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sun-summoning · 6 years

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part viii: in which it all comes to an end (mostly)

When Sasuke got home, Itachi was at the table grading papers while Naruto sat across from him eating a cup of instant noodles. He was about to tell them about what happened, when it occurred to him that Naruto was just there. In his home. For no reason. It wasn’t like Sasuke was around, so why was Naruto there? When Sasuke asked him, Naruto just shrugged.

“I was waiting for you,” he explained.

“So you came inside my apartment?”

“I always come inside your apartment.”

“Does it not occur to you that that’s inappropriate?”

“Does it not occur to you that stalking a girl online is inappropriate?”

Sasuke opened his mouth but found no appropriate retort. He noticed the way Itachi smirked and looked away. Scowling, Sasuke sat down at the table with them. Naruto looked a little too triumphant for Sasuke’s liking. He was tempted to keep everything to himself to spite the idiot, but he couldn’t help but blurt out what he was thinking:

“I met Tinder Girl.” He shook his head. “Sakura. Her name is Sakura. I met Sakura. And sober. I was sober.”

“What?”

“Earlier. I was studying and then someone wanted to sit at my table and when I looked up, it was Tinder Girl. Sakura. It was Sakura.”

“What?!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No way!”

Itachi watched their fairly inane exchange with mild interest. They went back and forth a few more times before Itachi cleared his throat. “Would you care to elaborate on this meeting, Sasuke?”

Sasuke frowned. “Are you going to sabotage me?”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Sasuke.”

“Definitely a yes.”

Itachi sighed and said nothing more.

“Tell us what happened!” Naruto yelled. “Did you tell her you love her? Did you tell her you’re a creepy stalker whose been looking her up online? Did you tell her that you want to have her babies?”

“No, stupid.”

“Well?”

“I--” Then Sasuke stopped because he essentially had nothing to say. And not for a lack of trying, but rather for a lack of content. Because he ran away once Sakura tried talking to him. “Nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean--” Sasuke cringed. “I mean mostly nothing.”

“That still clarifies absolutely nothing.”

“No, like, literally nothing.” He paused. “Well, not literally, but--”

“Sasuke!”

Sasuke sank into his seat, eyes wide with disbelief. His brow furrowed as he concentrated on a spot on the table. “She tried talking to me and then I, um...” Sasuke closed his eyes, groaning lowly before bringing his hands to his face. “I ran away.”

“Like...literally?”

“Walked quickly. I mean I have some dignity.”

“Are you...are you serious?” When Sasuke said nothing, Naruto pulled at his hair. “Why are you the way that you are?” he asked softly. “I hate so much about the things that you choose to be.”

“Screw you.”

“Screw you!” Naruto stood up and grabbed Sasuke as well, using a lot more force than Sasuke was really used to. He pulled Sasuke to the front door and shoved him outside. “Go back there!”

“Excuse me?”

“Go back to her,” Naruto said again. “Go not be weird. Go have a real conversation with her. Go, I don’t know, ask her about her day. Or thank her for taking care of your drunk ass. Or ask her what other sorts of plants she might like in addition to succulents!” All of that said, Naruto slammed the door shut.

Sasuke grimaced when he heard the click of the lock.

“Naruto, I don’t have my phone!” Sasuke yelled. “Or my keys or wallet or--” he glanced down. “Naruto, you stupid shit, I don’t even have my shoes!”

So Sasuke ended up back at KU Cafe.

It was a little past nine, but Tinder Girl was still at the same table and the seat he’d been in was still empty. He neared the table with no game plan whatsoever, deciding he’d just wing it, and when she looked up and smiled at him, he realized he was an idiot and that winging it would be a terrible, terrible idea.

“You’re back,” she said. She put down her pen, a sign that she was giving him her full attention, which made Sasuke want to die a little bit because damn was she about to be disappointed.

“Yeah.” Sasuke nodded. “I, um, forgot my...”

He trailed off and she stared at him expectantly. How was this hard for him? He literally needed a noun. Any noun. My pen. My textbook. My phone. Something. Just say something.

“Shoes.”

What.

Her eyebrows scrunched up as she frowned at him, clearly taken aback by how utterly stupid he was. His shoes. He said his shoes. What the fuck?

