Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
I'm your host Lauren Meissner, the founder of the Australian
youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone.
Happy Monday, I hope you all had a good weekend.
I am back. I'm feeling refreshed.
I was down the coast with my family, which was so nice.
My parents are still here in Australia, which has been
amazing. They actually don't leave until
the end of March, so I have lots of time with them, which has
been so nice because obviously they live very, very far away
normally. All right, I have a pretty big
episode for you guys today. The stories are just like 2 of
them are pretty meaty, so I want to get straight into it.
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OK, let's get into it. The first story that I have for
you guys today is the Sydney Road Beauty event continues to
spark discourse online, this time for a lack of diversity
among influencers invited. So last week I covered the
Sydney Road launch event and how a random UGC creator went viral.
She wasn't even invited, but she kind of stumbled upon the event
and documented herself, like finding the event and what the
event was like on the outside. And that went pretty viral.
Well, over the weekend, discourse about the event has
continued because there's now been a lot of criticism about
how white the event was in terms of attendees.
There was an obvious lack of diversity and influencers
invited. And there's lots of people
online saying they knew exactly who was going to be invited to
this event because it's the same influencers that are invited to
every Aussie brand event. We all saw the Rd.
Sydney launch, we all saw who was there.
We knew what the guest list look like before we even opened a
single video, right? There's a two-part situation
here, OK? It's on one, the onus of the
public and who we follow and champion.
But also it is on these PR companies and these influencer
relation girly pops. I cannot beg you enough to widen
your horizons to other creators, smaller creators, people of
color creators, curvy girlies, the lot.
Like you need to champion these women because they are putting
out some content. Pan out there?
I keep seeing tik toks of everyone being like, I'm so
bored of seeing the same influences at every event.
Yeah, I made a similar video a couple months ago talking about
calling out to brands about they should take different influences
to things like Coachella. So I've seen the road event
today in Australia. I know I'm not the only person
seeing this. First of all, what did you guys
get? Let me know.
Second of all though, this is actually not a critique on road
at all because this is not their fault at all.
More so I think the event managers that maybe do the PR
for these kind of events to another girl talking about this
actually, but it really is the same group of influencers that
go every time and I love that for them.
I but I think we would all really love to start seeing some
smaller creators going to these events, creators that are of.
I'm. Really trying not to be a
Habeah, but I already know who's going to these Rd. events
because you've gone to every other event this year and last
year and the year before. What I'm trying to say is I'm a
little bit bored. Like girl, I already know you're
going to go meet Hailey Bieber and Margaret Robbie and Jake
Bellary and like I already know who's going.
It's the same people that go to every event.
OK so before I get into it, no one is saying that these white
influencers shouldn't be invited or shouldn't go to events that
they're invited to. It's more so that the Australian
fashion beauty influencer space, those industries at large have
very deep rooted systemic racism and discrimination problems.
And these brands and PR agencies can continue to get away with
invite list like this despite us having this conversation every
few months. Like this is absolutely not the
first time that we've had this discussion.
And that's a thing, right? Like the Sydney Road event was
presumably an event for elite influencers because Haley
herself would be there. But the quote UN quote elite
influencers in in Australia, most of them are white.
And the people with the power to change who is viewed as elite
within the industry, obviously outside a follower count, are
those in charge of gifting lists and PR invites.
There's a lot of people being like, you can't control who has
the most followers and all of that.
But I actually do think a creator's status can be elevated
by how the industry perceives them and what experiences they
are invited to and aligned with outside of follower count.
However, the people who are in a position to elevate someone's
status, they are also largely white, so there isn't
necessarily a conscious effort made to ensure that they're
keeping diversity top of mind. Also, as we know, algorithms are
really racist, so they will suppress content by creators of
color, they will push content by white creators.
So if we're not making a conscious effort to keep
diversity top of mind, then the quote UN quote elite rung of
influencers within the industry will continue to be majority
white. It shouldn't take effort to
diversify your feed, but it does because of so many of the
systemic barriers that prevent creators of color from breaking
into the mainstream with the same ease that white creators
can. And I also wanted to highlight a
point made here by a creator named Mulan.
