There was someone on this forum in the #25 thread who wondered aloud if this epic Glo flop would garner new Tattle memberships from people who had previously liked and watched Lydia. It has. I am one of them. I am not British. I did not know about this forum. I do now.
After having several of my comments to Lydia deleted off of the Glo Instagram account and going unanswered in her YouTube comments section, I went to the web to research a place, a safe outlet, where I could vent my frustrations to people who clearly have been quicker on the uptake than I have.
I also DM’ed her once this week about the Ca’ Pietra limestone freebie post in Instagram Stories that brought her a backlash so intense she created a highlight reel featuring all of her ASA-based questions to fans. I asked her why she always had to publicly react with a tantrum every time fans called her out for getting something for free. Surely that’s old hat by now? I told her that her constant overreactions and defensiveness made her look petulant. I asked her to exercise a bit of grace. If she doesn’t like the comments, I asked her to buy the product herself to avoid them. If she wants to continue to get product for her own home for free from a UK-based stone company that in no way could bring any benefit to my life by way of recommendation, being an ocean away over here, I asked her to please rise above the consequences of those actions and to stop lashing out.
I thought that was the end of it. Then Glo. Where do I even begin? Luckily, there are so many sharp members here who have already spoken about many issues with the launch and the products proper – her fake inclusivity of the BIPOC community, the unwillingness to reveal the origin of manufacturing, the lack of market research and focus group testing, the environmental catastrophe that is bringing so much more plastic in bulk to the market, her two-faced approach to sustainability, her luxury attitude to her own lifestyle with her own use of top quality natural fabrics and yet her willingness to shill these cheap materials to others, the astronomical price point, the impact on her young, malleable followers – to name a few.
However, there is one point I saw in one comment on her YouTube channel that she actually liked back that, to me, made me angrier than anything else I’ve seen over the past 24 hours. It’s posted below for you to view yourselves. In the comment, the person said that just because people couldn’t afford Lydia’s product didn’t make it a bad product, that it’s “just something out of their reach.” Lydia liked that.
This is where she lost me. We need to talk about the class issue. The idea that Lydia participates in the trope that she belongs to an exclusive community of comfortably well-off pseudo-celebrities shows that she buys into an antiquated class structure that is predicated on her keeping people below her so that she may rise by profiting off of classes she views as beneath her. Her life is aspirational. Fine. But she is personally aspirational in that she is a social climber desperate to raise her status “read: class” to the detriment of others she views as in lowers castes. Do discuss. I’d love some feedback on this.
Now, it’s time to get personal. Originally, I wanted to be like Lydia. I have been following her for six years. I started a YouTube channel and an Instagram account to build a following to whom I could sell recommended products (though, admittedly, ones I actually liked and believed in) and benefit of off affiliate links and brand partnerships.
Though a successful professional with bachelor and masters’ degrees, the shiny prizes that her world proffered caught me in its wake. And, for a year, I participated in the fashion blogging/vlogging sphere. I am so ashamed that I didn’t see what I was perpetuating.
In the past 24 hours, I have questioned how I can do better than Lydia and contribute some good to the world instead of shilling more harm. I shuttered my YouTube account and my Instagram pages. I deleted my blog. I will never produce a photo of me with a product ever again. Actually, I’m going to ground and living off of my little savings until I can get a real job, for which my degrees prepared me. And my savings are so little because I was living above my means. The Jo Malone candles, the ceramic vases and pots, the props for Instagram flat lays, the camera and lighting equipment. I am so ashamed and embarrassed that this has been my aspirational life for years.
I hope your group will accept me here despite my past actions. I can’t believe I upheld Lydia on that pedestal on which she places herself. After this launch and all of the feedback and comments she, like me, has surely read, she should be curled in a ball in the corner crying tears of shame into her Dior and Louis Vuitton blankets. I’ve never felt freer to have been proven so wrong.
off. She just wants to be rich at the cost of her viewers, she is a Fake, she has and always will do the bare minimum to get as much money/freebies as she can. She's a narcissistic and her husband/friend enables her because they are more than happy to reep what ill gained 'STUFF' she receives. She's not a nice person, shes aggressive, selfish, greedy and vain 
whatever the hell it is.
