Ethics regarding Instamums and huns

[BurberryIsSo2000]

Homeisthecalm here, I think it's suitable to start a new ethics thread.

Since clearly, the one from yesterday isn't really about ethics but Clemmie.

Thanks all,

Keep it as nice or as stingy as you like

I'll start off by saying things should be clearly marked 'ad' or 'gifted'

Although the term gifted gives me the rage

Lol @cadyheron I agree to disagree 😊 My intonation meant I was referring to what was put out there and how they made themselves appear. A valid point. And no idea why you are hyper focused on this. It's unlike you to hyper focus on anything.

I think these responses are opening the discussion even wider,actually. It's quite fascinating.
As in, how grown adults get so suckered in by social media, so drawn in, that they think they have an insight into how they parent, what they do etc just because they see a few photos and captions every day.
Some on here say the "fan girl fawning" over on IG is over invested, they don't know them " etc.... fair enough, they don't.
Then over here you have people who "hate follow" or watch (quite happily say I don't follow them anymore!) but know the ins and outs of what has and hasn't been posted and when.
That's kind of an obsession too. You don't know them. Professing to know them, how they do or don't parent etc through a few IG pictures is bizarre whichever way you're coming at it.

@ABuckToothedGirlinLuxembourg that's how I feel. These threads are going round and round in circles and no matter what we say on here, Mod and FOD are never going to change the way they use their kids to make money, so the best we can do is ignore.

However, I'm also quite pissed off that they are going to let MN take the fall in the whole thing. I bet when the account is reactivated that the lollipop post won't be on there in the same way that the twin on the potty pic has mysteriously disappeared from FOD's account without a word of acknowledgement.

Boredandtired- why the dig at me? It was a valid question. Why does it seem she spends not much time with her kids from what she puts out there? Genuine question, how can you tell such a thing? From a few photos?

Also, you keep stating the reason why MoD is discussed so much is because she is one of the most high profile instamums, that she features her kids more than others and is constantly receiving free holidays etc.

That's absolute rubbish, she had a following of approx 500,000. For example Billie & Sam Faiers, Tamara Ecclestone, Binky Felstead, Ferne McCann and many others have the same or way more followers, feature their kids, use their kids in ads and (imo) haven't always been great with transparency of ads, gifted etc yet they are never discussed on here. When I've raised this before someone actually tried to say that the example I'd given rarely featured her child, which is completely untrue.

I also don't see why MoFoD should have to employ a moderator. They do perhaps need to be more conscious of what they themselves post but they are not responsible for what others choose to post on their pages. If I was them I would just refuse to respond to negative posts which are not asking a genuine question.

Yes jamon Enquiring minds would like to know

The problem is the DMs etc are still out there. How does the PR person (who clearly wrote FOD's post or at least gave him a bullet point plan) deal with that. I suspect they will constantly be brought up unless MoD does a mea culpa. Or are brands happy with a shit show of comments below an ad? That is not a rhetorical question - I wonder if, say, Dorset Cereals are happy with only 70% positive engagement and dont worry about the rest

boredandtired I think we have a really similar position on this, and it's one which has come directly from our own kids. I think it's hard for us to re-imagine our own childhood years with a SM presence controlled by our own parents. (I'm a little bit horrified at the thought of how my mum would have presented me to the world, compared to how I saw myself and wanted others to see me.)

nipersvest totally agree with that. Everything posted on an account that size should be checked and double checked from a variety of viewpoints before it's shared.

I have no idea why some posters on here use SM at all tbh. They just don't seem to get it.
Sofia, you make it sound like the first rule of SM is switching off critical thought and adopting some sort of smiley Stepford persona. As these threads have shown, SM raises issues that need to be addressed. Ignoring them doesn't help anyone.

