Regulators to crack whip on influencer marketing
Regulators start to crack down on the snake oil salesmen and influencers making a killing through lies that go viral on social media
Caroline Calloway’s life in Cambridge was something akin to a mid-2000s romcom. An American student studying art history at a magical college where she falls in love with a nice Swedish boy called Oscar sounds like a movie many girls would pay to see.It was a tale that was instead watched on Instagram, where Calloway would post whimsical photos and write convoluted descriptions detailing her life in a way that seemed clumsy yet charming. Her signature "authenticity" would amass her a clothing line, a $500,000 book deal and 800,000 fans, some of whom would be willing to pay to fly to England just to have dinner with her and her boyfriend.Her deft handling of social media allowed her to create an empire — and a throng of satirical meme accounts where she was replaced by a Barbie — but it would also be her downfall.An Adderall-fuelled meltdown, breakups, a lost book deal and a handful of already broken promises in her pocket, Calloway tried to stage a comeback this past December. She ...
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