I’ve responded to good ole Duncan at the ASA and given feedback on how inadequate the laws currently are and asking how I can take it further. This isn’t about you Reb, for me it’s now about the whole industry and how toxic it is.
In the end I think the only winners are the brands themselves. The followers are roped into buying into an unsustainable lifestyle or risk feeling inadequate (and any influencer who would deny this clearly has no idea how their own industry works).
And the influencer themselves loses in the end. Someone mentioned something previously that really stuck with me. Nothing in their house is ‘theirs’ really. There’s no old knicknacks, barely any family photos, no crappy kids artwork up. Everything is gifted or sponsored and I think it would be hard once you’ve been doing it for a while to really accurately assess whether you like something because you like it, because you think your followers will like it, because you think it’s the ‘in’ thing to have, because you’re being paid to like it or because you’re given it. I could watch every single one of the videos on Mrs Meldrum and the Meldrums (if it was still there) and even with their chronic oversharing of every detail of their lives I don’t think I could accurately guess what she would like/dislike. I’m not keen on those new prints she has but knowing how Reb has been recently I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t either. I don’t think there’s any way to live your life authentically if you know you have people watching you.