This is quite the title for a post right? For anyone unfamiliar with Stephanie Lange she is a former makeup artist turned influencer, turned YouTuber turned influencer basher. Yup you heard that right. I first heard of her when her videos were suggested on my Youtube feed. This was around 2022-2023. The majority of the videos she was posting at that time were about unattainable beauty standards and the dangers of some popular beauty treatments like lip filler. I found these interesting so I would watch them. I do feel that there is too much pressure put on women in terms of beauty; and many beauty treatments are touted as safe with minimal side effects, until of course we find out this is not the case. So I felt these videos served a purpose.
I liked the videos she posted and I felt they could be helpful to some people, so I continued to watch them from time to time. One day a video of her’s was suggested with the title “An Influencer Is Trying to Silence Me”. Well, I had to check that one out! The video went on to talk about a video she had done previously which was briefly taken down and then reinstated a short time later. In this video she calls out influencers for lack of a better description: as being bad influences. You know how when you were a young child or a teenager you would be told by your parents to stay from people who were bad influences.
She included a news clip from a local TV station where a women speaks about how she created insurmountable debt for herself via shopping. She claimed she was “influenced” and the influencers made her want to shop. OK, lets’ focus on the words “made her”. Was she forced at gun point to shop and buy herself things? This woman was well out of her teens and looked to be in her mid thirties, so, a grown ass adult.
As an adult YOU are responsible for your own actions. I watch plenty of influencer content on multiple platforms; I cannot afford a ton of designer clothes and bins filled to the top with makeup. And guess what? I don’t have those things, because I do not run out and buy them with credit cards. I have an excellent credit score, and that is because I act responsibly and do not buy myself things I can not afford. It’s called adulting.
Stephanie posted two videos: the first one where she shames influencers for what they do, and the second one where she speaks about being “silenced” for a brief period of time. In the second video she mentions the influencer who tried to silencer her, and I was super surprised as it is someone I have been watching for years and who I still watch: Tamara Kalinic. Tamara did indeed get the most screen time. Her team reported the video, it then got a brief copy strike for the video to be investigated, it was found that it did not violate YouTube’s terms of service, and the video was then reinstated with no strikes against Stephanie’s account.
So, if it was reinstated rather quickly with no strikes, what was the need for the second video? Hmm, could it be, wait for it…clickbait? So all the influencers Stephanie calls out for making money via influencing are somehow much worse than someone like her who makes money making sensationalist videos shaming other people, and doing it for clicks. Knowing those clicks means money, and lots of it. Because, as we all know this kind of sensationalist content is very popular; kind of like, I don’t know…a tabloid? Just take a look at the thumbnails on her videos, where she goes out of her way to find the most unattractive photos of celebrities she can find. And then claims she is doing this so “regular” people don’t feel bad about themselves. Oh boy, I guess she thinks we all believe in the tooth fairy too.
And it gets better. Do a little digging and Stephanie herself was an influencer at one point, complete with a makeup brand deal with Sigma for a signature eye shadow palette. She is also a makeup artist and made plenty of money via this career as well. I have no problem with this, I love makeup artists and makeup. I love how makeup can make people feel better about themselves and the transformative aspects to it. But I do have a problem with hypocrisy and self righteous tirades. Stephanie as even tried to scrub the internet of her previous incarnation as an influencer. Stephanie even tried to scrub the internet of her previous incarnation as an influencer. There are quite a few influencer images of her, which if you click on them, take you to now deleted videos on her YouTube channel. But the question begs, what is she now exactly?
She has a new video titled “Influencers Are The Scum of Society”. Yup. And that’s because she knows how sensationalist and how click worthy this title is. She got a great response to the first video she did calling out influencers, which is why she did the second video; it got me to click, right? She knows this is money maker so she is going to milk it for all it is worth. I get it, we all need to make money. But please don’t take us for fools, and hide behind idealism and righteous anger. At least the influencers are upfront about influencing. Apparently I am not the only one calling her out. There are threads about her on Reddit and TattleLife.
So, what say you? Do you think this is hypocritical? How do you feel about calling out celebrities and influencers? And how do you feel about influencers? Though there is an easy to solution to influencers if you don’t like them. Don’t watch.
