The UK has been plunged into a third lockdown, but for some influencers and reality stars it seems like the rules simply haven't applied. While most of us have been stuck at home, bored to tears, unable to see our families, we have watched rich - or heavily sponsored - stars live their best lives in Dubai for the past month, as if the deadly pandemic just isn't happening.
Understandably, followers have started to snap, with many voicing their anger online - or simply hitting unfollow. In the wake of the backlash, many offending reality stars have tried to convince us their holidays are 'work trips' - whether that's been photos of laptops at bars or hotel rooms, or promises on their stories that being an influencer isn't as easy as it looks - meaning they were allowed to jet off to the UAE.
For the most part, the reality stars who have stayed in the UK have kept their mouth shut about their colleagues and co-stars - apart from Love Island's Olivia Attwood, who said what everybody was thinking on her Instagram stories earlier this week. In a few frames on her stories, she spoke about why people find it so offensive when reality stars and influencers stress that they're busy at work on holiday. 'Some things I've seen legit over the past 24 hours are people on their stories saying how "hard" it is,' she told her followers. 'People are losing their family members daily. They can't pay rent and their businesses they've worked their fucking bollocks off for are crumbling around them and you're on the beach telling us "you don't know how hard it is".' Olivia continued, saying it doesn't mean she won't go on holiday in the future - but, if she does, she won't claim it's for work reasons.
She was quickly praised, even by those who don't follow her. Speaking to Grazia, Olivia says her phone went wild after she spoke out - with fellow influencers and TV stars sliding into her DMs to say they were grateful she was taking a public stance. 'I had so many messages from other people in my industry, other Love Islanders, saying, "Oh my god, literally, you've taken the words out my mouth. I so was going to say this yesterday but I felt like I didn't want to ruffle feathers",' she says.
Earlier this week, fellow ex-Islander Laura Anderson, who has been on holiday in Dubai, prompted widespread anger (and mockery) when she said she wanted to give her followers insight into the 'hard' reality of being an influencer. Olivia, though she does not name anybody directly, thinks there is a point - but now isn't the time to have this conversation when so many are struggling.
'Influencers and Love Islanders get such a bad reputation, it really grinds my gears,' she says. 'I think we're not all completely disillusioned, some of us are living in the real world. But we all get tarred with the same brush, which is frustrating. There is an interesting conversation to educate younger generations that being an influencer, or being on TV, is not all it's cracked up to be. But it's just so unbelievably tone-deaf to think that now would be an appropriate time to raise that topic, when your hard day is creating content that might get nasty comments and someone else's hard day is a 12 hour shift, zipping up body bags at the end of it.'
She also thinks it's ridiculous that some on holiday are publicly saying, on their Instagram stories, that they're worried about posting their getaway content. ‘[There’s been polls on Instagram like] “I'm really stressed, do I post, do I not,"' she continues. 'Like that’s not stress. People literally can't feed their children, we are in a national situation where there are children literally starving, being given these sad little bags of food from the government.' Olivia credits her family, and her fiancé footballer Bradley Dack, for keeping her feet on the ground. 'I don’t think any of them are doing anything with malicious intent,' she adds, speaking about the offending celebs. 'I think it's just a bit tasteless, maybe they need to educate themselves and they need someone near them to kind of give them a little nudge.'
Importantly, she also points out that you don't need to be abroad to continue securing brand deals. 'I've been working the whole time, I'm working more than all of them,' she laughs. 'And I'm in Manchester, it's raining every day - it's not affected me one bit.'
If you're annoyed at those on holiday, Olivia stresses that the best course of action is to hit unfollow. Not only does she say there's no excuse for trolling, but she says the way to really damage influencers - whose actions you don't agree with - is to refuse to interact with them. 'The way to hurt people is silence because actually, when you are commenting on someone's photo, even if it's a bad negative comment, you're still drumming up interaction on that post,' she says.
'When a brand comes to ask for a post, they will speak to my agent and say, well, let's see what Olivia's Instagram stats look like,' she explains. 'And then she will send them screenshots of how many people are commenting on my photos, who's following me, who's unfollowing me. So if you're going to send out to a brand that 5000 people have unfollowed you this week, it doesn't look good, does it? So yeah, it makes a big difference.'
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