Want to know where influencers spring from? Look at their parents
What’s happening with Olivia Jade, the Instagram influencer who was named and shamed in the US college admissions scandal?
Dawn, London
I’m back! As some of you (well, my mother) may have noticed, I have been away for a few weeks. Booking time off is always exciting, isn’t it? Until that time off comes around and you realise you are now missing the most exciting news story ever. What, Brexit? The Mueller report? I guess they have their newsy appeal. But, no. I am referring to the US college admissions scandal, a story that involves privileged American kids, the actor Felicity Huffman and a cast member from Full House! The only way this story could appeal to me more is if it was filmed by John Hughes and renamed Hadley Freeman’s Day Off.
Last month, it emerged that dozens of American parents were accused of getting their children into top-level universities by paying thousands of dollars in bribes, getting people to help their kids cheat on exams, and making mock-up photos depicting their children as athletic superstars. Tsk, don’t people know that the American way to get your kid into college is to donate a library and spend God knows what on private education? How dare anyone try to circumvent the noble US education system by handing over a couple of grand instead of a cool chunk of millions?
The involvement of Huffman, who is married to William H Macy, initially got the lion’s share of the attention, not least because the whole farrago felt like a budget Coen brothers film come to life. Truly, this is Fargo, acted out by the senior class of a Beverly Hills private high school, all of whom refer to Steven Spielberg as Uncle Steve.
But true connoisseurs of US pop culture knew that the real star was Lori Loughlin, better known to Americans of a certain age as Aunt Becky from Full House. What is this mysterious Full House of which I speak, asks Britain? Come closer, culturally deprived northern European country and I’ll explain. Full House was a terrible sitcom that ran in the US in the late 80s and 90s and is best known to the general public for launching the careers of the Olsen twins. But it is better known to this fan for co-starring Dave Coulier, who was later rumoured to be the subject of Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know. No one ever went down on Uncle Joey in a “the-a-tre” on Full House, I can tell you.
Since the sad demise of Full House – truly, the epicentre of 90s culture – Loughlin has been keeping busy, raising two daughters and forking out half a mill to get them into the University of Southern California. Oh, Aunt Becky! This is just like the Full House episode in which she was shocked about Uncle Jesse lying to get their twins into pre-school, but funny.
The twist that interested me is that Loughlin’s daughter, Olivia Jade, is an Instagram influencer. Occasionally, I look at Instagram influencers, flogging hairspray and coffee shakes to their followers, and I think: “Good Lord, from whence did these shameless shills with no moral compasses spring?” And now we know the answer: from the kind of parents she apparently has.
Regular readers will know that this column is not a massive fan of influencers, and I am particularly sceptical of ones who use their kids to sell crap. Despite still being a teenager, Olivia Jade was prolific, promoting everything from printers to Amazon to makeup, sometimes alongside her mother. Because, truly, there is no greater lesson a mother can teach her daughter than the power of advertising via personal branding. It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting, but with a Valencia filter.
Quite a few of these brands, including HP and Sephora, have now dropped Olivia Jade, because, I guess, she no longer represents their values. But what, actually, did she represent before? A random teenager with extremely wealthy parents; was that representing your printers’ values, HP? Was a freshman who used her time at USC to promote Amazon Prime the aspirational look you were going for, Sephora?
Instagram influencers invariably present a nauseatingly privileged life of leisure. The idea that brands employ them for their morality, or university-level intelligence, is making me a little hysterical. Olivia Jade didn’t actually do anything wrong. So if she was good enough for those brands before her parents turned themselves in to the FBI, then she should be now. But it turns out, unsurprisingly, in the world of influencing, image really is all. Live by the filter, die by the filter.
