This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Kelly Xiong. Find her on Instagram at @k.3lly. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Every year Tarte Cosmetics goes all out on their influencer trips. They fly a handful of influencers to some destination and have the influencers post a bunch of content on social media surrounding their products. It is pretty much a luxurious all-expenses paid vacation with a bunch of free goodies. Tarte has been doing their big influencer trips for years. I remember watching makeup gurus like Manny MUA and Laura Lee post Instagram and Snapchat stories about the trip in the mid to late 2010s. As the brand grows bigger, the trips become more extravagant.
Last year, Tarte brought 50 beauty influencers and their plus-ones to a three-day trip in Dubai. Influencers like Alix Earle and Meredith Duxbury were invited to the trip and posted about the extravagant trip all over their socials — as required by Tarte I assume. This trip received a lot of backlash from the general audience. Many felt it was very tone-deaf for Tarte to have their influencers flaunt all the free stuff they were given and how luxurious the trip to Dubai was in the middle of an economic crisis where many people are struggling just to pay rent.
This year, Tarte did it again. The Tarte influencer trip drama just seems to get a little bit worse every year. This time, They flew around 20 influencers out to Bora Bora. Guests consisted of people such as Soo Youn Lee, Mackenzie Ziegler and Melinda Berry. The girls were flown to to Bora Bora on a private jet and were met with free goodies at the resort such as custom Tarte purple Jordans. Many have tried to guess how much everything costs. A private jet alone would cost at least a hundred thousand dollars, and once you add on the cost of staying at the resort and all the free makeup and accessories, this is one hefty brand trip.
Many have already had a bad taste in their mouth regarding Tarte’s tone-deaf brand trips from previous years. However, this year it somehow seems to have gotten worse. Some TikTokers took online to call Tarte, and the influencers, out on the ridiculous amounts of money spent on this trip. Some have argued that it’s very tone-deaf of the brand and influencers to flaunt their extravagant and luxurious trip when many Americans are struggling to get by, barely affording rent or groceries and there is an active genocide going on in Palestine. When so much is going wrong in the world, flaunting how great your life is is clearly not the right move.
Something that has also added fuel to the fire is a TikTok posted by Abby Bafoe, which now has 2.1M views. It features her and a bunch of other influencers on the private jet lip-syncing to the song Glamorous by Fergie — specifically, the line where it says “if you ain’t got no money take your broke ass home.” This definitely seems to be a poor choice of audio and words. One TikToker commented, “the fact that we don’t have any money is literally the problem.” This video has since gotten numerous stitches of people criticizing how out of touch this behavior was. The problem isn’t that the influencers are getting all these things for free, they get free stuff all the time it’s kind of part of the job at this point. The problem is bragging about how much privilege you have to have these wonderful experiences whilst the rest of the world burns.
This whole situation, including Abby’s TikTok, has turned many away from the brand — which is kind of the exact opposite of the purpose of the brand trip. Some TikTok users have commented saying that they will no longer be buying from Tarte and others have even shown themselves throwing out their current Tarte products. This whole Tarte influencer trip drama has rubbed many the wrong way. Since the trip, it seems as if they’ve actually lost many old and potential new customers.
Have you heard anything about this Tarte influencer trip drama? And what are your thoughts on it?
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