Did you guys know you could buy Instagram followers? WHAT THE FUCK HAVE WE BEEN DOING ALL THESE YEARS TAKING PICTURES OF THE HORIZON AND FRETTING ABOUT HOW MUCH LUXE TO EDIT THE PHOTOS WITH WHEN NOBODY WAS EVEN GOING TO SEE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE? According to Racked, the scandal seems to surround women's fashion bloggers because womenswear is the only facet of this fuckery that even has big boy money to pay bloggers and shit. If you're in #menswear, you can have, like, 7.5 million followers on every platform and still only get the occasional free pair of struggle socks. Evidently, there have been forum threads, blog posts and articles all about Aimee Song and other bloggers buying Instagram followers. SO NOT COOL, GUYS. The Racked article quotes Dale Janee, the blogger behind Savvy Spice, as saying that buying followers is "…like plagiarizing, but in a different form." Which, I mean, not even close, but I understand the sentiment.
Buying followers is problematic for brands that are trying to work with bloggers because they can't tell which bloggers are actual nxt lvl #influencers and which ones are just irrelevant strug lords faking the funk. It's tough enough to sell products to potential customers via subtle advertorials and blogger endorsements on there own, let alone when the bloggers themselves are pulling a fast one. This is probably why lots of companies are starting to look at the whole picture instead of just relying on follower counts. It's all about engagement, motherfuckers.
I still can't believe how cutthroat the women's style blog world is. I mean, if you're a girl trying to break into fashion, seriously just start a fucking menswear blog. There's way less of us. And, like, none of us are even halfway good-looking. If I have less than a thousand followers on Instagram and I get to go to Fashion Week, you can too, boo.