She noted the pressure that's put on the few creators of color
who are invited to these events. In my experience and what I've
seen from a lot of PR events recently is that a lot of brands
are only concerned about diversity as far as optics go.
And what I mean by that is that they're very happy to have like
1-2, maybe 3 POC creators there. And I know to a lot of people
you're probably like, well, that's like a lot 2 or 3, isn't
that what you want? Just want a handful of POC
creators there. The issue with that is when you
only have like 3 or 4 POC creators in a room of like 5050
girls, it is tokenization. Like those girls are just there
to be tokenized and just for the brand to say, hey, we care about
diversity. Those are the girls that get
rolled out for a couple of pictures so they can claim
diversity. And it means that for those POC
creators that are invited to these events, it puts a lot of
pressure on them because now they can't just be themselves.
Now they have to be the representation in the room.
They have to represent not just themselves, but the entirety of
their like minority group. So when you have only like 1-2,
maybe 3 POC people there, it puts a lot of pressure on them
because they're like, fuck, I need to turn it out.
I need to be going above and beyond.
I need to be showing face serving looks as they would be
anyway. But there is now this more added
pressure because it's not just themselves they're representing,
it's the collective. But if you are a creator,
especially an Aussie creator who is feeling burnt out on this
conversation or discouraged by what we saw at the road event, I
did want to leave you with this piece of advice from the
Cambino. She's one of Australia's most
influential fashion creators and she's also a woman of color.
She posted this on her Instagram stories yesterday.
I see so much discourse around the influencer space in Sydney
and like, I just want to give one piece of advice.
Banking your entire career goal and trajectory on making it in
Australia slash Sydney is a huge mistake and disservice to
yourself. Aim higher.
Do you want to sit with me at Chanel or do you want to go to a
Mecca event? Stop feeding into shit that
doesn't service you. I have my moments too where I'm
like wow why did NGV in Melbourne extend an invite?
And then I'm like babe you just did Chanel couture, you saw
Peter's last Alya show. Everything's so fine.
And look at not everyone is going to be able to make that
kind of career happen for themselves.
But if there's one thing about the Kimbino, it's that she has
been at this for so long. And Australia has absolutely, I
mean, for years they still do, but they did for so, so long
just completely ignore her. Even though she was doing this
amazing work, amazing commentary on fashion.
Celebrities were flying her out to LA to consult on their lines.
She had a list followers and people reposting her and sharing
her commentary. And she was getting recognized
globally, but here in Australia, a lot of people in the industry
wouldn't give her the time of day.
So even though, yes, the career that she has built for herself
is phenomenal and it might feel so out of reach, but I think her
advice still rings true. Aim higher, shoot for the
fucking stars and don't get bogged down in the details of
like the local who's who who's invited here.
You know, the Internet is global, social media is global.
And at this point, budgets in a lot of cases are also global.
All right, the next story that I have for you guys today, we need
to talk about the Shrek cautionary tale discourse going
on on TikTok. I'm sure you guys have seen
this, but a creator named Amber Akila has gone viral for her hot
take about how the movie Shrek is a quote cautionary tale for
women. Amber is a DJ and a music
producer who uses her TikTok largely to discuss cultural
commentary, pop culture analysis and content for women around
decentering men in their lives. Five days ago, Amber posted a
video that's reached nearly 8 million in views in which she
said that Shrek is a cautionary tale about how a woman can't
turn an ogre into a man, but he can make an ogre out of you.
I just posted on my Instagram story about how Shrek is not a
fairy tale, it's a cautionary tale.
An example of how a woman cannot turn an ogre into a man, but he
can make an ogre out of you. Because she started as a
Princess, she had generational wealth.
She could have had a pet dragon. And because she was stuck up
there, no hobbies, no friends, the first person she meets is
this Moody ass stubborn ogre that basically nags her.
She takes that as a sign to like get him to like her, and she
falls in love with him. He manages to get a Princess to
settle for him. An antisocial outcast lives in a
swamp. Isn't he also unemployed?