“Uh.” Sasuke swallowed thickly. “I mean--”

“There you are, little brother.”

Sasuke turned around and was surprised to see his brother approaching him. Itachi held up his own cellphone. “I found your phone,” Itachi lied smoothly. So smoothly it made Sasuke furious because was his brother such a great liar while he was just a general failure? How was that even fair? Then he turned to Sakura and smiled politely. “Ah, Sakura. Hello.”

“Hey! I haven’t seen you in ages.” Sakura stood up and walked around the table to give Itachi a friendly hug. Because they were friends. Or acquaintances. Yes, the latter. Co-workers, really.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Grading exams?”

“Such is the life of an underpaid and overworked PhD student.”

“Tell me about it.”

They made conversation and Sasuke couldn’t help but pout. Why was Itachi talking to her so much? Was he interested in her? Sasuke tried not to freak out as he mistook Itachi’s basic human decency for a romantic interest.

Finally, Itachi gestured to him and Sakura looked his way. “Have you met my brother before, Sakura?”

“Your brother?” Sakura looked surprised, which was kind of silly of her considering how similar he and Itachi looked. It was fine though. He still thought she was perfect.

“Yes. This is Sasuke.”

Sasuke did some awkward little wave and Sakura looked back at Itachi. “Actually, yes. We met last night at a mutual friend’s party.”

“Is that so...”

“Sakura took care of me,” Sasuke contributed.

Sakura laughed a little and sounded entirely uncomfortable. She cringed and tried to wave the matter off. “Ah, just helping the kind stranger who was drunk on the balcony.”

“Actually I was stealing a plant,” he pointed out. “I don’t think that makes me a kind stranger.”

Sakura fell silent and Itachi stared at him with such disbelief that actually Sasuke realized words were coming out of his mouth -- stupid words, at that -- and so he was botching all of this up.

As Sasuke bowed his head in shame, Itachi made some kind of an excuse and pulled him along so they could leave. He waved goodbye and when they were outside again, Sasuke groaned and held his head in his hands.

“I’m such an idiot,” Sasuke groused. “That was terrible.”

“It wasn’t terrible.”

“It was terrible.”

“It was...” Itachi paused. “It could have gone better.”

“And it would have gone better if I wasn’t such an idiot.”

“You’re not.” Itachi put a hand on his shoulder. “You just...need practice.”

“What, like you?” Sasuke pulled his hands away and glared at his brother. “I mean why were you flirting with her?”

Itachi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was making conversation, Sasuke. Perhaps you should learn how to do that.”

“How dare you.”

Later that night, after re-watching “The Injury” for the billionth time, Sasuke finally moved on from laying on his belly and wasting time on his laptop to laying on his side and wasting time on his phone. After losing all his lives on Candy Crush and then on Soda Crush, he opened Tinder again and began swiping. A few people popped up, their photos framed in turquoise as the app told him that he’d been super-liked. Not understanding the concept and not interested in them anyway, Sasuke swiped them all away. Sasuke swiped and he swiped, trying his hardest to find Sakura’s profile one more time, but he got nothing.

And why was he doing this anyway?

“I already found her,” he pointed out to himself. He grunted. Apparently now he just needed to find his balls.

So he downloaded Instagram again. He couldn’t remember his username because he never actually used the app, but once he was logged back in, he searched her up one more time and thanked his lucky stars that her account wasn’t private.

There were some new photos from when he last browsed her account. He switched the setting so he could see the full photo instead of just a thumbnail.

First was a picture of her laptop, some books, and a fairly artistic latte, its caption talking about her fairly boring Saturday night. Sasuke snorted and wondered if she had taken that photo while sitting across from him. Or maybe she took it after he’d run away like a little bitch.

Next was a picture of her as she marvelled over a fishbowl drink, her lips pulled into a ridiculous looking smile. “Drinks and a little bit of dinner with @1010 and only Tenten because SOMEONE is a gluttonous bitch and didn’t come with us,” he read. Below it was a fairly succinct “f u hoes” from Ino.

