The truth behind that Instagram influencer mural has now been revealed
Stop the world, we want to get off
Do you sometimes feel like things are running away from you? Like life and modernity are slowly slipping from your grasp? “What really was that whole freaky Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal about? And for that matter what the hell is Snapchat?”, you might find yourself asking in cold, panicked sweats in the middle of the night. “Are we creeping towards a doomed, Black Mirror-style universe of our own design?”
In 2018, all these questions and more are totally legitimate, especially with the news that a new mural has been painted on the streets of Los Angeles… but it’s only for the Twitter and Instagram famous, with a verified tick or more than 20,000 followers.
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The mural, found near the Sunset Strip in the centre of the city, depicts a pair of wings with the tag-line ‘City of Angels’.
A sign outside the tented mural tells passers-by: “PRIVATE MURAL. FOR VERIFIED INFLUENCERS AND PEOPLE WITH OVER 20,000 FOLLOWERS ONLY. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. SEE SECURITY STAFF FOR PROOF AND ACCESS.”
LA-based writer Justin Caffier posted images of himself outside the mural.
“There’s a new security-guarded mural in LA that only allows influencers and verifieds to take pics in front of it,” he said.
Twitterers had a lot to say about the mural:
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But one Twitter sleuth tracked down the social accounts of the people behind the mural and, shock horror, it turns out even they wouldn’t qualify to take a snap themselves, since they don’t have enough followers (or a blue tick).
“It’s a crap attempt at outrage marketing, they could have planned this a bit better,” one Twitter user surmised.
However, others are speculating that this is actually just a PR stunt for a forthcoming TV show:
But now the truth behind the mural has been revealed – and it turns out it’s all to advertise a new TV series about influencers called Like and Subscribe.
The cast includes Dillon Francis, comedian Brandon Wardell and former SNL castmember John Milhiser. It will run for seven episodes that range in length from 15 to 25 minutes.
“I’m honestly surprised the mural didn’t get destroyed,” Jack Wagner, the man behind the show, told The Hollywood Reporter.
But he wasn’t too concerned about the backlash to his viral marketing stunt: “We gotta do what we gotta do to get people to talk about the show.”
(Image: Jakob Owens on Unsplash)
