A very common way for brands to seek attention in the age of social media is to utilize influencers. The brand pays a popular social media user, usually a celebrity, to use their product and post about it, often on Twitter or Instagram. Sometimes the influencer actually uses the product, other times they’re just paid to take pictures with it.
Kim Kardashian and her family have been popular choices to promote products on Instagram. Most recently, she posted a picture with an appetite suppressing lollipop from the brand Flat Tummy.
Since then, Kim has received massive backlash for promoting the product. Though she’s since deleted the post, many people had already taken screenshots. (The internet is forever, after all.)
My earliest awareness of the issue came earlier today when Jameela Jamil, an actress from NBC’s (amazing) show The Good Place and an advocate for body positivity, posted a few scathing tweets about Kim and her influence on young fans.
No. Fuck off. No. You terrible and toxic influence on young girls. I admire their mother’s branding capabilities, she is an exploitative but innovative genius, however this family makes me feel actual despair over what women are reduced to. ☹️ pic.twitter.com/zDPN1T8sBM
— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) May 16, 2018
Jameela certainly isn’t the only one. Many fans have lost respect for Kim for her willingness to advocate for a product that suppresses the natural urge of hunger and offsets healthy eating habits in order to lose weight.
How desperate are you for the money @KimKardashian? I refuse to believe that some tin-pot lollipop making company is paying you THAT MUCH that you lose all common sense to think about the message that this sends your fans and followers. It’s outrageously irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/0225RioSfl
— Vix Meldrew (@VixMeldrew) May 16, 2018
I actually can’t BELIEVE the nerve of Kim Kardashian promoting ‘appetite suppressant lollipops’. her audience is made up of mostly impressionable young people who already have so much pressure on them to look and be perfect, we all deserve so much better
— kellie ? (@gnsfrhnds) May 16, 2018
Girls and women,
We deserve better role models than Kim Kardashian and her appetite suppressant “lollipop.”
We are strong, beautiful, empowered, capable&talented- just like some of the women in these pictures.
Let’s reach for more than the awful Kardashian’s could ever offer. pic.twitter.com/bsROe24lzP— Jo Phillips (@JojJojoelle) May 16, 2018
Though this has been the most public moment, Kim has been promoting products for the Flat Tummy brand for a while now, like teas and meal-replacement shakes. She also documented progress on a 10-day juice cleanse she completed last month.
Celebrities, and anyone in the public eye, need to be conscious of what they associate themselves with. After a rough few weeks for her husband Kanye West, following statements in the media (which I’m not even going to begin on), maybe it’s best for the personality to stay away from anything remotely controversial for a hot minute.