Influencer reveals how she faked a holiday to Bali by having a sneaky photoshoot in IKEA to prove how easy it is to pretend to have a glamorous lifestyle online
- Natalia Taylor, 23, from California, wanted to prove how easy it is to ‘pretend you are someone you’re not’ online
- Vlogger revealed that she decided to test how easy it was to pretend she was on an exotic holiday
- Pranked her followers by doing a photoshoot in Ikea and posting the pictures with the Bali location tag after sharing fake airport pictures to her stories
- Revealed everyone believed her and warned ‘not to always believe what you see’
A YouTube star who wanted to prove how easy it is to ‘pretend you are someone you’re not’ online revealed how she faked a holiday to Bali with pictures taken in Ikea.
Natalia Taylor, 23, from California, boasts 316k followers on Instagram and almost 2 million followers on YouTube.
The vlogger revealed that she decided to test how easy it was to pretend she was on an exotic holiday, after noticing an increasing number of influencers being caught pretending they were away or photoshopping themselves onto fake backgrounds.
The influencer decided to take her photographer Ally Amodeo to her local Ikea, and have an impromptu photoshoot in front of confused customers and staff, before looking up tags from travellers at Bali airport and reposting them, ensuring there was a ‘realistic’ timeline which included travel on her stories – before she posted the Ikea pictures with the geo location tags.
However Natalia did leave one clue in her pictures – Ikea tags in the background to see if any of her followers would spot the clue she was faking it.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sz42PrqWq-g%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1
Natalia Taylor, 23, from California, boasts 316k followers on Instagram and almost 2 million followers on YouTube. She wanted to prove how easy it is to ‘pretend you are someone you’re not’ online revealed how she faked a holiday to Bali with pictures taken in Ikea
The influencer decided to take her photographer Ally Amodeo to her local Ikea, and have an impromptu photoshoot in front of confused customers and staff
Speaking in a video which showed her arriving at Ikea, she explained: ‘So many influencers have been caught in the act pretending they’re away, photoshopping themselves into a picture or sharing a post that’s not even them.
‘I wanted to test my followers to see how many of them would notice if I pretended to be away.’
She was then seen in full hair and make-up, posing in one of the shop floor’s bathtubs, before using a bedroom as a would-be hotel and pretending to order room service.
She admitted: ‘It was slightly awkward as everyone was watching us and we were nervous about getting caught by an Ikea worker.’
before looking up tags from travellers at Bali airport and reposting them, ensuring there was a ‘realistic’ timeline which included travel on her stories – before she posted the Ikea pictures with the geo location tags
Speaking in a video which showed her arriving at Ikea, seen, she explained: ‘So many influencers have been caught in the act pretending they’re away, photoshopping themselves into a picture or sharing a post that’s not even them
Natalia then added: ‘I told my photographer Ally to intentionally leave in some of the Ikea tags and if you look closely you can see some of them.
‘I wanted to leave some Easter eggs for those followers who were a little too clever.’
Explaining how she wanted to make her story more convincing, she explained: ‘The timeline on Instagram had to be believable so I started with my stories and literally took pictures from the internet for this. I looked up the hashtag Bali and found airport snaps that I took.
‘The point of this video was to show people how easy it is to trick people into thinking you’re someone you’re not’.
Natalia posted pictures to her stories in the run up to sharing the Ikea pictures on her Instagram to make the posts more believable
Her photographer Ally was seen taking pictures as confused customers wandered by in the background but the staff didn’t stop them from taking photos
However Natalia did leave one clue in her pictures – Ikea tags in the background to see if any of her followers would spot the clue she was faking it
And Natalie admitted that once the scene was set and she was ready to post her first snap, she felt nervous about betraying her followers’ trust.
She said: ‘I have such a close trust with my followers that posting the first picture made me really nervous.’
She continued: ‘Everyone believed I was there, no one is questioning it – even though the Ikea tag is there in the second picture, along with an Ikea iPad.’
Revealing that three pictures later none of her followers had caught on to her trick, she admitted: ‘I feel like a jerk that I broke my trust with my followers. All the comments are nice. I’m just a big fat liar who doesn’t deserve these amazing followers!
‘I can’t believe I got away with fooling everyone into thinking that I went to another country, when really I just went down to the local Ikea.
‘This video has a lesson – don’t trust everything you see on the internet!
‘Sometimes people want to lie about who you are as a person, and it’s not hard to do apparently. ‘
Natalia admitted that she felt bad tricking her followers, the majority of whom didn’t realise her prank
She was then seen in full hair and make-up, posing in one of the shop floor’s bathtubs, before using a bedroom as a would-be hotel and pretending to order room service
Following the shoot (seen) Natalia said: ‘This video has a lesson – don’t trust everything you see on the internet!’
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