Bloggers and brands 2.

[Merriboo]

continuing the discussion from the previous thread about transparency and disclosure (or lack of) by bloggers

Rosie, I disagree, I was looking forward to wardrobe icons piece about dressing for your body shape but was disappointed to see a selection of women with fantastic slim figures (Laura and petro and their mates). Petro claiming she has got a big bum, and Laura claiming to be busty. They forget we’ve seen them in bikini pics all over Instagram. Dressing someone who really is busty or who actually had a big bum would have been interesting. And Laura posted her bra size, The comments were just saying that she is far too tiny a framed woman to be wearing a 34 back size. Not bitchy or mean at all.

Rosie - kind of you to worry about the time and energy some people are spending on this thread but, really, isn't that a choice for the individuals concerned?
Negative energy - is that Insta speak for daring to disagree? Possibly it is a reflection of the whole mood re gifting, integrity and honesty.

Hate balloons anyway. So environmentally irresponsible, why don't the brands marketing people engage their brain before they do that?

Also, I'm an adult woman, why the fuck would balloons make me want to buy something.

FFS.

Just popped into this thread and it’s so negative and quite frankly a bit bitchy- talking about bloggers boobs

Sorry, Rosie but did you miss the bit where Laura used her boobs to illustrate her point on her website? What's discussed here is not LF's boobs, but rather her opinion on them, as stated by her on the Icons website.

Brilliant article/blog post by Avril. Down to earth, likeable and fast becoming one of my favourite people to read/watch (still love a good old blog post).

I read that as wlt blog and googled out of interest and instead went to the world literature blog and spent about half an hour reading which was really great. So thanks everyone

Rosie, the last few pages have talked about the negative influence that social media can have on people and then moved into brands currently flooding the feeds. The discussion about LF's "boobs" wasn't so much about her breast size per se but more about the fact that she is portraying herself as 'busty', when clearly that's not the case. It's not weird. Its not like we are all fixated on her breasts fgs. Its just discussed as another example of IG presenting a distorted view of reality.

Fantastic dynevoran - my absolute favourite pastime. Am off to investigate.

Oh what! Are we actually supposed to believe that these Charlotte Tilbury unboxings are real - and they weren't sent a press briefing in advance. Actually hard to know who thinks we are more stupid - the retailer (won't be buying CT again) or the influencer boak word

I think what gets me about the gifts with balloons and the big events is that they probably used to be behind the scenes to encourage / scmooze the celebrity / magazine whatever to endorse the product.

Now with influencers it’s somehow segued into it being the actual content itself: ‘here’s me wearing whatever (free!) label at an event for whatever product and opening a box with balloons from somewhere else. And the punters (let’s face it, that’s what we are however much you window dress it into women supporting women) are just not impressed by being encouraged to buy something by somebody who’s getting it free, living an irrelevant lifestyle. I bought things when I was genuinely seeing what somebody wore in their normal, but stylish, life. This? It’s like it’s somehow eaten itself.

The WIT blog piece about dressing for your shape had some frankly not brilliant advice IMO, which I've tried and which doesn't work for my shape, and which is possibly because the women featured didn't really have the shapes they were professing to? Anyway to me it felt cynical.

Yes I saw that ithasbeen, I’m not sure they’ll have anything for size 14 plus, actual big tummies or huge boobs etc but we shall see.

Rosie, I think many on here would agree that having a go at another woman over her chest size is in poor taste, at the very least, I don't think that's what those comments were intending or doing, and it's certainly not how I read them.

Rather they're an example of how out of touch these 'women just like you' are. And on a larger more concerning level it's displaying this general attitude of influencers dressing beliefs/opinions up as facts with a certainty they have no true expertise in to a trusting audience. See also: Trump. The impact and damage is more clear cut in the clean eating/wellness sector but it's potentially equally damaging here as at the end of the day it can lead to a poorer self image for someone attempting the advice for themselves and finding it not working. They're not going to blame the expert, they trust and adore them. They are far more likely to berate themselves and that kind of damage builds up over time. Something presented as body positive can therefore be the complete opposite.

Anyhow, came here to post the following, if this is the future of Instagram, I think saying 'I'm terrified,' is putting it mildly:

Meet Fashion's First Computer-Generated Influencer

Sorry, missed those last two posts, are they tossing out the term 'dysmorphic' for problem areas? See above, apparently we can all be unqualified MH experts online too

No @botemp that was me being a bit flippant, not them at all (I may delete). One of the girls in the article is featured wrt her "BIG FEET" and advised not to wear pointy shoes. Its just a posh version of one of those Daily Mail articles pointing out things that are wrong with women's bodies that maybe someone with size 8 feet hasn't really thought about like that before.

