Viral videos have circulated on social media showing two female ‘Instagram Influencers’ accompanied by their loyal ‘picture taking boyfriends’ posing for fake ‘riot rebuilding’ pictures. The first video has caused such outrage that is has by now been seen 25 million times.
Images of the smashed shopfronts are of course a golden photo opportunity for Instagram influencers who hope to show to their followers that they are doing their part to rebuild the city …. as it once was (or whatever the will say on social media).
One of those “Instagram models” could be seen eyeing up a potential photo opportunity amid the destruction.
The woman poses next to a worker holding a drill as she poses to help him whilst her boyfriend takes pictures of her. Afterwards, the couple gets into a parked Mercedes SUV as an unknown woman sarcastically shouts: ‘Boyfriends of instagram’.
The video caption reads: “This lady stopped someone boarding up a store in Santa Monica so she could hold the drill for a picture, then drove away.”
T-Mobile
Another infamous video shows a woman posing with her back outside a looted T-Mobile store in LA’s Santa Monica. She is believed to be a former UCLA cheerleader and has been slammed for her actions on social media.
The Twitter user who uploaded the clip stated in warning to the girl: “These protesters are not a content opportunity for you.”
“Influencers: use your platform for actual good, not the perception of good.”
“It’s just disgraceful. Just shows what they care about most: posing,” one person wrote.
The funniest comment stated that the possible caption to the Instagram pic would be: “as i walked through the ruins of what was once my beautiful Santa Monica, I had to ask myself… was violence the answer to violence? we MUST to be better than this”
