Instagram influencer fools followers into thinking Ikea photoshoot was Bali holiday

An Instagram/YouTube ad horse has carried out a cunning meta-Marshall McLuhan-style spoof by faking an influencer holiday in Bali photographed entirely in her local Ikea. Enterprising Natalia Taylor from Ohio appears to mostly use her social media for flogging make-up and this seems to be her first foray into brave social …

[Chris G]

I don't beleeeve it!

I cast doubt on much of what I read on the interwotsit, it's very hard to know anymore what's true and what's not.

I even have doubts about this article and I don't believe this comment.

[Imhotep]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

I believe she went to Bali and is now involved in a cover up. The Reg needs to dispatch a reporter on site and get to the bottom of this. Or I could go.

[Chris G]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

I have contacts in Bali I could go with you and corroborate your findings.

[Cederic]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

I have none and have never been to Bali so I could provide an objective and fresh look at the situation.

I've never been to IKEA either. Does this mean that I should go to Oregon too?

[ClockworkOwl]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

Well I've never met you, so, for proper balance.........

[David 132]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

Where does Oregon come into it? Did you mean Ohio?

Besides, if you try to get to Oregon there’s a non-trivial risk of dying of dysentery, apparently.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

Oregon is the only place in the world where oregono grows...

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

Whereas Venezuela is one of two places where the Orinoco flows...

[EVP]

Re: I don't beleeeve it!

I don’t believe you don’t believe.

[KevSilk]

Clearly a cover up

Obviously she was in Bali, this is a cover up for Bali being the true ground zero for the Coronavirus and she doesnt want people to know that she has infected the land of the free...

IKEA's involvement is just as the mouthpiece of the Illuminati

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Absolutely. The Illuminati were arrogant enough to leave on purpose evidence behind them. If you add up decimal ASCII values for I,K,E,A you get 279. Do the same thing for B,A,L,I (they use upper case letters for Bali as a diversion) and you’ll end up with 276. 279 minus 276 is 3, which is number of different characters in IKEA and Bali plus 1. See?

AC for obvious reasons.

[AndyFl]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Amazing that the Illuminati knew what the character values of ASCII would be before it was even created. They have no end to their powers.

Not posted as AC cos they can't get me!

Ooh somebody at the door, I'd better go and see who they are...

[brotherelf]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Well it is the All Seeing Coverup by Illuminati for Illuminati, after all, so I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clearly a cover up

AC here again. The Illuminati _created_ ASCII character encoding, of course. As the 7-bit set wasn’t evil enough, they added one bit to increase eviltropy, saw it was good (for them) and created Unicode to rule us all.

There are pockets of resistance left, though. The 7-bit set is safe, as long as you encode international characters within the set.

[Korev]

Re: Clearly a cover up

>There are pockets of resistance left, though. The 7-bit set is safe, as long as you encode international characters within the set.

We should rename it the Brexit character set...

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Clearly a cover up

As the 7-bit set wasn’t evil enough

7-bit isn't evil - after all, it's the One True Character Set for email! Any attempt to use evil 8-bit characters should be resisted! And lets not talk about the abomination that is using HTML in emails..

[Natalie Gritpants Jr]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Doesn't really matter what the ASCII values are as long as they are in alphabetical order because he is subtracting one set from another. I'm assuming the illuminati were familiar with the english alphabet - oh wait..

[Fungus Bob]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Everyone knows you get the Coronavirus from drinking Mexican beer. Any other story is a coverup.

[NeilPost]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Still better than drinking Bud or Coors Lite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clearly a cover up

Those give you The Screamers.

[Bluto Nash]

Re: Clearly a cover up

It's better if you get Lyme disease at the same time

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clearly a cover up

You forgot to include the vaccine myth.

[Anonymous Coward]

The B Ark

While Instragram and YouTube are proving excellent recruitment tools for the B Ark, I am a little worried about the apparent lack of progress towards the B Ark launch date....

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: The B Ark

If "B is for Boeing" then, their progress towards space so far, as well as with their 737 MAX, encourages me to believe that, once we get them in, and upwards, they won't be coming back.

Patience is a virtue.

[whitepines]

Re: The B Ark

they won't be coming back.

You sure on that? Last I checked the MAX repeatedly returned its passengers to Earth significantly ahead of schedule, and rather permanently at that.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

Ah!

Stupidity. The gift that keeps on giving.

[Unoriginal Handle]

Re: Ah!

I temporarily misread that as "AI! The stupoidity which keeps on giving"...

[Chronos]

Good grief!

I usually ignore these types of story because the word "influencer" is a euphemism for self appointed marketer. I thought I'd have a glance at this one, though, as the idea seemed to have a bit of cerebrum behind it. Perhaps, for once, one of these new media types has a good wheeze at the expense of their mindless followers.

