Side Chat 4/21/22
Fyre Fest or just annoying? All about Revolve Fest
Hi,
I hope everyone is enjoying the Coachella content thus far.
*More like everyone. I know I am getting old because watching all the Coachella content made me feel tired. š
This week I wroteā¦
Why do people love these baby clothes with sexual innuendos?
I am at the age where a lot of people I know are having babies, and I have started to browse baby clothes as a result. Over time, I have started to find it ironic that so many onesies I see in stores and online have sexual innuendos, given the current rhetoric of the Republican Party right now (who buys a baby a onesie that reads, āI came from Nuttinā"??!?!!?!)
As I wrote:
āThese days, the situation is much the same at big box stores and smaller online retailers alike. You can signpost that a baby is a āladiesā man,ā that āladies love him,ā and that he is a ālady killer.ā You can put a baby in a shirt that says heās a lover boy, too. OKā¦noted.
Predictably, items designed for girls are even more cringe. While baby boys can unknowingly boast about how well they will be cleaning up with women, baby girls get to convey that they are off-limits, because they are under the control of their fathers. Stay away from me! This baby is not allowed to date, EVER, because I already found the man of my dreams, and itās my DADDY. (Gross.) While baby boys get to be their dadās teammates, girls must be kept under lock and key. Even Saturday Night Live has noticed the phenomenon, mocking dating-themed infant outfits in a recent sketch.ā
Read on for what I found out and for more examples of the clothes I found. š¬
This week on the internetā¦
Was Revolve Festival the new Fyre Fest? Wellā¦
As Coachella took over our feeds last weekend, a ~scandal~ began to emerge. Multiple influencers were complaining that the Revolve Festival, a huge event thrown by the clothing brand adjacent to the music festival, was a disaster on level with the infamous Fyre Festival.
As The Cut reported:
āHow come some influencers are mad? In short: transportation. In order for invitees (whose last name isnāt Kardashian or Jenner) to get into the festival, they needed to use the festās shuttle service, which was allegedly less organized than some influencers had hoped. A series of tweets from Los Angeles magazineās Joseph Kapsch first brought attention to the transportation drama. āInfluencers stranded in the dirt with no water, under the hot sun for HOURS, waiting for buses,ā Kapsch wrote on Saturday, adding that fights had allegedly broken out and the police had been called. āSecurity had crowds of influencers yelling how āimportant they were and why they deserved the first seat,ā Kapsch continued. To those at home who gleefully watched influencers unravel during 2017ās Fyre Fest, the sentiment sounded familiar.
However, the major complaint among these invitees wasnāt that the festival didnāt actually exist ⦠it was that they werenāt able to get in despite being invited. TikToker Averie Bishop posted a video calling the event āabsolute chaos,ā claiming the shuttle service was disorganized and bordered on ādangerous.ā Bishop said she was among a group of people who waited in line for a shuttle for at least two hours but never got in.ā
This went super viral over the weekend, likely because anytime you compare something to a big, juicy news event like Fyre the media starts chomping at the bit. But, as The Cut pointed out, while the event sounds frustrating and annoying, itās not really the same as being stranded on an island with no food or shelter. (Revolve has apologized for the drama).
This has of course led people to mock the influencers who complained about Revolve Fest as ridiculous. But as blogger Elise Purdon pointed out on her stories yesterday, the influencersā anxiety is a little more nuanced.
Revolve Fest has become one of the biggest and most important networking opportunities for influencers, especially smaller ones, every year, and many are dying to get in to advance their careers. Some of their reactions were likely driven by career anxiety of missing the festival and thus a huge opportunity, rather than being sweaty and bored. āThe real problem is that Revolve has such a power over the industry that people are willing to fight and shove and stand all day in the desert to try and get on a bus to get into this thing where they arenāt even getting paid to create free advertising,ā she said. (Many influencers receive store credit in exchange for posting about the invite-only event, according to reports).
So thatās something to keep in mind. But until I see a sad sandwich, Iām not ready to call this Fyre 2.0 just yet.
Some Instagram moms are paying their kids for their posts
Those who have been reading my work for a while know I have written a good amount about the lack of protections for children featured on creator accounts.
This week, Phoebe Bain at Morning Brew chatted with some parenting creators who are charging brands higher rates when her kids are featured.
As she wrote:
āThereās one creator-economy group that has, perhaps, been left out of the compensation conversation: kids.
Theyāre posing for sponsored Instagram pics, too. The Motherhood, an influencer marketing agency that partly specializes in parenting influencers, recently shared with us that it surveyed 359 influencers in its network, and 97% said they include their children in sponsored content.
But how often are those kids paid for their work? According to The Motherhoodās survey, 53% of parent-fluencers donāt charge an added fee when including their children in content, whereas 47% do.ā
I wonder if that number will increase in the next few years?
One more thingā¦
This article from Caity Weaver of the New York Times about trying to be a #vanlife person for a week had me loling multiple times. Highly recommend.
Have a great week,
Stephanie
Create your profile
Only paid subscribers can comment on this post
Check your email
For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.
Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.