Thanks
@emm for making this thread, I felt like I was annoying folks whenever I mentioned Sofie in the Kylie thread
Back during her Rome phase (I think 2016 to 2019), I enjoyed watching Sofie as a counterbalance to her friend Zoey Arielle (who also has a thread here), since Zoey was incredibly ditzy and annoying in the way she misrepresented Italy as a perfect place - and not to mention her butchering of Italian at every opportunity to sound sophisticated. Sofie was "keeping it real", at least to an extent. She seemed to live pretty humbly, talked about the struggles of working in Italy as a foreigner, didn't pretend like Italy was a fairytale.
Sofie at least has some self-awareness about being an "influencer" and about how she portrays her life through the lens of social media. In the past she's made several posts and videos talking about her insecurities, sharing photos/videos of her face and body unfiltered, and saying she doesn't want her audience to compare their lives to hers or to feel inferior. A few months back she reposted something on Instagram stories to the effect of: "kids these days and their technology!".
But if she truly believed that, would she share as much of her life as she does? Does she say that just to excuse herself? I just find it odd that she tries to relate by saying "I get bloated too, my life isn't perfect, don't believe what you see on social media" when it is her literal job in PR/marketing to use social media to persuade people into buying Sunday Riley's products (which, sorry to say, still preys on women's insecurities no matter how green or hip your branding is), to make things "aesthetic" and picture-perfect. Since she's been in Florence, it's been nothing but vacations, spa trips, meals out, classy events with SR... with the occasional complaint about bureaucracy and crying about being away from family. I've found her less and less relatable in the last few years.
She moved back to Houston in 2019 because, I believe, they were starting to feel the strain of Italy's economic situation. She said they wanted to be able to raise a family in the US because it's much more stable. After their little flat in Rome, I was incredibly surprised to see them moving into (what looked like) a brand-new townhome in one of the country's biggest cities. I can't imagine going from a shabby little place in Rome with moths in the cupboards to a whole-ass townhome, especially after talking about how poorly she was paid teaching English.
Out of nowhere there was a wholly furnished townhome, $200 Smeg toaster and all, even before landing her job at SR. During the height of the pandemic, she clearly wasn't hurting financially because she was constantly shopping at Whole Foods (even making an entire video out of her $400 grocery haul) on seemingly one income - her husband didn't get his real estate license until August 2020.
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Fast forward to February 2022, they've survived the pandemic well enough to be able to pack up their entire lives to move to Florence, where they decide to start from scratch in an apartment that doesn't even have an installed kitchen. Sure, they were
really "roughing it" on their nice inflatable couch and with no overhead lighting, but this isn't even their forever home and they have had to drop so much money on a customized kitchen that they probably can't even take with them when they move.
I'm not mad at her for having money, but let's be real. She does not come from anything less than an upper middle class background, and she clearly has had help along the way. She boasts a great amount of privilege, without which her life wouldn't be the way we see it online. Even down to receiving dual citizenship and initially moving to Italy to go to language school, these things cost A LOT (see: Zoey Arielle wasting thousands of dollars on her student visa but still cannot string a sentence together in Italian). It would just be nice for influencers to be more transparent about this kind of stuff.
By the way, Kacie Rose seems like the worst kind of expat, but maybe I'm just bitter because she never responded to me years ago when I reached out to her asking advice about US visas for Italians. She seems like an opportunist, trying to capitalize off the SM expat trend, and only wants to be around other influential people. If you make content about being an expat, I'd think you would be willing to help others on their expat journey, no? Or is that asking too much?
on the Kylie Flavell thread
