Social media can create a vicious cycle. There’s a lot of pressure on users to keep up with the quote–unquote glamorous lives of their favourite influencers, and there’s a lot of pressure on influencers to live up to their followers’ expectations. The (not so) perfect example of this is ‘vegan’ influencer and YouTuber Yovana Mendoza, who was unofficially cancelled last year when she was caught on camera eating fish.
Mendoza was savaged by followers, who populated the hashtags #fakevana nd #fishvana, claiming the influencer had scammed them with her “raw, vegan, gluten-free, oil-free, soy-free” image, e-books and detox program.
Fast-forward to 2019 and Mendoza has completely overhauled her public image, had her breast implants removed and is on a new “journey” all about “gaining confidence, self-love and being patient with ourselves along the road.”
However, in a recent interview with The Cut, it sounds like Mendoza is still reeling from the backlash she faced over 12 months ago.
“The extent of the backlash really shocked me,” she told The Cut’s Charlotte Cowles. “I deleted all social-media apps from my phone and stayed away from YouTube. People were making so many videos about me, just to get views because they knew it was a trending topic.”
Perhaps, one of the saddest things about Mendoza’s fall from social media grace is that the reason she stopped being vegan was because she had a “small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth” but was reluctant to listen to her doctor’s advice in fear of disappointing her loyal followers.
“It took me months to actually follow my doctor’s advice and eat an egg,” she said. “Honestly, I was just really scared.”
Mendoza told The Cut, “I realised I based so much of my identity on being vegan and how it made me feel different and special. Not having that label anymore was like, ‘Wait, I’m a normal person?’ But after a little bit of time, I started seeing the bigger picture, and that was freeing.”
She said that looking back, “my biggest mistake was putting a label on myself…And now I try to stay away from anything that automatically separates me from other people.”
While there’s no doubt that Mendoza kept her followers in the dark when it came to her secret fish-eating habits, this whole saga shines a light on the cruelty and hatred that social media breeds.
If anything, it’s a lesson learned for Mendoza: not to peddle advice or flog a lifestyle that you can’t vouch for yourself. It’s also a learning curve for followers – don’t believe everything you see in your newsfeed.