I'm not getting involved in threads again other than to say the whole thing is toxic. I'd never heard of most of the instamums before these threads and I wish I'd never heard of them. It's all bullshit. From the sneaky ads, being fast and loose with the truth when it suits them, whole lives revolving around being a "mama" (I mean, WTF is that all about?? This isn't the pre war era, women aren't defined by being mums), the "campaigns", the fawning followers, the criticism and playground spats that it all gives rise to, Cady and Sofia your passion for being defenders of the Instamums is admirable (but also just as bonkers as the rest of it all), the huns, the hashtags, all of it. Absolute bullshit. Good luck to the lot of them and to the rest of you that continue the discussion!

I like mod/fod and can therefore understand their wider appeal. Having said that - I have cringed at some of their posts/ads and of course share the greater concern of sharing children’s lives on public accounts online.

I generally just enjoy a little chuckle here and there over relatable scenes of parental life etc.

What I don’t get is the very angry hatred towards them - and likewise the overly obsessive “love” of them whereby people are supposedly struggling with what to read/wear etc after mod was offline for a couple of days. I find it all odd and unsettling. Both ends of the spectrum seem equally obsessed with every minuscule detail of their lives.

I think some great discussions are being had re: children’s privacy and online safety but this all gets lost in what essentially ends up as thousands of comments scrutinizing and criticizing mod and fod...

@ABuckToothedGirlinLuxembourg no, they're not going to tell the truth, one person has commented on FOD's post and bought up the dm incident, FOD's reply "Let's leave it there please".

As to why they might/might not need help on sm, their accounts have become huge, if the aim is for that growth to continue and more brands work with them, it makes sense to take a more professional stance with sm. Roseanne is a good current example of social media gone bad.

@cadyheron it was just an observation from what was put out there. I was saying that if I'd had the downside of SM affect me to that degree I would focus on everything that she does have, which is far more enviable in my opinion than the online SM persona. I did comment she didn't 'seem' to spend a huge amount of time based on what was posted over the last few months, it appeared the SM 'work' has a big impact on life both in terms of time and personal headspace.
I could list plenty of accounts where the 'mums' seem to spend all their time with their kids. This may or may not be true. Based on what I'd been shown on SM I would say FOD spent quite a lot of time with his kids. But as you rightly point out this is what is put out there and shown and may not be an accurate assumption.

What baffles me is the bizarreness of it all. We've gone from #therearerealpeoplebehindthesesquares and they are just lovely people so leave them alone, to the inevitable truth that these are businesses and they need the money. So if we look at that, these businesses are marketing, advertising. These accounts are predominantly now functioning businesses that work by selling the customer products (whether that's pampers or holidays) the customers are in this case the followers, who in many cases are also mumsnetters.
In every field of work you have to answer to critism of beaware of how you conduct yourself, except it would seem Instagram. Where you can have a 'wage' of higher than any 'normal' job but expect to never be pulled up on anything you do. They make huge amounts of money and luxuries out of this job so why should there be nothing but positive feedback. This goes for all accounts that become businesses.

The hooper/MOFOD brand has completely eclipsed their 'real life' SM accounts now, and as such in order to control the engagement, they need to hire outside professional help. Someone on one thread commented that an audience of 800,000 is probably far more than MN or other chat sites, and they employ a whole team to moderate the boards. MOFOD, and other brand accounts need to do the same.

I suppose the difference between MOFOD and "Billie & Sam Faiers, Tamara Ecclestone, Binky Felstead, Ferne McCann" is that those individuals found fame outside of SM and then migrated across to SM to consolidate their celebrity. They were already famous/wealthy in their own right before appearing on SM so they were never portrayed as 'just a mum like you'. MOFOD and other instagram A-listers were - which is why hidden adverts/gifts/experiences are more disingenuous from them. Whatever Tamara Ecclestone posts about I know is going to be so far beyond the realm of my life, it feels less important if it's marked #ad because I know I wouldn't be buying it anyway. Choppers to peppa pig world, PJ to LA, skiing in Gstaad... Hmmm... And actually funnily enough the child protection/security thing isn't really a big deal for Tamara. We all know where she lives and probably where the kid goes to school, but they hire 24/7 security because of their extreme wealth they're already kidnapping targets.