After that was a picture of the sunrise that looked like it was taken from Ino’s balcony and then after that was a selfie with Ino from last night as they both made ridiculous kissy faces and then after that was a picture of--

“What the fuck?!”

Sasuke sat up because somehow that would help him process what he was seeing. His fingers trembled as he stared at Sakura’s Instagram post: a selfie she took with him.

“What the fuck.”

Sasuke dropped back down in disbelief. He grunted when he somehow hit his head, but he was too caught up in his confusion to think about the pain. She took a selfie with him. A selfie. With him. How did he not remember this? But that was an easy question to answer considering he was more or less half dead on her shoulder at the time of the photo.

my new bae and the succulent is our adopted child

Sasuke flailed a little bit, unsure of how to release the feelings bursting inside of him. He slapped his bed a couple of times and then sat up one more time, all the while screaming “fuck” over and over again.

He ignored Ino’s comment and Neji’s comment, too busy staring at his cheek pressed against her shoulder. He shook his head, annoyed that he looked so ridiculous in the selfie with his eyes barely open as he held his succulent up--

No, he told himself.

Their succulent.

“Fuck!”

Why would she post something like that? Was she interested in him too? Wasn’t she worried he’d think she was weird? Granted, was being considered weird by him of all people even regarded as an insult considering who he was as a person?

Sasuke kind of wanted to laugh. His heart was pounding and his face felt hot. He pressed the buttons he needed to take a screenshot and when he had it, he looked at it one last time and then turned off his screen.

Sasuke put his phone on his night stand and turned onto his side. He grinned a little bit and before falling asleep, he wished his adopt succulent goodnight.

A few days later, Sasuke considered dumping Naruto forever when he broke an unspoken, sacred vow of sorts and brought Ino with him to Sasuke’s apartment, effectively allowing her to invade Sasuke’s safe space. Sipping the coffee Ino brewed for them and eating the breakfast Naruto cooked for them, Sasuke contemplated whether or not he should bitch them out for entering his apartment once again without his permission.

But, he reminded himself, he needed their help.

“So,” Ino began, “I mentioned you to Sakura the other day--”

Sasuke’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets because while they didn’t use explicit words, he was more or less certain that subtlety was supposed to be an integral part of their plans.

And somehow outright bringing him up didn’t seem to qualify as subtle in his books.

“--but she seemed to already know who you were. Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been introduced before?”

Across the table, Naruto snorted.

“It totally screwed me up,” Ino continued. “I basically had to drop the topic of you because my plan was ruined.”

“What was your plan?”

“To bring up that drunk moron at my party, tell her you’re not always drunk but maybe are always a moron, and then ask what she thought of you. Obviously she wouldn’t have thought anything, but no. No. You had to make an impression at this other interaction you never mentioned by being awkward!”

Sasuke winced. “She called me awkward?”

Of course, he fully deserved it.

“No,” Ino replied with a grimace. “She called you ‘kind of adorable’, which I know is Sakura-speak for awkward.”

This was terrible. He fucked up. This was just fucking terrible--

“Oh, stop being a drama queen,” Ino said. “Relax, Sasuke. Sakura’s standards aren’t that high. Not an idiot, not an entitled prick, and can sing the ‘turn around’ bits when she’s belting out ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ at karaoke.” She shrugged. “Even you can’t be shitty enough to not meet that criteria.”

“Actually,” Naruto considered, “Sasuke can be a bit of a mic hog at karaoke.”

Sasuke kicked him under the table. “When the hell have we even done karaoke together?!”

Naruto waved a hand. “You’re generally wasted when we get there, but man does drunk Sasuke refuse to let anyone join in.”

“Drunk Sasuke sounds like a selfish bitch,” Ino drawled.

“He is,” Naruto confirmed with a nod. “When we sing Drunk in Love, he says he has to sing all the parts when he knows how much I want to do the rap--”

“Okay, none of this is true,” Sasuke interrupted. “Stop lying and stop trying to change the subject.”

“But I’m not lying!”

“Obviously you are since we’ve never done karaoke together!”

“Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it wasn’t real!”

“Would you--”

“So like, should I just leave?” Ino shouted over them. “Because apparently you two are couple enough to be having a very heated lovers’ spat in front of me and therefore you, Sasuke, aren’t actually available to have something happen with my best friend?”

