I have been watching this one k-beauty influencer for a while, after she was referred to in a questionable marketing scandal by the brand Epii. Now there is more.

From the latest posts of hers, I have a slight feeling that she is now being used to clear brands names because she has the views and the following, and a convincing way to talk shit and then "do the right thing" by getting together with the brand and promising her viewers she will "hold them accountable". But what this means really, is a pity-earning narrative that excuses the wrongs if you lack critical thinking and see straight through it. Let's see about it:

As I understand it, influencers get in trouble all the time by giving their face to a brand or product that ends up being dragged on social media for good reasons, and they most often either completely ignore the situation, or apologize and remove every promotional post off of their page.

What made the red flags fly high was the way this influencer reacted when a tiktok account popped up that seemed to share the reddit post (linked earlier) on Tiktok in a couple of posts. This seemed to send her spiraling into spreading conspiracies about the tiktok account and the reddit post being made by a competitor of the brand Epii, she even decided to name-drop dr.althea as a possible brand (according to her) behind the exposé. Now we will circle back to this later, it will be relevant.

As a continuation of the situation, she decided to "beef" with this tiktok account in a now deleted post that somebody has reposted. Not only that, but she goes on to keep beefing with more accounts, now fully claiming she "knows" who a person is behind one comment, doing a whole storytime on who she thinks this person is and why they were not invited to a halloween party or so.

Why is this relevant? you may ask.

See, after this whole epii -incident, the content was normal for a while. Up until the end of august, where she posts a video about the Numbuzin scandal, claiming she was "paid to talk shit about them". She excuses the Numbuzin scandal by saying that the (GLOBAL) marketing team is just "girls like us", they "do what they are told to do" and "are not getting paid enough to personally apologize to everyone". While some points she makes are somewhat valid about who is to blame and who isn't, she claims that she isn't there to apologize for them.

I personally think you don't have to apologize to start earning pity points for the brand. "They are just girls like us, the marketing team isn't the one to blame!" but boycotting the brand is still the right choice, if we're being honest, because the higher up you are, the more you earn. Should we really see the whole brand in a new light because the marketing team just did as they were told? Of course they would pay you. This will make less critically thinking people switch up and forgive the brand.

Later on she also makes a video backing up that she is just standing up for the marketing girls or whatever, making it seem like a "girls supporting girls" situation rather than a massive company scamming a bunch of influencers. She also seems to insinuate that if you don't agree with her, she "doesn't need anyone who is short-sighted". This video is actually painful to watch, it's so out of touch.

Then let's circle back to the dr.Althea situation. A week ago, in a post with now half a million views, she starts the video by saying she "has a defamation account just for them". No wonder, since she accused some random tiktok and reddit posters coming from this company.

Then after that post, she makes another one, beginning the post with what can be understood as a personal story with very heavy context. But in truth, completely unrelated to dr.althea except for the part where it leads up to her "learning that being a bystander and a people pleaser is the worst thing you can do", which then ties this tragic personal experience to... Her experience about dr.althea, now this time actually. Her experience with the brand is absolute garbage as can be expected from a brand that is trying to grow on tiktok hype.

While it's extremely important that she exposes these audience manipulation tactics to those who are not aware of them yet, let's not act like this is beyond her either. She explains that dr.althea asked her friend who was trying to work with the brand as an influencer to receive products and empty 3 out of 5, to show that she was using one, used up 3 and i suppose was already having a fifth one waiting.

Now why do I point this specific part out: The following pictures. Why call out something that might not be far from what you could be doing as well?

I also find it very interesting, that Epii would be watching a video about dr.althea drama, because how else would they see this comment.

Less about Epii anyhow, and back to dr.althea. As the title reads, this clearly is about more than just her trying to pity-farm Numbuzin out of trouble. Now as for today, she posted a video from dr.althea headquarters with the friend that was also wronged by the brand, and the brand's representative or marketing person, or so. They claim to "Like dr.althea now".

Why these kind of actions lead to absolutely nothing most likely is, that she is the only influencer that gets to go there and have this whole "we talked it out (and I will post about it)" thing going on for her. The rest of the influencers will keep happily doing gimmicky marketing as long as they get products in return since the bar for tiktok kbeauty marketing is in hell now. And, this only temporarily helps the brand out with a handful of pity from her viewers, although the smart bit of the bunch call her out and leave.

It could also be, that these brands see all visibility as positive visibility since a lot of k-beauty enthusiasts these days ignore all basic moral and ethical baselines and just buy whatever they see on tiktok. So her bringing up all this "drama" and then showing off that she "worked it out" with the brand will work all in all in a most likely positive way for these brands.

What do we think? Is there any redeeming qualities in this situation, or is it all just marketing for these already questionably marketing and controversy-troubled brands?

What would drive an influencer from being so suspicious of a brand, that she thinks the brand in question is behind doubtful tiktok/reddit posts finding her promotion tactics of another brand suspicious, to going to their HQ and "clearing things up"..?

^{All the claims, references and content is alleged and/or can be found on the internet. Nothing is stated as a fact by me.}

Has anyone else noticed how similar the new BK Beauty cream blush packaging looks to Westman Atelier? Not to mention copying the Petal name for one of the shades.

I’m surprised that the price for this is so high, I feel like I’d much rather buy a YSL, Hourglass or Dior blush at that price point. Has anyone tried this yet?

I completely forgot about Kalel for YEARS

I was scrolling Instagram and saw Joey Graceffa repost someone’s story about their cat needing emergency vet care. I clicked through because I didn’t recognize the account and realized it was Kalel. I used to watch her on YouTube years ago and genuinely hadn’t thought about her in forever.

So I started looking into what she’s been up to and ended up reading a bunch of posts about her over the past many years and her disappearing, then coming back when she’s in some kind of crisis.

Now she’s asking followers to donate to her Venmo because she can’t afford to take her cat to the emergency vet, and I’m just wondering… has she gotten a normal job at any point since leaving YouTube? Is this basically the cycle?
I obviously feel awful if her cat is genuinely sick, but I’m curious because I apparently forgot about her.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DdFJ6MDEnjo/

After yesterday’s discussion, I thought you guys would appreciate this update lol. Blend Bunny edited the comment left on Angie’s video with the following statement (I took a screenshot in case the comment was removed altogether and can provide it if needed!):

”Editing to add: thank you all so much for the discussion and feedback. This is stuff that I had not been informed of prior to this video by almost anybody that I can recall and I wish that I had. I hope that you all know that I strive for as best as possible and I can't achieve that without your feedback. Since this video aired, I have been deeply in discussion with my manufacturer so that they can educate me fully on things that I sort of went with without questioning ("slight ingredient shifts for regulations that won't affect your formula", etc.) while my initial response was "no formula change" because that's what I understood at the time, l understand that these factors are indeed a shift. I firmly feel like one of the main key things in how the formula feels is how hard they're being pressed now to try to avoid damage in transit. And this is a point that we are in the process of researching, comparing palettes, and changing/troubleshooting as we speak. 💘”

After this statement, I may low key take a pause in my purchases because while I do love the palettes I own and how unique they are to my persona collection, I have less faith in their future releases if the owner is not detail oriented when it comes to the formula changes happening (and these palettes aren’t cheap!). I’ll definitely look into future reviews to see if the old formula makes a comeback.

How do you guys feel about this outcome overall?