to ask if any of you are watching the Zoella Advent Calendar hoo ha?

[BriechonCheese]

Now, I might be enjoying this fall out because my DS went to the HelloWorld event and was badly ripped off (a YouTuber event which went terribly wrong) but finally Zoella is being challenged on her over priced tat merchandise. Particularly her advent calendar which is £50 FIFTY FUCKING POUNDS for the likes of confetti, 2 tiny candles, a thin copy book and a Pom Pom!

www.boots.com/zoella-12-days-of-christmas-advent-calendar-10235552

Social media is going mad, there are thousands of tweets, a viral video lampooning it is doing the rounds and it was discussed on 5Live last night.

Is anyone watching this fall out?

Do we think this will finally be the end of these terrible, vacuous idiots? Or am I too optimistic?

God, what a tat filled rip off.
How on earth do these people get away with this?

This looks like the biggest pile of arse I’ve ever seen! And to think the M&S beauty calendar is £35. Let’s pray this is the end of Zoella and the other pointless bloggers.

I wish the journalist would stop hedging her bets and spell calendar correctly throughout!

It sounds appalling value for money, but how are there so many reviews from disappointed children already, do that many people buy advent calendars then just open them all up immediately?

That is appalling

Thank you for linking to the JaackMate video IceRebel, it's reaching a lot of people on social media.

Washing Those parents who threatened them with small claims are being refunded. We have yet to receive our refund.

I would really like for a spotlight to be shone on what's going on with these types of YouTubers as I know a lot of pre-teens and teens are left to watch these people blindly.
Zoella for instance has 12 million subscribers on 1 channel - she has a "vlogging" channel where she shows her life in a follow me around style. All of her little gang of friends have them and her boyfriend is very prolific and posts daily. They are selling, selling, selling and this is happening in your homes on a daily basis. It is far more pervasive than ads on videos on in TV breaks, it is constant and it is using very deliberate and dangerous selling techniques over and over again. The guilt is particularly laid on thick in Alfie Deyes' daily vlogs as he is the owner of a merchandise company these people sell through (I have been off sick since the HelloWorld stuff, so I have been reading a lot into these people).

I do encourage parents to watch a lot of these videos - more than just the odd one or two to check suitability because it has gone too far.
Like I said on the HelloWorld thread, I'm not one to judge teen idols, I liked Neighbours and Adam Rickett! So largely, after checking YouTubers aren't discussing sex and swearing constantly (which actually this lot are doing more so recently) I generally let DS13 watch them uninterrupted for an hour or so a day. I think parents need to spend a week watching them in the way teens do - with the social media, comments, photos etc. to understand exactly how your DC are being sold to. It is very different to what we experienced as kids.

I'm glad other people enjoyed the video, it had me laughing yesterday. Although it felt wrong to laugh considering the circumstances. The product is so obscenely priced considering Zoella's target audience. However, i'm glad the word is spreading, there are so many wonderful Youtubers, and people like the Gleam gang spoil the platform for the rest.

Why is her stuff so expensive? Not just the calendar, all of it. It doesn't affect me as my DC aren't interested as yet, thank fuck but I see it in Superdrug. I'm in there, 40-something professional working mum and I'm buying Barry M, Rimmel and Superdrug own brand. I've noticed the Zoella stuff and it's out of my price range! (Not that I want it anyway, but YKWIM.) It's aimed at young girls, why isn't it pocket money type prices?

I know it's a money-spinner obviously, but they could easily can do the whole thing at a cheaper price point. It certainly damages her lovely/friendly/sympathetic image.

DD has been following Zoella for a couple of years. I once, when waiting for her to get ready for bed, happened to sit through Alfie and Zoella shamelessly promoting expensive branded goods (they'd obvs been gifted to promote big time) in their fab new £2million+ mansion. I told DD that tweens/teens like her were effectively funding their uber lovely lifestyle.