“First of all--”

“Actually, shit, I will just leave.” Ino stood up from the table, her eyes trained on the time on her phone, muttering about how she was going to be late to something.

Because he was actually polite and this was technically his home, Sasuke walked her to the door. Feeling awkward about just lingering in the dining room, Naruto eventually followed them as well.

As she slipped on her shoes, Ino said that she’d invite some people over for another little get together in a week or two, giving him another opportunity to speak to Sakura.

“And maybe don’t drink so much next time, idiot.”

“Can I live--” Sasuke stopped. He sighed deeply and then faced Ino with what was supposed to be a kind smile but he knew definitely wasn’t. “Thank you, Ino. Really.”

Ino assessed him with cool eyes before nodding once. “Whatever.” She picked off a piece of imaginary lint from her sweater and then shrugged. “Don’t go making things weird, Sasuke,” she muttered as she walked away. “What a loser...”

Sasuke’s eye twitched, but he bit his tongue to keep in any scathing remarks. He turned back to Naruto, ready to spew all the pent up vitriol on him, but sighed instead. How could he possibly do that when Naruto had been helping him, advising him, and setting things up for him along the way. Hell, Sasuke even tried to pimp him out to Ino for assistance.

“You too, Naruto,” Sasuke muttered.

“Huh?”

“Thank you. Honestly.”

Sasuke grunted when Naruto practically winded him with the body check he considered to be a hug. He should have known better than to show affection because Naruto ate that shit up and insisted on reciprocating when Sasuke would have been happier with a simple nod. How the hell did Ino read him better than Naruto?

“Naruto, I can’t fucking breathe--”

“I’m just so happy,” Naruto cried into Sasuke’s shoulder. “I’m so happy that you’re happy.”

Sasuke didn’t have the heart to point out that technically, at this moment, he was satisfied at best and that nothing had happened with Tinder Girl yet to prompt all these mushy feelings Naruto was raving about.

But then again, she posted that picture on Instagram.

Taking out his phone, Sasuke opened the screenshot he’d saved and showed it to Naruto.

“What do you think of this?” he asked.

“Hm?” Naruto’s eyes widened at the sight of Sasuke’s face smushed against Sakura’s shoulder. He began making ugly noises of excitement before eventually calming down and actually considering the photo.

“She called you her bae in the caption.”

“Right?!”

“That means she loves you!”

“But she doesn’t even know me...”

“She likes you enough to eventually love you! I don’t know. Words. Something. Shit man!”

Sasuke grinned a little, looking back down at the image. She didn’t know him and apparently she thought he was awkward, but something told him that if she was willing to post this selfie of the two of them and their succulent, there was potential for something.

“You know, Sasuke, you’re very...” Naruto paused to find the right word. “Pure.”

“Is that another awkward virgin joke?”

“What? No!”

Sasuke scowled. Then he shrugged. “I mean…fair enough. I can be awkward. And yeah, I’ve never had sex before.” Sasuke preferred privacy, but he wasn’t ashamed of the fact. “I just, like, don’t care, you know? Why is everyone so obsessed with it? And fuck me for wanting to reserve intimacy for someone who actually means something to me, right?"

“That’s—“ Naruto cocked his head as if he was looking at Sasuke in a brand new light. “That’s deep, man.”

He shrugged again. “I’m not trying to be deep.”

Naruto just grinned. “You really like her.”

“What gave that away? The part where I nearly gave Hinata Hyuuga a fuckng heart attack by standing in her general vicinity or the part where I sold your soul to the devil, also know as Ino Yamanaka?”

“The part where you realized that you don’t need me or Itachi or Ino to set things up for you.”

“I don’t know that part.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Honestly, can I live ever?”

“Sasuke.”

“Naruto.”

“Go to her.”

Sasuke frowned. “It’s like not even noon. And I’m pretty sure she’s working right now--”

“Pretty sure,” Naruto mocked with a laugh. “As if you don’t know her exact schedule by now.”

“I do not--” The look Naruto gave him made Sasuke cross his arms disdainfully. “She has office hours right now.”