I think it’s the difference between constructive criticism or feedback and incessant criticism for the sake of criticizing and judging. From what I’ve seen they do indeed respond to feedback e.g. they have very clearly marked advertising posts since being called up on transparency, or deleting hashtags/captions that have caused offense.

But I think it is unreasonable to expect them to stop making money from their social media profile at all.
As a side note - how could you possibly know their exact earnings? The amount of assumptions made (and then used as fact) is shocking...

They are a limited company, they file with companies house. You can find out the earnings of most companies by looking online.
This was brought up during the discussion because it is integral to the discussion, the earnings are such that it is a business and has a huge reflection in MLM businesses. There is a lot to earn, hence the fangirls who want a slice.

@finks thanks for clarifying that aspect I actually had no idea. I certainly respect the overarching discussion and debate. Just hate the detailed scrutinizing of their lives. I think people are being overly harsh and unfair. At the end of the day we are all human and this area of business is new and fairly unchartered territory for those who haven’t been trained to be in the spotlight so perhaps cutting them some slack wouldn’t go astray...

I don't think anyone has purported to know their exact earnings? Although if one were so inclined, companies house will have their latest financial statement for any companies they pay themselves through, so you could see how much cash they held in the bank a year ago.

A lot of instas don't realise how much information is held on the public record. Zoopla, Rightmove etc make it relatively easy to find their addresses. Companies house holds a LOT of information - and a lot of the accounts have set up Ltd companies (good finanical sense tbh). Coupled with the information that the influencers put out there ('hooray it's hubby's birthday today! 40 can you believe it!!') fraudsters wouldn't have much difficulty getting started.

Depending on the amount of followers and interaction, it is lucrative for some finks.
It's a genuine source of income though. They're doing nothing wrong in that respect.
So what if they choose to earn money through IG and social media? Plenty of people do. Whether it's by IG, blogs, or whatever.
Picking at them for how they choose to earn their money legitimately - their choice.
As for peoplelooking up how much others might or might not earn online? That's kind of obsessive and "fan girl" in itself.

I have always said that it is lucrative for some, so that is one thing we agree on Cady.

I have looked at what they earn, because I initially was in the mind set that they got a few bowls of cereals for free, a few nice girls dresses and the use of a car for a year. (lots of other instamums gaining these things too.) I thought it was all very low key and I did agree that when these items were given they should be marked as an ad. It was another poster on here who made me realise that I was being naive and that there is a lot of money being earned too. I am not obsessive and a fangirl, I simply wanted to educate myself on this 'job' so I could carry on being involved in an articulate and interesting conversation.

What concerns me is the MLM angle, there are people who think they can just take a few pictures and earn a fortune. Clearly there is more work involved than that. It is a business and it is multi level marketing, that is how this industry is working. There is nothing empowering about introducing women into MLM schemes.

I saw the lolly post and I'm still bemused as to what MOD did that was soooo wrong. A slimming lolly pop is just appalling.

Until there is a full ban of kids on SM then frankly I think it is ridiculous to hold her( and it seems to be pretty much only her)to account.The amount of postings I see featuring kids on FB are often far worse.There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy on this subject.

I suspect at the end of the day the reason MOD is being ripped to shreds is simply down to jealousy.

a slimming lolly is bad, it wasn't that though, she posted it with a hashtag, and was kind of encouraging others to post too with the hashtag. Some commented to say in doing so, she was doing the same that mn had been criticised for, ie, inciting online bullying.

MOD is being ripped to shreds is simply down to jealousy

Errr, no. MOD got herself into trouble by sending dm's of a questionable nature and allowing bullying comments to stay within the comments section of her posts. It was a 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude and she got called out for it.

Jealous of wha?

I’m wealthier, have a better career, fewer children, good teeth and a happy marriage. What’s to be jealous of?

She stinks of white privilege. And she think she is immune to any form of criticism.

It’s obnoxious.

I suspect at the end of the day the reason MOD is being ripped to shreds is simply down to jealousy.

Shh, don't mention the "J" word! Even though some on here have actually come out and used it themselves, and admitted as much in some posts, no, nope, nobody is jealous. Apparently.