As soon as the video started, I regretted it. Anyone lasting past the first minute of this, erm, person's outpourings and uncoordinated gesticulation is clearly missing a few cards from their deck. In short, nobody cares where they go as long as it's not near us.

[IGotOut]

Re: Good grief!

Yup, but something tells me she doesn't say "Hey, this lipstick is crap, but I'm paid to promote it, so go by it"

These "influencers" are nothing more than insidious marketing mouthpieces, usually conning the young and impressionable.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Good grief!

Yes,Absolutely no integrity. They'll just endorse whatever they can get for free, or they get paid for. I don't know how anyone could take them seriously.

Remember the "influencer" who tried to get free accomodation in an Irish hotel, and got called out for it?

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307763

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: Good grief!

I don't know how anyone could take them seriously.

Most of us don't. I wonder what the half-life of an "influencer" is?

Longer than I would have thought, apparently!

(I lasted about 30s watching her. My kids were never that wacky. Wonder how much money she earns doing that shtick?)

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Good grief!

what the half-life of an "influencer" is?

Like most toxic substances the answer is "too long".

Wonder how much money she earns doing that shtick?

Too much. Another sin to lay at the advertisers door.

[JohnFen]

Re: Good grief!

> I don't know how anyone could take them seriously.

Me neither. This is really the same thing as a celebrity endorsement, and I've never understood how those could be taken seriously either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good grief!

> "uncordinated gesticulations"

Nailed it. Is she on speed or something?

[NeilPost]

Re: Good grief!

Unless you are a vacuous moron, why would you be ‘influenced’ by this Childcare assistant mannerismed gesticulating buffoon and be a follower... unless you think it’s comedy.

Perhaps she is one of Dominic Cumming’s weirdos and misfits???

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Good grief!

> Anyone lasting past the first minute of this, erm, person's outpourings and uncoordinated gesticulation is clearly missing a few cards from their deck.

I started watching it at work with the sound completely off in the first place- and I *still* wanted to mute it.

[pdebarra]

Re: Good grief!

I watched about 20 seconds with the sound off. I don't think I'm brave enough to try again with the sound on. Books, covers, and all that, I know, I know - but "influencers" are surely the exception to that rule!

[JDPower]

Are we absolutely sure she didn't pretend to go to Bali, got rumbled, then pretended it was a "social experiment"

[Brandon 2]

Insta-what?

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

[IGotOut]

Re: Insta-what?

It's a photo sharing site full of clones with giant eyebrows & fake tans, as well as food that looks pretty but tastes like shit, but they are to fucking clueless to realise.

[Keith Langmead]

Re: Insta-what?

Or more accurately a mobile phone photo sharing site. You can only post to it via mobile/android tablet (dunno if iPad can), so if you want to do any post processing on your computer you have to then transfer it to mobile to post.

[Imhotep]

Re: Insta-what?

It isn't when people insist on going in to detail about just how ignorant I am. I mean, how other people are.

[NeilPost]

Re: Insta-what?

It’s a fairly innocuous/simplistic prank.

Prank Patrol will snap her up.

What I could not abide was her annoying pre-school teaching assistant personality/mannerisms/style her followers are subjected to (willingly).

You just wanted to fucking slap her and scream I am not 3 years old.

[Phil Kingston]

Almost worth wishing she'd get corona-quarantined.

[JohnFen]

Coronatined?

[Imhotep]

Let's just all call it coranatined.

[Ken Shabby]

Coranated?

[steviebuk]

Stole my idea

Been doing this for a year now when I visit IKEA. Pick select rooms, take photos and then send them to friends to see who falls for it. Trick is to get the ones where there is a view from a window with no reflection or price tag in shot :)

[Chris G]

Re: Stole my idea

I would be embarrassed to give the impression that my house is entirely furnished with Scandipack furniture.

I have two €3:00 rugs that my cat sleeps on, otherwise this is an IKfree zone.

Particulary as I am a trained carpenter and have a good workshop in the garden.

[quxinot]

Re: Stole my idea

I am not a carpenter and detest working with wood. But furniture made fro recycled corn flakes has no place in my home either. Been in an Ikea exactly once and I'd put it next to car shopping on the miserable experiences list.

[Version 1.0]

Re: Stole my idea

When I worked on building sites as a young kid I used to see "trained carpenters" using Birmingham Screwdrivers all them time, they were very highly trained paid.

[Chris G]

Re: Stole my idea

In my day we called 'em Irish screwdrivers, I have a very comprehensive set, and yes I was very well paid, mainly due to the fact that I could drive a screw without bending it, using a 4lb club hammer.

[Chronos]

Re: Stole my idea

I fear Ikea. Sadly, it's all true.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Stole my idea

€3:00 rugs that my cat sleeps on

I'm reporting you to the relevent animal abuse organisation! That's blatant cruelty!