“Perfect!”

“How is that perfect?”

“Because it is!”

Apparently having learned from last time, Naruto shoved Sasuke out into the hall and tossed him his wallet and keys and phone, all the while grinning when Sasuke scrambled to catch them.

“Go get the girl, Sasuke,” Naruto encouraged with a fist pump. “Go put an end to this overly drawn out story so we can all move on.” Grinning, he waved once and then shut the door.

Sasuke blinked. He contemplated what Naruto said, mechanically slipping his wallet into his back pocket and his keys into his right side and phone into the left.

“Okay, honestly, you need to stop kicking me out of my own home.”

Sasuke heard the click of the lock and began pounding on the door.

“Naruto! I don’t have my fucking shoes again!”

Sasuke didn’t have to search all that hard for her. Her office hours would just be wrapping up as per Karin’s contribution to his cause. When he saw the student she’d been chatting with finally walking away, Sasuke planted himself into the now empty seat and only grimaced a little upon realizing it was warm.

“Sasuke!” Sakura smiled because she was completely unaware of the kind of weirdo that’d been searching for her since he accidentally swiped left on her. “Back to study?”

He caught the way her eyes sought out his backpack or any other proof of him trying to be studious, so he shakes his head. “No,” he replied. He swallowed thickly. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?”

Sasuke could only imagine how strange she must’ve thought he was. They’d probably spoken for a cumulative amount of five fucking minutes. The time at Ino’s when he fell asleep on his shoulder, the other night when he was awkward as hell, and then the last encounter shortly after that when he was even more awkward. Him wanting to talk to her about something must have come off as so weird to her. Fuck. Fuck--

“I’m in love with you.”

To her credit, her eyes didn’t widen, nor did she gawk at him. She just blinked, once, twice, and twisted her lips like she was trying to find a way to reply to him that would spare them both the urge to just drop dead from sheer embarrassmnent.

“Sasuke--”

“That came out badly. Hold on. I’m not actually in love with you. Like, I like you, but shit, I’m not in love with you.” Sasuke held a hand out to her and gathered his thoughts. Sort of. “Look. I’m not good at this kind of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Well, communicating, for one.”

She actually laughed.

“So I’m just going to go with full disclosure and hope I don’t ruin literally everything.”

So Sasuke took a deep breath and told his story.

Once upon a time, his dumbass of a best friend downloaded Tinder on his phone and set a profile up for him. One night, in a fit of boredom, Sasuke deigned to actually use the app, swiping and swiping and swiping, until, finally, he actually found someone that caught his eye. He didn’t know what it was about her, and no, contrary to what Naruto insisted, it had nothing to do with tits. He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know. He just knew that after reading her profile and seeing her interest and noting all their mutual friends, he decided that he liked her enough to want to swipe right but because all he’d been doing was swiping left, he, naturally, swiped fucking left.

And then she was gone.

“Gone,” Sasuke repeated for effect, before immediately feeling like an asshole.

Sakura’s expression didn’t really change, so Sasuke cleared his throat to cut the silence.

“And then, well, I looked for you. I spoke to mutual friends, found your different social media accounts, found...well, you.”

She only frowned when he finished his confession, leaning back and assessing him. “Found...me?” she repeated, wary and disbelieving. “I’m sorry, so let me just get this clear. You found me on Tinder some time before I deleted my account and decided you love me--”

“Like you.”

“--based on four pictures and creeped your way to me?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“My written bit literally said ‘You should want a bad bitch like this.’” Sakura shook her head. “I know this is some romcom material and if I was watching it on the big screen maybe I’d call it cute, but in real life it’s actually a little bit creepy.”

Sasuke managed not to look too wounded. “I—” But no words came to mind to explain his actions. “Er—”

“Not to mention totally shallow. You liked my photos?” She raised an eyebrow, her contorted features conveying just what she thought of him. “I mean, thanks for thinking I’m pretty, but this isn’t going to work if that’s all you like about...me...”

Then she paused and took a moment to really truly take a look at him. Sasuke shifted, mildly uncomfortable with her roving eyes as her gaze moved from his face all the way down to his feet and up again. She seemed to consider his shoulders and then his arms and then, if only to make him scream internally, she licked her lips.

