Coming up today on Mini Scroll, an Aussie brand accidentally
outs an influencer for asking for free clothing tops.
Grocery store claps back at Katherine Ebbs and Margaret
Quali and Jack Antonov split. 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 Meisner,
the founder of the Australian youth digital media brand
Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll,
everyone. All right, I don't think I have
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All right, let's just get into the stories for today.
So the first story that I have for you guys today is runaway.
The label has accidentally exposed the wife of an F1
driver. So runaway.
The label is a Sydney based brand that is definitely one of
those like trendy cute Australian online stores.
I think I have followed them for years, probably being based in
Sydney. They sell anything from wedding
guest dresses to loungewear to matching sets.
The label also has a pretty sizeable following.
They have over 730,000 followers on Instagram and 81,000 on
Tiktok. So earlier this week, the
brand's social team posted a clip to Tiktok and it was them
being excited that they had received Adm from Alexandra
Leclerc. So Alexandra, if you don't know,
is married to Charles Leclerc, who is a famous F1 driver.
And F1 is definitely out of my wheelhouse, OK?
I do not watch Drive to Survive. I know I should.
I know everybody's obsessed with it.
My husband's obsessed with F1 too.
But it's kind of outside of my wheelhouse.
So stick with me. But Charles has been in the
sport sense, 2019, and he currently competes for Ferrari.
The pair reportedly met in 2023 and got engaged at the end of
2025 and they got married in February of this year.
So Alexandra is obviously well known because of her marriage,
but she is also a popular fashion and lifestyle creator.
She has almost 5 million followers on Instagram.
So of course it's great publicity when she wears
anyone's clothing uses anyone's product.
So that makes sense as to why runaway the label, why they were
so excited by this DM that they got from her.
And it's not just her following. Like as somebody who doesn't
follow F1, I still like knew who she was, right?
Like she's still very like culturally relevant.
She's part of the zeitgeist right now.
So it makes sense like she has a lot of clout, like even outside
of having just like a big following.
OK so in the TikTok you could see Alexandra's DM to run away
the label. She had sent a reel of one of
their dresses and wrote hi, I was looking at outfits for my
upcoming summer trips and I was wondering if you would be
interested in sending me this blue set.
It's so cute. And then the girls that work at
the label, they were all so excited.
In the video, six of them were drafting a response together
that is so relatable and they ended up responding.
Anything you want. Please let us know if you would
like any other pieces along with your shipping details and we can
get it out to you ASAP. We love you so much.
Runaway the label posted this not to like expose her for
asking for free clothes, like they were showing the behind the
scenes of getting Adm from like this huge personality and like
how they were so excited about this.
However, social media users did not see it in such a positive
light. So many people are in disbelief
that Alexandra would ask for a free dress, pointing to the fact
that her husband is a multimillionaire.
One Reddit user wrote quote They just moved into a luxurious
newly built apartment and recently got a brand new custom
yacht. Gifted items are a reality of
influencer marketing, but the CM comes off in poor taste,
especially because the set she's asking for is under $200.
A user on X wrote. I don't really care for Wags,
but this girl has millions of dollars sitting in her bank
account. If she really wanted the
clothes, she could just buy it herself instead of exploiting
her fame to get free handouts from small businesses.
OK, so amid the mounting backlash Runaway, the label
actually ended up taking down the TikTok to protect Alexandra.
According to social media users, the brand did respond to slash
like some comments clarifying that Alexandra asked them to
send the dress because it was sold out online.
So obviously the video has been deleted so we can't see if they
did or did not like these comments.
However, we had a look at their website run away the label while
researching and the clothing in question seems to be the agenta
ruched waist back sea skirt seafoam and the agenta scoop
halter bodysuit in seafoam. And when we looked, all of the
sizes were in stock except for extra, extra small and extra
small. So I'm assuming she's like an
extra small and that that is possibly the reason why she DMS
them this in saying that, there's also a lot of people
coming forward saying like this unfortunately is just like
common practice in the creator economy.
Obviously, the bigger question here is like, should it be?
But at the end of the day, is that bigger question, answering
that bigger question, is it going to change how the industry
operates? Probably not.
