Thread by @Ceilidhann

That Instagram influencer I occasionally check in on because she's The Worst is now charging $165 for a 4 hour "seminar" on how to be yourself.

Important update: Said "influencer" just put down a deposit on a venue for her "seminar" and is conveniently upping the number of available spots for attendees. Methinks she just realized how pricey her scam was going to be and is now trying to widen those profit margins.

Further update: The "influencer" sold out her seminars! So she's netting a gross profit of like $15k (more than my annual wage), so pardon me if I spend today feeling like hard work and talent are a tad pointless.

Scaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!

eventbrite.com/e/creativity-w…

FURTHER UPDATE!
She's now planning on taking her "workshops" on tour, including to Edinburgh. Scotland says no.

STILL UPDATING!
$165 for a FOUR HOUR workshop with this scammer and she won't even be there for the first hour. Value for money!

Why am I still yapping on about this?
Because this woman is a blatant scammer who's now organizing a WORLDWIDE TOUR with this "workshop" she admits she wrote in one day, I think it's categorical bullshit that nobody is talking about & that we glorify this "influencer" nonsense.

"♥ Invest in yourself in 2019. ♥" she writes.

I agree. Take that $165 and do literally anything else with it. Don't support scammers.

ALSO!
You can cancel your purchase from this event up to 30 days before it begins. The first "tour date" is 3 weeks away, so she's literally organizing this so that people can get refunds.

I understand that in the grand scheme of things this is a frivolous issue and I'm a nobody making a deal out of a total nobody, but I don't like seeing people get ripped off, especially by the narcissism of this overblown "influencer" economy. If it stops one person, then good.

Scammer update!
Scammer has almost sold out a majority of her $165 "creativity workshop" tickets but wants to hire two people to document it all unpaid. Oh, but it will be a trade of creative labour!
Burn this. Nobody accept this grift. Do not work for free.

I've said it before and I will say it again: do not work for free. Don't do it. Your work is more valuable than that.

UPDATE: She's clearly been guilt tripped into, you know, paying people for their services. But she's "honestly a little overwhelmed" about how she's going to pay for it all. Should have thought of that before you started scamming!

NEW UPDATE!
Honestly, nothing I can add to "she bought over 1000 mason jars" can make it any funnier than it already is.

Also she's lamenting how hard it will be to pay a photographer for their services while going to a hairdresser whose prices are about $300 for highlights. Much relatable, not a scam at all.

You thought I'd forgotten about scammer updates? Ha!

Look at this shit!

Scammer is now claiming she invented writing long Instagram captions & has revolutionized Instagram Stories by writing more long captions.

Scammer's 1200 mason jars arrived today.
I just lost a lung laughing so hard.

Warning: Scammer now realizes it will be harder for her to make money from her sheer ineptitude so will be raising prices on her $165 seminar. But it's worth it, just for the mason jars.

Also worth noting that she hasn't booked most of the venues for this nationwide tour she's already sold a bunch of $165 tickets for, a tour that begins tomorrow. But those mason jars, you guys.

Fyre Fest in waiting!

She has an event NEXT WEEK and she HASN'T BOOKED THE VENUE YET! Keep in mind she's already SELLING $165 TICKETS for this!

Happy Scammer Day!
So day 1 of her nationwide tour & she's already dropped the promise of handwritten letters & is now asking people attending her DC event tomorrow to bring their own lunches so she won't have to cook them!

But don't worry, if you're expecting a modicum of professionalism or, you know, any of the things she promised you'd get for your $165, then she'll generously refund you. What a creative hero and if you don't get that, it's your own fault!

So a reminder: For $165, you'll get a 4 hour workshop, one hour of which the host won't actually be there. You won't get the handwritten letters she promised, you won't get chairs to sit on, and after this event, you may not even get the lunch she promised. So what do you get?!

You're the one who charged $165 for this mess, INCLUDING food! Now you want to make people bring their own food but still charge that rate? Mess.