“Then again, you’re like ridiculously good-looking.”

“Uh.” Sasuke swallowed. “Thank you?”

Her distaste seemed to visibly seep away, her frown fading and her body losing its tension as she twirled a lock of hair around one finger and pursed her lips in thought.

“Damn,” he heard her whisper under her breath. Her eyes were trained on his arms and he rubbed one bicep self-consciously. “It’s like you’re photoshopped or something.”

And just like that, his Tinder Girl grinned.

“I guess it’d be okay if we went on one date.”

tbc - epilogue

#fic #tinder au

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

In the not-so-distant past, makeup and skin care companies used to get new customers by hiring celebrities to be official ambassadors for their brands, buying TV ads, and working with beauty editors at magazines to secure editorial placement for their products. Brands would send free products, wine and dine editors, and give them access to those celebrity ambassadors for interviews. (Being an advertiser in the magazine also increased a brand’s chances to be featured or recommended.)

This still happens, both at magazines and on editorial websites, but beauty editors are no longer the predominant “influencers” in beauty.

As social media grew, people started to trust the so-called “regular” people they were seeing on Instagram and YouTube, instead of the homogeneous models in magazines. There was an authenticity and relatability there, and soon it became evident that influencers could, well, influence people to buy stuff. It gave rise to personalities like Michelle Phan, Jeffree Star, and Huda Kattan, who all ended up with massive followings and makeup brands of their own.

The authenticity of beauty influencers has been coming under question for the past year or so, with a steady stream of scandals and an increasingly unwieldy number of influencer wannabes trying to make a career of it.

And this week, we’re seeing another big challenge to the reign of the influencers: an unveiling of the staggering sums that they are paid for their endorsements, including claims that brands are paying influencers to say negative things about competitors’ products. And it’s all wrapped in a cloak of distrust about whether influencers are actually disclosing any of this.

“If I made 60 thousand dollars in one day, multiple times a year, I don’t even know what the fuck I’d do with all that money …” wrote one user on Reddit’s r/BeautyGuruChatter. Another tweeted: “I never thought the beauty ‘community’ would come to such a cut throat time. Dang Y’all. Makeup is supposed to be fun! Personally it’s a way for me to clear my head & not focus on bad in the world when I’m playing w/ makeup. These influencers have made it stressful!”

If the influencer bubble hasn’t yet popped, the air is surely leaking out of it slowly.

The “gurus” who post about makeup and skin care to large followings on YouTube and Instagram have had a rough few months. Hot on the heels of the racism scandal that has rocked that world and cost some high-level influencers a lot of income comes a new controversy about payment, deception, and transparency. It’s a global issue in the influencer economy, but beauty is getting the focus now.

Some in the industry have alleged that unnamed influencers are asking beauty brands for $20,000 to even $85,000 for a single video or Instagram post to tout their products. (Kattan revealed this year that a brand once offered her $185,000 for one post.) Even more explosive, though, were suggestions that brands were willing to pay influencers these sums to post negative reviews about competitor brands. Vox spoke to industry professionals who confirmed some of the practices and numbers. It provides a window into how marketing works more broadly in the beauty industry now and how truly opaque it all is. It can also have serious legal consequences.

The current controversy started with a video posted on Monday by Marlena Stell, a makeup artist who started filming YouTube makeup tutorials in the first wave of beauty vloggers about a decade ago. She has since launched her own brand called Makeup Geek, so she has the perspective of both a brand owner and an influencer. In her video, she alleges that her brand has not been supported recently by influencers because she couldn’t afford to pay them the fees they were asking. The video has almost 600,000 views.

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“Where does it become a racketeering business and it’s all about the money and not about the passion for the business? I could not afford to pay $60,000 for a video or $20,000 for one post on Instagram,” she says in the video. “I was really struggling personally as a brand owner. I’m an influencer, and I know what it’s like. I get it.” (Stell did not respond to requests for comment as of publication time.)

Those five-figure amounts were shocking to beauty fans, who left almost 17,000 comments on the video. Huge influencers like Samantha Ravndahl weighed in too. Ravndahl tweeted, “I’m the first person to agree that there are many influencers who are absolute garbage humans who only care about money. But there is a whole community beyond that, flourishing with integrity and passion. Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.” In other words, #NotAllInfluencers.