I wouldn't pay for anything if I didn't have to and neither would
you. I feel like people just want
excuses to hate rich and successful influences.
Which fair enough, but in this instance Alexandra the clerk on
this dress. I don't get what people are so
outraged by. We already know that in the
industry generally models, celebrities, influencers don't
pay for a lot of things, meals, experiences, holidays, because
the brands profit directly from having people that have a strong
following use their product goes to the restaurant where they're
closed. My thing with this Alexander the
clerk thing is a couple of things.
One, I think clearly she liked the dress, which is nice.
Messaging a brand is not that crazy influences do it all the
time. I've done UGC for brands before.
I've also worked with brands and done like our placement before.
You either message them and request to work with them.
They give you free stuff and make a video or they pay you.
That is how the industry works. What I think is interesting is
the girls that posted the video, they clearly seem very excited
about her messaging them. Small brand, niche brand.
She has 4.9 million followers. It's great exposure.
Now I'm not sure what happened, why things went wrong, but I've
seen the videos got taken down. I don't know if they gave her
the dress as an as a celebrity influencer model, whatever.
If you now see that brand, you're not going to work with
them because you realize if you measure them directly,
privately, the messages you're sending are going to be shown
online. It's not a good look for the
brand I'm thinking for. The second thing is for the
brand, I think in terms of exposure, they fumble the bad
because even if the dress was cheap, and let's just be clear,
of course she can afford the dress.
It's not a money question. Charles Leclerc is one of the
richest people like in F1. So it's not about affordability,
it's about brand partnerships and building relationships.
You could have worn that dress and got sent it for free, then
start working with them on a more exclusive long term basis.
I feel like people just think about virality and what they can
post online and a quick view and don't think about long term
strategy. At the time of recording,
Alexandra has not addressed the situation, but she is receiving
a lot of hate. And this whole thing is pretty
interesting because I think that really solidifies something that
we have talked about on this podcast for, I mean, I, I'm
going to say like at least over a year, which is like, people
have such extreme influencer fatigue and the concept of PR
and like influencers and celebrities and wealthy people
and famous people getting free stuff is such an extremely sore
point for everybody right now amid cost of living, mass
layoffs across every single industry.
And this story is particularly interesting because this was
actually a small business, like showing a win, being like, this
is going to be a win. And this will probably
contribute to our small business like making money and, you know,
like having a big moment, but the Internet still got mad about
it. So I think that really shows
like how far influencer fatigue has gone and kind of like this
distaste for the influencer industry is right now amongst
the general public. And I wouldn't say that the
distaste extends beyond like comments and kind of like TikTok
and Reddit backlash. Like influencers and the creator
economy are, you know, bigger than ever, in many ways more
influential than ever and driving more sales than, you
know, any other type of, like, media has ever driven sales
before. So the actual data doesn't
always match up with like the general opinions that we see
online, which is also another really interesting part of this.
All right, the next story that I have for you guys today is we
have an update on the Katherine Ebbs grocery store saga.
So the grocery store that Catherine was in has clapped
back. We covered the saga on Tuesday,
but for a quick summary, lifestyle influencer Katherine
Ebbs posted this out of touch video while grocery shopping
over the 4th of July holiday weekend.
So she made claims that being at this so-called small town
grocery store was like being in a simulation.
The grocery store in question was Tops, which happens to be a
chain in the area. So it's not like some random
corner store. It is apparently a chain grocery
store. Anyway, viewers were really
disappointed in Catherine for posting a video like this.
And people felt like it was really her, like flaunting her
privilege. And OK, I said this on Tuesday.
I didn't articulate it well. But then I saw somebody else.
I think it they it was on TikTok, maybe articulate it so
much better than me. And I was like, that is what I
was trying to say. I was saying that she was trying
to have kind of like a silly, like oh, I'm so like goofy and
silly moment. And then I saw somebody describe
it as like peak bimbo, quote UN quote, like bimbo humor.
And I was like, that is exactly what I was trying to say.
It's giving kind of like 2000s Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie
humor when they were doing the simple Life and, you know, they
would go around like small towns and different communities and
play this kind of like privileged bimbo character,
right? And that is what this video came
across as. OK, So Tops has taken to
Instagram to respond to the viral moment.
