If you keep up with the trending section on Twitter or read the culture newsfeed on your phone, you have probably seen the name Caroline Calloway pop up. However, for most people that don’t keep up with the latest Instagram influencer culture (much like myself) you probably have no idea about who Caroline Calloway is or why she is the talk of social media currently. So who is Caroline Calloway? Well, I’m about to break it down for you.
1. So who is Caroline Calloway?
Caroline Calloway is a 27-year-old Instagram influencer. She originally gained social media attention for her Instagram captions, which sounded like dreamy tales and juicy drama fit for a best-selling novel. She studied at Cambridge Univeristy, where many of her Instagram captions started. Her Instagram peaked at around 800,000 followers. Calloway was even offered a book deal with a cash advance of around $500,000, which she eventually rejected, sending her into a lot of debt. She has been entitled the “Scam Influencer” for a failed creativity workshop. She has also been criticized for her “Dreamer BB” artwork, which are paper cutouts of kneeling women, which she sells for over $140 to $220 each. Followers have been quick to call out her artwork as a direct rip-off of artist Matisse’s work.
Image credit: Vox.com
2. So where does Natalie Beach come in?
Natalie Beach was Calloway’s friend throughout Calloway’s college years. Beach claims that she wrote a majority of Calloway’s Instagram posts, and essentially plays the woeful martyr role, calling herself the Calloway “ghost writer.” Just days after Calloway’s father passed away unexpectedly, Beach published her “tell-all” article exposing Calloway. The article was entitled “I Was Caroline Calloway” (article linked below). In a tell-all narrative format, Beach explains how she “assumed the role” of Calloway and seems to even claim that the success of Calloway should have been hers. Beach writes her piece with an almost vindictive tone, and the average reader would have to spend quite some time unpacking both Beach and Calloway’s respective sides of the story before coming to a conclusion on who to believe. People were quick to defame Calloway on social media, picking at every tiny detail of her posts in an attempt to shame Calloway. Media picked up Calloway and Beach’s story quite quickly, with numerous articles about Calloway being availble all over the internet. Image Credit: directexpose.com (Calloway on left, Beach on right)
3. So why does all of this matter?
While you’re probably thinking to yourself that this article seems to just be a load of petty social media drama, it highlights something serious about our culture and the toxicity of social media. Social media is a highlight reel. It always has been. We can choose what to put on our social media, so that people see the side of us that we want them to see. Too often we spend time thinking that everything on social media is real, developing a complex of longing and jealousy. However, when a scandal comes out, social media is quick to deface whoever is involved, picking at the micro-complexities of the “highlight reels” we call our social media pages. If we let it, social media can become destructive in no time, as it proved to be for Calloway and Beach.