I... I think she's trying to pass off a free concert (that you have to RSVP to) as her official after-party?!
eventbrite.com/e/the-ipa-the-…

Scammer update!
The first event went so well, according to Her, that she's decided to use this as an excuse to not go to Boston or Philly & instead make those people who have already bought tickets come to New York!

Note how she never actually gave her fans an option to vote no. But she's still reporting that the vote was unanimous. Duh, you never gave them a choice!

So this is how she gets out of paying airfare & transport costs for her 1200 mason jars. Also remember that she never actually booked venue spaces in these cities so she gets to spin her scamming & ineptitude as genius!

Her fans are now literally begging her not to force them to travel to New York. They've already paid $165 for this, all with the knowledge they won't get half the stuffed promised because scammer is badly prepared & lazy. Now they have to BEG her to do the bare minimum.

No joke, her fans have to plead with her to fulfil the promise they're paying $165 for!

Yup, she is now officially cancelling some events & moving them to New York.

Who would have thought that a shameless cash grab "workshop" planned in one month would be so incompetently organized?

Here's the thing: She's cancelled the Boston event one week before it happens (the one she never got around to booking an event space for).
EventBrite's refund policy? Up to 30 days before the event. So will she actually give the money back or pretend it's out of her hands?

And of course she's blaming it on her "staff". The same "staff who were hired at some point in the past couple of days, long after she'd already started selling tickets.

If you're a fan of Caroline Calloway who was planning to attend one of these workshops before she cancelled & made it NYC exclusive, get in touch! My DMs are open.

Notice how it's all her staff's fault.

You know, the staff she hired *checks Instagram Stories *yesterday.

She's cancelled going to Denver & Boston but never fear, she's still coming to Europe. And London, which is apparently not in Europe.

And she's now in DC. She did not prepare for the snowstorm but at least it gives her new excuses to scam people into travelling to her and not the other way around as originally promised.

Thank you so much for pointing this out to me. Her Atlanta workshop is set for February 2nd. According to the Event Brite page, it doesn't have a venue yet. So... does she eventually cancel this date too?

https://twitter.com/noriaaahj/status/1084472462157533185

Well, we all saw this coming. Influencer culture is heavily reliant on buying fake followers to artificially inflate popularity to get that #sponcon. But how does that work when you're trying to sell a tour?

https://twitter.com/devilwrstartan/status/1084479801036075008

Breaking news: She has just landed in DC. The event was scheduled for 11am EST start.

Thank you so much to @Abigail_Hope_ for sharing her thoughts on this as a fan of Ms. Calloway who feels duped by "promises that you never intended to keep."

https://twitter.com/Abigail_Hope_/status/1084518187037835264

Anonymous DM from someone who attended one of the workshops.

"Authenticity."

https://twitter.com/spaghetticat/status/1084551085010964480

Good question!
Why are tickets for events she has already cancelled still available for purchase?

https://twitter.com/veganbirder/status/1084590350713274368

Good morning!
I have reached out to the people who DM-d me about getting refunds to find out if they actually did, as per Calloway's claim.

The email she sent out to people about her cancellations is wild.
"THE HIGH FUCKING QUALITY EVENT."
"Only you and your heart really know."

A blast from the past (she deleted these posts) from when she tried to get "sponsored content".
$5k for an Instagram story. $7-10k for her to attend your event.
As far as I know, nobody took her up on these offers.

A lot of people have been asking me if her book deal was a scam too. No, she actually did get a book deal worth about $500k. Her agent is/was Byrd Leavell, who represents Tucker Max. When she cancelled the deal by not finishing the book, she went into $100k+ of debt.

She later started selling chapters of her book proposal on Etsy, covered in annotations and star stickers. It was about £5 per chapter. This is what it looked like & here's how she responded when a fan worried about the exorbitant cost.

"I'm cancelling the rest of the tour."

