Tiffany Mitchell, a Nashville-based Instagram influencer has been criticized for allegedly faking the story of her motorcycle accident and using it as an opportunity to promote a water brand.
On July 31 Tiffany shared the story of her road accident with her 216k Instagram followers. She told how she misjudged a curve and went off the road and posted a series of pictures of the accident. Luckily, the girl was not injured and initially, the whole story inspired a lot of sympathetic comments from her followers.
However, soon after that, some readers started to question the genuineness of the accident. They found the artsy looking photos of the accident captured on camera and posted on Instagram somewhat suspicious. Some of the commenters noticed that Tiffany took off her helmet, while the law requires that it should stay on in the majority of circumstances. Also, a bottle of Smartwater positioned on one of the pictures looked particularly controversial and prompted the suggestion that the accident was deliberately staged for brand placement purposes.
Mitchell denied the allegations, stating that “would never turn a very important personal story like this into a brand campaign”. The influencer accused Buzzfeed of sensationalizing the whole story and making a mockery of the post she shared.
“Accusing someone of faking or exploiting an accident is extremely serious—because what if you’re wrong? It really happened to me, and I was scared. I really was injured and had to recover,” she wrote.
Smartwater representatives also denied that they had a sponsorship deal with Mitchell. However, the harm had been already done. Has Mitchell made up the story to increase her social media influence, or has she become a victim of undeserved accusations? While we may not know the whole truth, the story itself reveals the crisis of the social media influencer industry.
People have become increasingly disillusioned with the influencers whose stories tend to be less authentic and more photoshopped, filtered and staged to perpetuate the idea of a picture-perfect life. People are so tired of influencers lying about their life, that their first reaction is usually skepticism.
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