A “lifestyle blogger” is trying to explain her actions after facing a backlash online for having a photographer friend document her motorcycle accident. The images drew particular criticism for appearing to have product placement with bottles of branded water placed in shot.
Based in Nashville, Tiffany Mitchell has over 211,000 followers on Instagram. She had a photographer friend traveling with her when she fell victim to a motorcycle accident that left her with some scrapes. Despite the incident, the photographer continued to take snaps, which Mitchell later uploaded to her Instagram page. In some of the dramatic photos, Mitchell is seen lying on the road receiving help, seemingly in pain. However, some of the photos also feature some conveniently-placed bottles of Smartwater.
She has since told BuzzFeed News she “would never turn a very important personal story like this into a brand campaign,” and that she is sad people feel that way. She also asked them not to cover the story, because of the negative press it would receive.
Commenters were of course vocal about their feelings on the posts, making the observation it was “weird” to post professional grade images of an allegedly real accident. Of course, others were skeptical about just how genuine the images were. Mitchell claims she had no idea her friend was still snapping after the accident occurred. Quite how the water bottles made it to such a prominent spot of the photo remains unknown.
The posts prompted Smartwater to make contact with BuzzFeed News, to confirm they had no ongoing sponsorship with her. Quite bizarre, then, that their bottles should feature so prominently. Product placement has, over recent years, become increasingly common, particularly in the era of the influencer. Many influencers have continually proven just how desperate they are to appear popular, and as if they have many sponsors, and you couldn’t be blamed for suspecting Mitchell of trying to stage the photo as if to make it appear to be a sponsored post. As many commenters were keen to point out, both her bike and her helmet change between the before and after pictures.
The whole scenario feels at best opportunistic, and at worst conniving. Either way, that a road collision can be considered a photo opportunity is alarming, and only further cements the lengths influencers are willing to go to in order to further their careers.
Not to mention dude is literally grabbing the only area on her entire arm that is wounded, with his whole hand, pulling her up. Yea fucking right get real. Anyone who has had road rash or anything similar would not let someone grab them by it and pull them up. Not to mention that area is in such a weird area that could possibly get injured in such an isolated way, leaving the entire rest of the arm fine.
Posed. Hair has been combed after coming out of the old brain bucket. No grass stains on those white pants. Buhloney through and through. Anybody I ever saw down after a crash was either dead or in pain, not wishing some branded water bottle was nearby.
After further research, I uncovered some things. None of the visible marks were injuries, they are all tattoos, that just happen to look like fake road rash. She did not slide on the road at all, she slid across grass and came to a stop at the road. I do not think this was staged, I think that there is a great misunderstanding of what actually happened.
I also still think she was not wearing appropriate riding attire. I also think she is a terrible rider :D
Vitamin Water was not a sponsor, and I can see how it is just coincidence that the water bottles look staged, sometimes happy accidents happen. Overall, this whole thing can be filed between "not that interesting" and "I dont care"
Can we please stop reporting on so called "influencers" who have ZERO influence!!!
Yea there's over 200k followers but when you dig into the numbers she's getting HORRIBLE engagement.
Isn't that her job, life happens, grab a sponsor and pose for a photo regardless of what happens, now she has more followers because of sites write articles like this to feed the beast. So who really is in the wrong here. It's society, society is in the wrong.