She's thinking Oh my God I got the loser to love me.
Alienates herself from her family to live with him in a
swamp. Gets baby trapped.
She's also an ogre now, so if she ever wanted to leave him,
she's severely limited her potential dating pool.
He's not willing to change anything about himself all the
way he lives or to level up in order to provide for her and
their family. Did I mention she lives in a
swamp when she could have lived in a castle?
People try to trick women into not caring about material
things, but there really is a level that you need to care
about when you're going to raise children.
OK, men can go their whole lives sleeping on the floor, but how
are you going to raise children in that kind of environment?
You could be the prettiest and richest girl in the land, and if
you don't have a hobby and some friends, you'll end up in the
swamp with an ogre and you'll become an ogre too.
OK, so this video is incredibly divisive.
There are millions of people that agree with her, but there
are, I would argue, more people that disagree with her.
There is massive criticism around this take for several
reasons. And yes, I am about to analyze
Shrek. OK, 1st, the main criticism is
that this take is a fundamental misrepresentation of the actual
story of Shrek and is an example of the MIDI and is an example of
the media literacy crisis that we keep hearing about.
I think it's a bit reductive to say that this is an example of
the media literacy crisis. I think we'll throw that term
around like a little bit too loosely here, but that is kind
of the first take care. So Fiona did not turn into an
ogre for Shrek. She was always an ogre.
She turned into an ogre every single night, which is why she
did not want to be seen at night.
He didn't turn her into one. She became an ogre for like,
true Love's kiss, whatever. And she thought she was going to
turn into a Princess. But it turns out that like, what
she actually was was an ogre. And in ignoring that major plot
point, the argument falls apart. But one of the most liked
comments on this video reads. I'm pretty sure if Fiona had
been an ogre from the very beginning of the movie, he
wouldn't have been interested in her.
She was. She was you guys.
She was. That was the point.
She was an ogre. Shrek loved who she really was.
And that was the message that being different makes you
special. Not letting other people's
opinions define you, not subscribing to what society
wants you to be. Because obviously, you know, her
family wanted her to be a Princess, which is why they
locked her in a tower because they were like, oh, you're
disgusting. We need this curse to be broken.
And they thought that if she found true love or whatever, she
would become a Princess. And she became ogre.
So here's a clip from creator Lizzie for every time.
Shrek is a cautionary tale about settling for a loser.
Shrek is a cautionary tale about the dangers of overvaluing
wealth, material goods, and a physical beauty.
Her other option was Lord Farquaad, who was an evil,
useless piece of shit who only wanted to marry her because she
was a Princess. The second he found out he was,
she was an ogre. At night he freaking started
shitting on her. He jilted her.
The whole point of the movie is that she could not be herself
around Lord Farquaad Shrek like who she was not the imaginary
Princess of. That was like beautiful and
rich. OK.
Second, another major criticism is this take definitely has some
fem cell adjacent messaging around transactional
relationships and the provider narrative.
I know some of you guys might be like, is literally not that
deep. Sometimes it is that deep and
you know, she's making it that deep, so we're going in, Amber
says. The main take away is Fiona
could have had generational wealth living in a castle but
she didn't have hobbies or friends and so she ended up in a
swamp with an ogre. Fiona didn't have hobbies or
friends because she was locked in a tower and what her family
and society wanted from her was for her to be a Princess.
And the focus on Shrek being unemployed.
First of all, he's an ogre, OK. But second of all, it really
does feel like it threads that like sprinkle sprinkle messaging
throughout this video. Like the value of a relationship
comes from the transactional nature of it.
So this is the clip from Amanda just vibing.
Calling Shrek broke guy propaganda and saying that Ariel
gave up her life for a man give off the same energy.
You fundamentally misunderstand both stories.
You fundamentally misunderstand both female character.
You have a very narrow view of the world.
You have a very narrow view of narratives.
It's giving bio essentialism the overemphasis on appearance and
finances, the overemphasis on societal power.
Basically Woking yourself into a circle, tying yourself into a
knot, and slingshotting yourself down the tunnel of conservative
values. The girl bossification of
fiction is not as feminist as you think it is.