They posted 10 pictures of a woman holding different items
available in the store, directly referencing Catherine's video.
The first picture in the dump had POV.
You're entering the grocery store simulation written over
the top of it, and the caption was even more pointed it read
POV. You're entering the grocery
store simulation. We heard some people are
surprised by what you can find at a teeny tiny grocery store in
the mountains. The good news?
We have over 150 stores across New York, PA, and Vermont, and
we're proud to serve communities of every size.
Whether you're shopping close to home or stocking up for a
mountain getaway, we've got everything you need from fresh
produce and quality meats to seafood, pantry staples and all
the best deals in town. And the Internet has love to
this. This is such a good example of a
brand harnessing A viral moment that is relevant to them.
As we know, the relevancy plays a big role here that is relevant
to them. And doing it in like kind of a
cheeky but still like tasteful way, like not getting in on the
hate. That is something that I hate to
see. It doesn't work.
It cheapens the brand. And we have seen it here and
there over the past several years with brand personalities,
like getting in on drama. And that is like, not the vibe.
And I don't see this as the same as that, right?
Like, this is a tasteful way to like turn this viral moment into
like a cheeky, cute promo for them.
And it doesn't make fun of her, doesn't like, bully her.
So the comments, people are loving it.
Somebody wrote a raise for the social media team.
We love our top simulation. Like everyone's getting in on
it. They're loving it.
Now. Catherine hasn't responded to
this, but she did do another vlog where she went to a grocery
store. So she just did a vlog.
I think it was yesterday I saw. And she was like, guess where
I'm going, guys? I'm going back to the grocery
store. So I think that's probably the
extent of the explanation that users are going to get from her.
All right. And the last story that I have
for you guys today is Jack Antonoff and Margaret Crawley
have apparently split. So the week after Taylor and
Travis's wedding, it seems her longtime collaborator has a
relationship update of his own. Jack Antonoff and Margaret
Crawley have separated after nearly three years of marriage,
according to an exclusive report from PEOPLE.
So, according to the publication, insiders describe
their relationship as rocky. However, representatives for
both Margaret and Jack did not respond to People's request for
comment. OK, so for contacts.
The pair started dating in 2021. They got engaged a year later in
2022, and they married in a private New Jersey ceremony in
August 2023. However, rumors that they had
split have been circulating for a little while, but they really
intensified after Jack reportedly attended Taylor and
Travis's wedding alone. At first, social media users
assumed that Margaret just couldn't make it because she was
filming her upcoming movie King Snake.
But then users pointed out that King Snake had reportedly
wrapped already and there already are relationship rumors
between Margaret and one of her Co stars, Drew Starkey.
And then Dumois said that Margaret was apparently in New
York at the time of the wedding. Regardless.
And then yesterday, right before the People exclusive came out,
everybody noticed that Margaret seemed to have deleted or
archived some pictures with Jack from her Instagram.
However those pictures have actually since been unarchived
and put back on the grid. OK, so I have seen so many
people be so excited for this. It seems like the Internet loves
Margaret Quali, but a lot of people, especially Swifty's,
really don't like Jack Antonov. And I was like, why is that?
Because I don't know enough of like the Swifty lore, right?
Like, I don't know enough of like the Taylor Swift lore to
like fully understand why Swifty's don't love him.
So I was like looking into it and it seems like they just
don't love that she, like consistently collaborates with
him. They think he's kind of boring.
And then there's also a lot of criticism around how he like
publicly did or did not seem to support Margaret throughout the
relationship. There's a lot of people that
feel like he was not super supportive of her.
He wouldn't show up to like some of her big events and things
like that. So in general, I think people
just feel like he was kind of like a bad partner to her.
But Margaret Quali is such an IT girl.
So if she is going to be in her single girl era, I'm so excited
to see how that goes. Anyways, guys, that's it for
mini scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
I love you guys. Please remember to rate, review
and subscribe. Please Spotify star rate US.
It helps us so much. It helps us grow.
And I will talk to you guys tomorrow for a Friday mini
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