Love them or hate them, travel influencers seem to live pretty enviable lives.
The trade-off is they are often the targets of increased scrutiny and a lot of online hate. Particularly those who add filters and touchups to their stunning images, like this woman who appears to have the exact same clouds in numerous images around the world.
Twitter user Matt Navarra posted a series of images from travel influencer Tupi Saravia’s Instagram account which appear to show the same clouds in the background, from Indonesia to Italy.
This travel ‘influencer’ spookily has the same clouds in every photo. 😲🤔😆 pic.twitter.com/uYzXhTiRJp
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) August 28, 2019
And here too… pic.twitter.com/LqBdgZgeu7
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) August 28, 2019
Navarra’s tweets quickly went viral, racking up over 35 thousand likes and almost 13 thousand retweets.
The tweets received a mixed response from commenters, with some calling for her sponsors to stop paying her, some defending her, and some just chiming in for a quick joke.
“She’s influencing the clouds to follow her,” one user said.
“She’s able to influence consumers and weather patterns,” another quipped.
The Argentinian blogger, who has over 280,000 followers on Instagram admitted to Buzzfeed News she uses a photo-editing app to enhance or edit clouds into her photo if the camera didn’t pick them up.
“I used an app called Quickshot to help the composition of the photograph when the sky is burned or overexposed,” Saravia said.
Saravia told Buzzfeed the app has a feature called Sky Control which puts clouds into a photo and has several templates available.
“I just happened to like that one,” she said, adding that she has always been open about photoshopping.
“They were always aware about this because I never hide it, I always tell [followers] the apps I use.”
“Actually I’m the first one to tell the joke [that] the clouds are following me around the world.”
Despite Saravia’s transparency, many Twitter users were quick to use Navarra’s tweets as an excuse to decry influencers in general.
“Why we end here on social media!? Faking all the photos!? I can point other users doing this, as a photographer I can’t stand this,” one user said.
“To be serious for a sec, isn’t this kinda strange behaviour? It goes to prove that the digital world and the real world really are night and day. I’m becoming more and more cynical (getting old!!) towards online ‘influencers’ – I think it’s a bubble, that will eventually go pop,” another added.
“I really don’t see the big deal [here], I never lied about it,” Saravia said.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, and it was never my intention.”
