We’re only two days into October but alas, we find ourselves deep in yet another influencer-related controversy.
Beauty and fashion influencer Amra Olevic Reyes took to Twitter late last week to take a stand against what she calls constant “influencer slander.”
The Instagram personality, who boasts 5.8M followers on the platform, began by tweeting, “The only people that discredit influencers are those that tried it and didn’t succeed. Don’t throw stones now just cause you didn’t pop.”
Then she went on to explain that an influencer is a “hybrid” of many jobs. “A stylist, makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, editor, creative director. And y’all still saying it isn’t legitimate. FOH lol. Not many can do it and stay consistent. Ion wanna hear no influencer slander again,” she wrote.
While a handful of fellow influencers agreed with Reyes’ comments, she copped a lot of backlash. One Twitter user wrote, “the amount of privilege coming out of both this chick and the rest of the comments is insane,” and another added, “All the respect fr but people go to school to get licenses for hairdressing so be proud without slapping your name on our careers unless you’re licensed yourself.”
Freelance writer and blogger Jenna Farmer chimed into the conversation and told Reyes, “never get these tweets, you could break any job into different components (‘hair stylist’? We all have to do our hair whether an influencer or not!). As someone who blogs myself, I never get why we’re so desperate to prove how hard we have it! It’s hard but many have it harder.”
Speaking to Buzzfeed News, Reyes said she posted the tweets because she would “constantly see people bashing influencers.”
“Other beauty/fashion professionals slander our job and make it seem less than,” she said. “Whether it’s professional makeup artists, hair stylists, or higher-up fashion representatives, they say things like ‘influencers don’t do sh*t.”
Twitter user Yetunde Dan put it well when she wrote, “I have no doubt that this profession, like most other professions, take hard work and dedication. However, I’m iffy about this line of work becuz in my opinion it’s just another marketing scheme.”
“It’s so easy to get caught up in this line of work, who won’t like feeling validated by hundreds of comments…” she wrote. “It doesn’t help that we’re already in a beauty obsessed culture. Influencers just add to the problem.”
It sounds like Reyes could use a bit of a reality check. It’s her choice to be an influencer on a trivial social media platform, and while I’m sure it hasn’t always been easy, there are people out there who are actually doing it tough.