I do think CT possibly reached out out before but the BALLOOOOOOONS!!! was a surprise.

But see, that's how they get on Instagram. If they sent it in a boring wee box they might not. The PR firms have realised they need to have super extra packaging that makes the blogger so excited they instantly put it on IG.

Ditto with that new Kim Kardashian perfume. Her PR came up with the (frankly genius) idea of sending influencers an enormous chocolate cake. But wait, there's an embossed hammer inside the cake! Wait, the cake is SOLID like an Easter Egg! The excitement!!! So IG was awash with people cracking these cakes, to find a perfume hidden inside. Their great coup was when Busy Phillips joked on Twitter that she wanted one of those cakes. They promptly sent one to her house (on the ball, that PR company). She was sooooo thrilled that she did a whole "uncracking" on Instastories for her 850k followers.

It was a stunning display of an influencer being influenced and influencing hundreds of thousands of people.

And I'd love to know if there's an influencer who's wise to this, and has stopped doing the cosmetic companies PR for them, has stopped showing the ridiculous packaging and the accompanying unboxing.

What is negative energy? Does it mean getting cross? If it does then frankly I don't think there's enough of it.

I haven't posted much on this thread, mainly because I've no idea who you're talking about most of the time. But I don't think 'if you don't like it, don't follow' is good enough. As it happens, I no longer follow bloggers or grammers and I recommend it. It still concerns me because furtive PR is rapidly making the Internet unuseable and because it impacts on young people in my family - and that's something energises me very negatively indeed.

Spot on Floisme - precisely how I feel too! Furtive is exactly the word and the underlying message is so dangerous. We neglect the impact of all of this at our peril.

Here’s one for your diaries

I've been following this thread for a while now, even though I don't follow any 'fashion' or mummy blogs/ig accounts. I do follow make up accounts as a make up artist and have been sceptical about all the unboxings, #ads #gifted etc for a while.

So many people are cottoning onto it now, everyone I speak to about ig hates having shit pushed onto them, when will the tide turn? Surely it will hurt brands soon? I actively don't buy brands that seem dependant on over the top social media mentions and ads.

I have had a quick look at some of the ig accounts mentioned here and I can't understand how they keep their audiences. Constantly spouting any bullshit that gets sent to them, the essay like captions that are cringeworthy to read. And the fan girling comments. Usually from other bloggers. It's a giant wank circle.

I'm frankly sick of being told to unfollow if I don't like someone's methods. How about no, because I'm annoyed that so many women have no clue all this stuff bloggers acquire is free/advertising and are being taken advantage of? Why am I not allowed to express that I find this at best deceitful and at worst disturbing?

You are allowed to express what you feel, but it wouldn't be long before you'd feel the wrath of the fan clubs and the block button

I'm talking about on here, in reply to Rosie. It's a common theme on forums about bloggers and YouTubers.

WRT to Wardrobe Icons, I personally think it was a pretty good representation of body shapes. We don't have to go to extremes to demonstrate what curvy/busty/"athletic" etc is. We shouldn't confuse weight with body shape. The two can be mutually exclusive. Petro is curvy - she has an hour-glass figure, albeit I would estimate a size 12. Nene did have athletic legs. I'm a proud owner of a set myself...I'm also only a size 8-10 but that doesn't make it any less hard for me to buy trousers & jeans that fit & flatter my over-sized calfs. And LF being busty - she's not going to lie about her bra size. Why on earth would she? She is a stylist and so I would hope knows how to dress for the look she wants to portray. In her case, she doesn't want to follow the standard given advice about v-necks & avoiding high-neck tops. She wants to downplay her boobs and I think she does an excellent job. Not all size 8 women have tiny breasts.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle over on CLTS Insta yesterday. I should say that I struggle with her account because whilst I do like her style, I find some of her story content rather dull. Anyway, I'm not sure if the poster was an MNer or a lurker but they made reference to this thread. Personally, although I didn't agree with her "unfollow" response, I thought Chloe handled herself well, remained polite and didn't really engage with it which IMO is better than a huge bunfight. On the other hand, her followers Seriously?! They launched into this huge attack of the poor person who dared to ask if she had considered that greater transparency from bloggers was warranted on IG. I was completely incredulous to read their nasty, mean-girl comments. It was akin to the class popular girl being called out or questioned by a mere mortal and all her sycophants/hand-maidens jumping to her defence. Pathetically immature.