AsiaWireUh-oh, looks like a social media influencer has been ‘faking the funk’ on Instagram and now they’ve been rumbled.
From the outside looking in, the life of a travel blogger looks pretty epic. They get to go places some of us could only dream of, whether we want to admit it or not, their ‘#humblebrag’ lifestyle does leave us a tad envious. It does make you wonder, ‘is this actually their real life?’. Holidays are expensive.
Well as it turns out travel blogger Sadelle Yeung hasn’t been completely honest about her jet-setting lifestyle with her Instagram followers. You could say she’s guilty of being disingenuous – but I’ll let you be the judge.
Sadelle, a model based in Hong Kong, has about 91.4K followers on Instagram. A lot of her posts pertain to her frequent flyer miles… or so her followers thought.
Sadelle posted a photo of her ‘trip’ to Italy with the caption ‘#travelwithsadelle, y’all’. The photo was of the Amalfi Coast which, she claimed she had taken herself. However, one eagle-eyed follower spotted something fishy and called her out.
According to the follower, her ‘picture’ was actually taken from a travel brochure. The model and travel blogger was called out for it. Afterwards, more of her followers made claims all her holiday pictures had been lifted from other media outlets.
AsiaWireAs the can of worms started to open up it quickly became clear all her pictures were fakes. In an attempt at damage control she began deleting dozens of her posts. But so much had been exposed, before long a ‘copywithsadelle’ account had arrived.
People were eager to lay into Sadelle, whose online profile (prior to being exposed) had her categorised by Apple Daily as a ‘key opinion leader’ (KOL) because of her inspirational messages under ‘her’ pictures, ranging from avocado toast through to bricks, clear blue skies and flowers. All of which are now contentious.
Ironically, it was because of her social media presence she appeared on TV shows to discuss her ‘travel lifestyle’.
AsiaWireOne commentator wrote:
Crazy, every single photo here is stolen.
Another added:
This entire Instagram account is fake.
One person claimed:
Wow, she stole so many photos.
She made a brief and enigmatic response to the accusations via a comment reply, where she said:
Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s not fair to conflate one mistake into a big one. I accept everyone’s feedback good and bad.
AsiaWireTo be fair to Sadelle it’s not like she committed a crime against humanity, at most she may have infringed on some
copyright laws. Furthermore, maybe it’s a good thing she ‘fake travels’, doing the real thing can leave you with some nasty scars.
Just ask 19-year-old Instagram model, Katarina Zarutskie, who had a precarious encounter with a nurse shark. During a recent trip to the Bahamas with her boyfriend and his family, she decided to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to swim with some nurse sharks… and take a picture for the ‘gram – because you know, social media clout.
For a while, everything seemed fine as she floated in the sea… then all of a sudden things went badly wrong.
Speaking to Buzzfeed, Katarina said:
I leaned back, and then that shark he came and he bit down on my arm and pulled me under.
Damn, it’s like a scene out of Jaws. If it was me in this situation, I would’ve probably been freaking out. But credit to young Katarina, she kept her cool and was able to pry her arm out of the shark’s vice-like grip.
She immediately got out, while keeping her bloodied wrist out of the water, because as you should know, when sharks sense blood, they’ll make a beeline to the source. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what comes next.
While she managed to make it back safely to land, she didn’t leave unscathed as the nurse shark left her with a nasty bite mark on her arm.
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