Most people would be forgiven for not having hear of Caroline Calloway, the self-proclaimed ‘first ever influencer’ who wrote a memoir on Instagram, landed a $500,000 book deal then never turned in the book. Gloriously though, she hasn’t been deterred and in what can no doubt be a botched attempt to pay back the $100,000 still owed to her publishers, she may have provided us with 2019s answer to the infamous Fyre festival.

In an epic viral twitter thread, journalist Kayleigh Donaldson exposed Calloway’s ‘creativity workshops,’ a series of events that promised four hours of teaching about heartbreak, making art and authenticity. Tickets cost $165, included lunch, a flower crown and individually curated care packages, apparently based on ticket buyers Instagram accounts. Her ambitions were lofty, her timescale impossible and her customers mainly young women and girls.

The chaos that unfurled defied belief. Donaldson hilariously screenshotted and documented each catastrophe as it arose. The internet collectively despaired. Calloway had sold tickets before booking venues, she had 1200 mason jars delivered to her New York studio apartment, she asked ticket buyers to bring packed lunches after she failed to ‘cook’ salad for 100 people in her own kitchen.

By the time she had sold all the tickets she had tried to recruit photographers and event staff for free and admitted that for the first hour of the seminar, she wouldn’t even be there. The flower crowns were abandoned because she had no idea how much orchids cost. At one point she tried to move all events of what had become a multi-city tour to New York, leaving fans across America devastated.

The tour has since been cancelled and Caroline has admitted to inadequate preparation and being driven by greed. But how did she get to this point in the first place?

To be honest, I understand the desire to monetise your influence. I have over 100,000 instagram followers but no longer do sponsored content because it doesn’t feel right. For a while I made hay while the sun shone and brands paid me to feature their products in my feed. Influencing was easy money, but as brands demanded more and more control I realised that I wasn't proud of the content I was creating. Taking the moral high ground felt liberating but my finances took a major hit. Making ends meet as a freelance writer is incredibly tough and I'm lucky that my knack for social media has enabled me to help other businesses with their online presence. I still have to hustle all the time though, and I miss being able to make money out of my account. When times are hard as a freelancer I have fantasised about what would happen if I asked all my followers for a quid.

#sponcon can feel dirty. I know. I’ve done it. It’s difficult to feel authentic when you’re working to the brief of a brand. There’s an unspoken hierarchy in the influencer community. Those who sell teeth whitening strips are sell-outs, those who sell Dior handbags are entrepreneurs. People often end up advertising stuff they wouldn’t use to pay their rent.

And as for Caroline Calloway, her brand is all about her ‘authenticity,’ which she is at great pains to promote. She has archived all evidence of sponsored content on her feed and scaled back her Instagram to just include the stories from Cambridge university that made her famous.

Authenticity is the influencers ultimate buzzword. The more authentic you appear, the more currency you hold. Authenticity was so integral to Calloway’s brand that she planned on devoting an hour of her seminar to it. Her 831,000 followers love her for it.

She knows that for her followers, whose connection with her is built on trust, sponcon just won’t fly. And so these events seemed like a perfect way to monetise her fanbase by doing what she does best, sharing.

People have been quick to call it a scam but I don’t think Calloway’s intentions were necessarily bad. She wrote that she spent her book advance thoughtlessly, at one point just giving the money away and has admitted to an Adderall addition. She owes her publishers $100,000. If anything this seems like an act of desperation. She just shouldn’t have exploited her fans to get it.

Calloway’s biggest crime isn’t profiting from her following, its doing it badly. I would never have the gall to put on an event that was so underprepared. But one hopes that she thought she had useful information to impart. Is she narcissistic and delusional? Probably. Has having a huge Instagram following contributed to this? Definitely. I have absolutely no interest in what Caroline Calloway has to say about making art, but I’m sure lots of people do. With some forward planning and a lot of help she could probably make these events a success.

If a Kardashian had put on this tour you can sure as hell guarantee that Kris Jenner would be making it work and charging a lot more than $165. Do I think that listening to Caroline Calloway talk about herself for four hours is worth that amount of money? No. But then I have no interest in Caroline Calloway.

The latest is that she has reinstated her plans for the tour, probably with a helping hand from someone who knows what they’re doing. Thinking that people should pay to hang out with you is delusional, but when 831,000 people lap up everything you say it probably seemed like a plausible business model.

Caroline Calloway is definitely not a businesswoman, or an events planner, but I don’t think she’s a scammer. She’s a product of our times and a shameless narcissist. Somebody buy the film rights to this saga immediately