claims, this has really infuriated me. If you buy a product or service in most industries, you are entitled to your feedback – google reviews, trust pilot, tripadvisor, amazon, ebay. There is no feedback platform for influencers, so places like Tattle become this. LLL is a lucrative enterprise and 95% of the comments on this page are feedback relating to the service provided by this enterprise. To call this trolling is manipulation of the truth to suit her own agenda and financial gain.
We could just ‘jog on’ to use her own words but I don’t think that’s its acceptable to outlaw asking questions, it feels very subservient. There are very few industries where business owners would get away with treating any stakeholder like that. In my mind this is further confirmation that this an industry that needs to be more regulated and transparent, and that those funding it have a right to a voice and question practices.
about them. She just wants their dough.