I have written a longer post on this story and why I think it needed to be dissected that should be going up later today. For now, the thread is done.

A lot of you joked to me that you'd be happy to give $165 for this thread, but if you really do want to do something nice with your cash, please support Mermaids, a British charity that provides support & resources to trans kids and their families.

mermaidsuk.org.uk

And yes, I am very aware of how Calloway positions me, without ever naming me, as the reason for the tour cancellation. The more things change...

And don't leave shitty comments on her social media, for fucks sake.

For the full story in excruciating detail, here is my piece on @pajiba on Caroline Calloway, her brief creativity workshop & the hollowness of "authenticity" as a brand.

pajiba.com/web_culture/th…

And yes, today I was finally blocked on Instagram by Caroline Calloway.

An interesting update: Two prominent Caroline Calloway fan accounts on Instagram (The first mentioned was previously called CallowaySlay) have decided to rebrand & distance themselves from a "brand that we do not trust or believe in any longer."

Presented without comment.

I've actually been quite hesitant to talk further about this beyond the initial cancelling because I'm keenly aware of how such talk could perpetuate this faux catfight dynamic wherein I'm the bully blogger. So let me try and be as succinct as possible on this issue.

I do not believe that willful ineptitude is an excuse for what Caroline Calloway tried to pull with hundreds of people and thousands of dollars on the line. Her original tour was a disaster in waiting & she never should have mounted it in one month.

Can she learn from this? Sure, but it seems unlikely she will given that she's gone from confessing of her greed & inexperience to bragging about returning to the fold in a 24 hour cycle. But all that responsibility is on her now.

I've written my piece. I hope we can have further discussions about the toxicity of the influencer economy, the darkness of parasocial relationships, and the falsehood of authenticity when it's packaged for capitalist consumption.

Good luck with the mason jars.

Thank you to the anonymous workshop attendee who forwarded me a copy of the email Calloway sent out wherein she is now asking the refunded fans to PayPal her.

How to avoid accountability when you revive the "workshops" you cancelled due to your own self-confessed greed & lack of events experience: Force fans to apply via e-mail & vet their social media.

The new workshop will be longer, it will be catered, it will still be $165, and it will feature a segment on "resiliency."

I didn't talk about this enough in my original post but we seriously need to understand how she, like so much of the influencer economy, appropriates the language of wellness to cover for an absolute lack of substance and qualifications.

And remember, we are 2 days on from Calloway cancelling this tour because, in her words, "my total inexperience with event planning and GREED create[d] a situation where [...] preparation was inadequate."

Now she's mounting the tour once more - but not using Eventbrite to book tickets, funnily enough - two days after admitting her lack of qualifications, and claiming this is part of a narrative where she was wronged & has emerged a stronger person. This is gaslighting.

I've had a lot of people insist to me that Calloway isn't a scam artist, she's just an enthusiastic person in over their head. I hope this continuing mess and her endless efforts to treat her fans like crap while avoiding accountability do away with that notion.

Thank you to the anonymous former fan (one of many who got in touch) who forwarded me the email Calloway sent out regarding the new workshop, taking place this Saturday (this isn't all of it.)

The new event is available on a password locked Eventzilla page (not Eventbrite). Here's the schedule. No terms & conditions or refund details listed.
Also the 12:00 - 2:45 bloc of teaching is double booked.

There is literally nothing I can add to this to make it funnier, more ridiculous or more embarrassing. Just enjoy it.

https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status/1086016049881985029

Following news that several of Caroline Calloway's fan accounts have rebranded to distance themselves from her, she seems to have started up her own fan account? Although notice how the bio changed to hide that fact. Goes from "Lead by" to "inspired by". Uh huh.

So I just woke up.

Thank you to the literally dozens of people who sent me this.

At least she spelled my name correctly. I'm sorry Michelle Obama's advice is being applied so questionably.

$20 seems steep though. Donate it to Arts Emergency instead.

arts-emergency.org/donate-2/