Then a skin care blogger who goes by the handle @HeyAprill posted a screenshot on Twitter showing an Instagram caption written by Kevin James Bennett, a makeup artist and brand consultant who has been working in the industry for 30 years. Bennett posted on Instagram and praised Stell for bringing transparency to the issue. He then went one step further and added some numbers of his own.

Bennett wrote that “a brand I consulted with asked me to inquire about working with a top-level beauty influencer,” and alleged that the influencer’s management team asked for $25,000 for a “product mention in a multi-branded product review,” $50,000 to $60,000 for a “dedicated product review,” and $75,000 to $85,000 for a “dedicated negative review of a competitor’s product.” The last one was arguably the most shocking since paid/sponsored positive posts are a known entity in the industry but posts to bash competitors are not.

“I wanted to back up Marlena a little bit. I was like, ‘Wow, this could totally destroy your business,’” Bennett said on a call with Vox. He declined to disclose the unnamed influencer, citing privacy and client relationship concerns. Bennett stands by those numbers, which he said came via a call with the influencer’s management. “Examples like that do not get sent in any printable or retainable copy. You’re told verbally. They don’t want any record.”

Bennett clarified several times that he “respected the hustle” of these influencers and that his biggest concern was that they did not often disclose they were being paid for posting. (More on this in a bit.) “I don’t hate influencers. I dislike people who give the industry that I’ve devoted three and a half decades to a bad name,” he said. “They make us look like a bunch of thugs. This is what pays our bills.”

HeyAprill’s tweet and Bennett’s accompanying Instagram post were then put on blast by James Charles, who tweeted it with commentary to his own 1.5 million Twitter followers. Charles is a 19-year-old beauty guru with 7.6 million Instagram followers and 7.8 million subscribers on YouTube. He was the makeup brand Covergirl’s first ever Coverboy; in fall 2017, he had his own racist tweet scandal, from which he recovered. He’s been influential in the industry as part of a burgeoning and popular group of “beauty boys.” He wrote, “I’ve NEVER heard of this happening and believe what you want, but most of us DO disclose sponsorships …”

So is any of this true? In short, yes.

Influencers get paid in several ways. There is YouTube ad revenue, which is dependent on subscriber and view count. In recent years, YouTube has decreased the amount of income an influencer can make this way, in a process that has been dubbed the “adpocalypse.” So influencers are counting more and more on other sources of income, generally from brands.

Brands will pay for anything from a single mention in a video to an actual collection collaboration with an influencer. Historically, when trusted influencers mentioned products, their viewers purchased them. (A Nivea men’s aftershave went viral 15 years after it launched when a popular guru said in a video that it made a good makeup primer.) Brands want to harness that buying power.

MAC, a popular and beloved makeup brand, is a great example of this shift. It has done collaborative makeup collections throughout the years with celebrities like Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Brooke Shields, and even Catherine Deneuve. But this year, influencer Patrick Starr landed a year-long deal with MAC to release multiple collections with the brand.

The rates that made the rounds on social media this week are real, according to influencers. Chloe Morello, who has 2.5 million YouTube subscribers, said in a tweet: “Based on what I make, this would be for around the 3 million subs mark … for a dedicated video. larger than that would be heading towards the 100k area.”

An Australian YouTuber named Alex, who goes by the handle Pretty Pastel Please, also weighed in. Like Stell, she straddles the worlds of the paid and the paying, as she has a full-time job in marketing and works with brands that pay influencers. She has since posted two videos on the subject. In the first, she said of Bennett’s post, “That’s all true.”

No one is quite sure how much influencer marketing is “worth.” Back in 2017, an agency representative told Digiday that she calculates $1,000 for every 100,000 followers as a baseline. In Alex’s second video, she went into detail about how CPM, a common marketing term that means cost per thousand impressions, is used to calculate influencer fees. With that metric, she illustrated how an influencer could justify asking for $30,000 or even $60,000 for one video.