Dumbing something down to she gave everything up for a man is
not the take that you think it is.
Discounting things like acceptance and love and acting
like finding someone who meets you where you're at is entirely
impossible is not the take that you think it is.
And the thing that I really hate about these takes is that it
completely abandons what these characters have told us from the
beginning. Fiona turned into an ogre every
night. And Fiona was not the pretty,
pretty Princess that everybody thought she was.
She knew how to throw hand. She barked loudly, she talked
back. She was an autonomous and
independent being before, during, and after Shrek.
Her electing to be with someone who saw her for who she was was
not a failing. She did not change for Shrek.
She elected to be who she already was and he elected to
love her the way she already was.
What is wrong with? That it's also been interesting
to see in the comment section how people have interpreted
Fiona's showing Shrek that she's an ogre.
Lots of people are saying it's obvious watching back as an
adult now, that Fiona didn't want to be an ogre, she wanted
to be human. But Shrek convinced her to stay
an ogre when she didn't want to and she could have had it so
much better. Again, the point of the movie
was is that she was an ogre in her true form.
She wanted to be a Princess because she thought that's what
society and suitors and her parents wanted from her and it
was more desirable. And then she found someone who
loves her for who she truly is. This is a clip from Corin XV.
There is 1.3 million people who like that video who do not
remember what Shrek was about or what happened in these films and
it is crazy to see my boy Shrek get slandered this hard.
She says that the Shrek films are not fairy tales and ignoring
the fact that like these movies literally are not fairy tales,
they were created to make fun of fairy tale tropes.
She frames the first movie as Shrek being like some type of
broke bum, but because he rescued Fiona and she he's the
first man that she's seen in years, she falls in love with
Shrek and ends up becoming an ogre.
That's not what happened. Shrek owned land.
He owned his own swamp. And then one day he wakes up and
there are thousands of fairy tale creatures at his home, you
know, on his property. So he goes to Lord Farquaad and
in the process he proves that he's the most capable champion
at fighting. So Lord Farquaad says you will
be my champion. You will rescue the Princess.
And Shrek's like I don't want to do that.
I just want these people out of my home.
So Lord Farquaad says I'll cut you a deal if you go rescue the
Princess then I'll make sure your home's exactly the way it
was before all these creatures came.
When Shrek rescues Fiona, they don't like each other.
Shrek doesn't like her because he doesn't like people at this
point in the story, and Fiona doesn't like Shrek because she
feels like she's getting cheated out of the fairy tale that's
been told to her since she was a little kid locked in the tower.
They only start having feelings for one another as they're
traveling because they start to find out that they have a lot in
common. Because a big aspect of Fiona's
character in the first movie is that she does not fit the mold
of a traditional Princess. She's not a damsel in distress.
We find out that she's a very capable fighter.
She was really in the tower by choice.
She could have escaped anytime she wanted to.
She was just waiting for a Prince Charming.
She knows how to survive in the wilderness.
She's not like, you know, traditionally girly or anything
like that. Then we get the big reveal that
she turns into an ogre at night and through her conversation
with Donkey we see that this bothers her so much because she
feels like she has a societal standard to uphold.
She literally says how could anyone love me if I'm ugly?
Ugly and Princess don't go together.
She feels like she has to break this curse that her being an
ogre is bad. That her you know being ugly is
wrong because that is what was pushed onto her since she was a
little kid, which we find out in the second movie specifically
her dad pushing that on her. So at the end of Shrek one when
they confess to one another and the curse is broken, she ends up
as an ogre. That's not because of what Shrek
wanted that's because at her heart that's who she always was.
She never identified with the fairy tale Princess side that
she was pushed onto her. It's also crazy how that
original video frames Shrek as if he downgraded Fiona's life.
Like the original person went on to say that like oh, Fiona used
to be a Princess, she used to be rich.
She's literally still all of those things.
That's it's literally the entire conflict of Shrek 2.
So I know that film and art, it can be interpreted in many ways,
and I'm not trying to say that there's like a right or wrong
way to interpret the messaging in Shrek.
