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The boundaries between social media and the real world are becoming increasingly blurred and people are now creating entire careers from online fame.
It is a lucrative career, and when done well, can indeed help every party involved.
Though, not everyone is a fan of this new found vocation.
Particularly one hotel in Dublin, The White Moose Cafe, which found itself in the grips of a social media war after a blogger emailed the hotel’s comms department asking for free accommodation in return for exposure.
The whole saga began unfolding last week and has since culminated in the Dublin Hotel banning all bloggers and Instagram celebrities from this point on.
Last Tuesday, The White Moose Cafe shared this email from an unnamed blogger:
And accompanied it with this response:
Dear Social Influencer (I know your name but apparently it’s not important to use names),
Thank you for your email looking for free accommodation in return for exposure. It takes a lot of balls to send an email like that, if not much self-respect and dignity.
If I let you stay here in return for a feature in your video, who is going to pay the staff who look after you? Who is going to pay the housekeepers who clean your room? The waiters who serve you breakfast? The receptionist who checks you in? Who is going to pay for the light and heat you use during your stay? The laundering of your bed sheets? The water rates? Maybe I should tell my staff they will be featured in your video in lieu of receiving payment for work carried out while you’re in residence?
Lucky for us, we too have a significant social media following. We have 186k followers on our two Facebook pages, an estimated 80k on our Snapchat, 32k on Instagram and a paltry 12k on our Twitter, but Jesus Christ, I would never in a million years ask anyone for anything for free. I also blog a bit (www.paulvstenson.com), which as far as I’m aware is another way of saying “write stuff on the internet”.
The above stats do not make me any better than anyone else or afford me the right to not pay for something everyone else has to pay for.
In future, I’d advise you to offer to pay your way like everyone else, and if the hotel in question believes your coverage will help them, maybe they’ll give you a complimentary upgrade to a suite. This would show more self-respect on your part and, let’s face it, it would be less embarrassing for you.
What followed was, more than anything, a reflection of where we are as a species in 2018.
The blogger, well, blogged about the experience claiming she was “humiliated”, and The White Moose continued its barrage against bloggers and influencers.
The latest move was by The White Moose, who drafted a fake bill of the expenses incurred had the blogger stayed free of charge:
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