Not everyone can command those rates, though. Gil Eyal, the founder of HYPR, an agency that acts as a middleman to match influencers and brands, says it depends on the platform. “On Instagram, they would need at least a million, and probably more, highly engaged followers. On YouTube, for a dedicated video that could be a 200,000 [follower] influencer,” he said in an email, referring to the broader influencer population. “Generally speaking, [over $50,000] is reserved for the bigger players. Smaller influencers make way less — $100 to $1,000.”

There are online marketplaces like Octoly and Tribe that exist to match influencers with brand campaigns. While most are aboveboard, Alex said in her video that she has seen brands post campaigns that “specifically said ‘we are willing to pay more if you are willing to say that our product is better than the other one,’ or that you recommend our product over the other one.” (She also notes that some platforms remove these requests because they’re not appropriate.)

The allegation that influencers are possibly posting negative reviews at the behest of brands is surprising. It’s important to note that so far, no one has been willing or able to name either a brand or influencer who has actually produced this kind of paid content. But Eyal says it’s happening across other industries like video games and fashion too.

“The intense competition between influencers often leads them to do inappropriate things in order to stand out. Remember that while they have hundreds of thousands of followers or sometimes millions, most of these influencers are interchangeable, and many of them can barely pay their rent,” he says.

“Think about the advantages. No need to disclose, because no one will assume this is paid. Negative content is a breath of fresh air, and none of the audience will ask if it’s legit or if the influencer has sold out. The brand gains the benefit without having to worry about being ‘on brand,’ showing their logo, or whether or not the audience will think the post is authentic. Win-win, right?” He also clarifies, “It’s not always disingenuous. Influencers should and do criticize products they don’t like.”

Both Bennett and Eyal said this type of deal request often comes from an influencer’s management team, so the influencers themselves truly might not know that their teams are offering this “service” on their behalf. Obviously it crosses the line if an influencer consents to creating that content. And Eyal notes that if a brand gets caught paying for this type of negative coverage, the PR fallout could be damaging.

Bennett’s frustration with a lack of influencer disclosure has merit. They haven’t always been great about it. In April 2017, the Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters to influencers and celebrities reminding them to “clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationships to brands” when posting on social media. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides recommend using words like promotion, sponsored, paid ad, or simply #ad. While many influencers do disclose their paid sponsored posts, some likely don’t.

In her first video in response to the Marlena Stell revelations, Alex told viewers of seeing a beauty campaign offer (she declined to say what it was for) with a large budget on an influencer marketplace. The next week, she saw several large beauty influencers promoting the product without disclosing that it was paid. Could they all have been posting coincidentally about the same product? Yes, but it seems unlikely.

It’s still an area the FTC keeps tabs on, according to Michael Ostheimer, an attorney in the division of advertising practices at the FTC. “We do continue to have investigations and cases involving issues related to the endorsement guides,” he said on a call.

While it’s sometimes obvious when a positive review is paid for, it would be difficult to know if a post or video making negative claims about a product had been paid for. Ostheimer said, “I’m not aware of this happening, but I wouldn’t say it doesn’t happen.”

It’s a practice that’s not explicitly addressed in the FTC’s endorsement guide. It might have legal implications, however, if the influencer lied about disliking a product on behalf of another brand. “If the person was saying negative things that either were not true or that they did not believe, that would be deceptive and it would be deceptive advertising against a competitor,” he said. “And the failure to disclose that one is paid by the competitor would be deceptive, in my opinion.”

There’s been a lot of chatter within the beauty industry about whether the influencer bubble is popping. The racist tweet scandal illustrated the damage that influencers can do to themselves and the business model. It’s been a pain point in the industry recently, with companies increasingly hiring micro-influencers with 20,000 to 100,000 followers. They tend to have better engagement and conversion, meaning they sell the stuff they talk about.

Stell said in her video that executives from “multibillion-dollar companies” asked for her advice about influencers, telling her, “We feel like we’re losing traction and we want to support them, but this is the amount we’re getting charged for it and we don’t see a return on it.” These large fees and potentially shady practices could prove to be the pin that pops the bubble.

Original Source -> The shady world of beauty influencers and the brands that pay them, explained

via The Conservative Brief

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