She does talk about YouTubers 'merch' but is receptive to my comments about her pocket money helping to support them in the OTT manner to which they've become accustomed.

It's horrible to watch as an adult, particularly with all their totally inane wittering on about nothing. Mindless.

You can tell I'm no fan

JaackMate's video is classic, totally brilliant.

I have dd aged 12 and 10 and fortunately neither of them are into Zoella. (just endless mindless minecraft videos.)

To be fair, the actual contents of the advent calendar are exactly what I would expect in an advent calendar, (little bits and bobs) it is just that I would expect 24 doors and for it to cost £10.

We don't do advent calendars in this house (shock horror)
we have a string that goess across the kitchen and we have pitcures they all made as kids, and we turn one round every day. I do now have a box of chocs and the person whose turn it is gets a choc, but I find advent calendars have gone down the grabby materialistic route of the rest of christmas.
We used to have one, with just pictures and took turns to open it. The excitement over a picture of a blooming star was ridiculous. It was really about the count down to Christmas

I've watched zoella a few times several years ago, it seemed mostly harmless stuff but from reading into it recently I've realised the incredibly damaging side to her and her other YouTube 'lifestyle' cronies. As others have said it's pure advertisement and trying to milk as much as possible from young fans, relying on pester power.

I do think with this calendar she's made a massive error and got too cocky and gone too far, judging by the backlash it's made it very clear to lots of people how greedy and exploitative she is and I'm slightly enjoying seeing people wake up to it and get some publicity for their videos/articles highlighting how awful she is. She's a behemoth in the YouTube world and for a long time she's been so big she can drown out her detractors.

I reckon after the hello world event and now this calendar backlash she's not got long left. She probably doesn't care, she's a millionaire at a young age and has managed to squeeze it dry. But I think it's ran its course now, she could have squeezed it for a few more years if she'd been more shrewd and kept aiming at her target audience with pocket money merchandise, instead she's trying to cater to a tween market expecting adult prices to sell and now it's all imploding!

PS. Anyone one remember the dangerous candle Zoella sold a few years ago - again low quality tat for teens, young kids. They have no shame

PS I spent £50 on a calendar for the first time this year! But it's a NYX lippie calendar, has 24 lipsticks/glosses in and I researched it thoroughly before buying, reckon I'll use 4/5 of it and the other 1/5 will be fun to experiment with. Wear lip products every day so the joy will be well worth the cash, and at £2.50ish per item it seems good value for me. The fact Zoella has managed to charge the same price for twelve cheap pieces of crap is staggering.

who is zoella?

SUrprised the wretched girl didn't disappear after the fuss about the novel she 'wrote' (hired a ghostwriter to produce a shitty generic teenage romcom for a flat fee and made millions for hersefl)

Mercifully DS doesn't care about these overrated ponces.

Zoella, whoever the fuck she is, should be ashamed of herself for peddling this high priced absolute tat. I did chuckle at Jaack mates review thanks for that Rebel
I've bought Lindt advent calendar for
me and DD £6 for 24/25? doors. Bargain.

I watched a YouTube video ( weeks ago) of a youtuber and her little DD opening it!

They were gushing about how good it was and I was genuinely confused..... the contents were so shit!

IceRebel, that made me laugh a lot. Brilliant!!!

It’s making it worse that she’s ignoring people.

I’ve only just watched Jack Deans review of the calendar.. why did she allow her name to be put on this? Oh yeah greed!!

@midnightmisssuki, you could type that exact phrase into Google and it would tell you.

Why are there only 12 doors on the calendar though? Is she going to release another calendar so you can actually count down til xmas day? Or are you supposed to buy 2 to get to the 24th?

Apparently Alfie is bringing one out that you’re supposed to fill yourself..

Jaack Maate: It's fucking stickers, Jamie!

Thanks IceRebel

The 12 doors is the killer isn't it. There are plenty of luxury expensive advent calendars out there that still manage to have all the doors for £50 or less. It just makes it so obviously cheapskate and money-grabbing.