But in my opinion, this take does twist Fiona's entire story
and ignores ginormous plot points that were served to us,
that were given to us, and therefore the argument doesn't
hold up. We also do need to consider the
context of the media that we're analyzing.
And in this case, it's a children's movie.
So we have to assume that the messaging is going to be more on
the nose and explicit for that reason.
And that's my analysis of the Shrek is a cautionary tale
discourse. Please let me know what you guys
think. Those are my opinions, but of
course, as always, share yours. If you feel like I'm totally off
base, let me know, OK? And the last story that I have
for you guys today, creator Really Rapunzel is leaving
TikTok after six years of collecting her hair.
So really Rapunzel started her account in 2020 where she
documented herself collecting hair that had fallen out of her
head. She would stick the hair to a
line of tape on her wall. And over six years, she's
basically collected like a wig's worth of hair.
Over the weekend, she posted that she's ending this chapter
and leaving TikTok. It doesn't seem like for any
particular reason, and it really seems like she's just kind of
like over this chapter. And I know there are very mixed
opinions about her content. A lot of people find it gross.
I am definitely somebody who finds rogue hair kind of gross,
and I know that this is niche, but I wanted to cover it for two
reasons. First, because really Rapunzel
represents this type of creator that I really believe we will
never get again. There were all of these creators
who were doing really specific projects or like niche sticks
that went so viral in 2020 when we were first all discovering
TikTok, and they entertained us during lockdown and they set the
tone for what to expect on the app.
Another one of those creators that comes to mind, like,
literally just top of mind for me is Willy Wonka.
He is like a relic. But yeah, watching content from
these creators, especially really Rapunzel, who hasn't
changed her content since then, almost feels like getting
transported back to a time on TikTok before people started
using the app for news, for commentary.
It really just at the time was a place for people to experiment
during lockdown. We were like, all in lockdown
together, you know, it felt very like community oriented.
It was like weirdos showing off their projects and making silly,
harmless content and teenagers dancing, and it was just a
totally different time on the app.
And that's really noticeable in the comments section.
Her comments are filled with people being like, Oh my God,
how have I been watching you do this project for six years?
Like please don't stop. I started watching you on day
one and I was in this place in my life.
And now it's six years later and I'm in this place in my life and
like you've been such a constant for me.
Watching you do this project has been a constant for me.
Like please don't go. So let me read you some of these
comments. This comment says, wait, you're
leaving. No, I've been here since the
first strand of hair. Don't go.
I've left an abusive relationship, gotten married,
had a baby all while following this journey and this comment
has 522.2000 likes. Another comment reads Girl I
have graduated high school, left a 2 1/2 year relationship, met
the love of my life and had two kids Don't go.
And this one has 60,000 likes, another reads It is insane to me
that I've been watching a stranger collect their hair and
tape it to a wall for six years. That has 330.6000 likes and
another reads I beat alcoholism, got married and had two boys and
I'm about to go back to school. What do you mean this is over?
That's the other reason why I want to cover this.
I don't think I got to a #2 Her comment section shows the power
of consistently showing up online for your audience and how
we can develop this attachment to it.
A parasocial relationship almost to like a style of content.
Because we don't know, as far as I know anything about really
Rapunzel. We literally watch her stick
hair to her wall and that's it. And seeing how people can mark
life events and passages of time through, you know, consuming
this content and consider their own life milestones in it.
It's so fascinating. And it really shows the power of
an app like TikTok and how social media has changed and how
we consume content in our relationship to content and
creators over time and styles of content that we never really
consider. We think a lot about parasocial
relationships and knowing a lot about different people.
But this is an example of, you know, a connection to a style of
content, which I think is really interesting and a project people
love seeing through a project. Anyways, guys, that's it for
many scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
I love you guys. Please remember to rate, review
and subscribe. Please Spotify star rate US,
subscribe to us on YouTube and our Patreon and newsletter if
you so wish. I love you guys and I will talk
to you tomorrow. Bye.
Centennial World Podcast network operates on Gadigal land.
We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Aura Nation, the
traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
elders both past and present.