Most people have heard of this challenge where a regular girl like myself tries to copy a famous person’s Instagram for a week. When I first heard of this challenge I thought that the person doing the challenge would have to go out everyday and copy the specific post the famous person they choose posted. But, after watching some videos of people doing the challenge, I realized that the person can choose the photos they want to replicate and post them in any order they want. After finding this out I knew for sure I wanted to try this challenge.
Photo Credit: Lexi Corbello
After deciding to do this challenge, I began thinking about whose Instagram I wanted to copy. Most people that have done this challenge before had copied Selena Gomez or Ariana Grande’s Instagram. I looked at both Selena’s and Ariana’s Instagram and only a few of the pictures I thought I could replicate but not enough I thought I could pull off. I started of thinking of YouTubers that I like that I could possibly copy. I was thinking of Tara Michelle, Jeanine Amapola, Heart Defensor, and many more. I looked at their Instagram’s and a lot of the photos seemed easy to do but I didn’t feel excited about doing it. I knew that I had to choose someone I felt connected too, who inspired me, and someone who I admire. I decided on Christen Dominique.
Photo Credit: Lexi Corbello
Christen Dominique is a beauty guru on YouTube with over 3 million subscribers. She has over 1.3 million Instagram followers and has over 1,000 Instagram posts. Recently, the amount of likes she gets per post ranges from 50,000 to 100,000 likes. Dominique just released her first eye shadow palette called the “Latte Palette” so most of her posts are related to her new product. She also posts outfits and selfies.
I choose about 7 photos that I wanted to replicate for this challenge. Wednesday, February 28, was the day I decided would be a good day to do a photoshoot. The whole week there was perfect weather, but of course the day I decided to take the photos for this challenge with help from my friend Lexi, a Her Campus at NMSU photographer, the weather was terrible with the wind blowing at least 20 mph and small rain drops were falling from the sky. Before meeting Lexi, I had packed a bag with outfits I wanted to change into for each picture. My bag had shoes, makeup, pants, multiple shirts, and so much more to help get these photos just right.
First photo of the challenge taken by: Lexi Corbello.
Despite the bad weather, Lexi and I were successful. Even though sometimes we had to snap a shot more than once, it only took us an hour and a half to get all the photos we needed. All the photos were taken on the campus of New Mexico State University.
I started posting the pictures Lexi took of me to my Instagram (@luvpandangela) on Thursday, March 1, with the last photo being posted the next Thursday on March 8. Throughout the process the amount of likes I got on each post fluctuated. The posts averaged between 75 to 200 likes. On the sixth day of the challenge, my post had a breakthrough…
“You slayed this look girly!!”
This is the exact sentence I read in the comment section a couple of hours after posting the picture of the day. Can you guess who it was? It was Christen Dominique! On every photo posted I tagged her and put her name as a hashtag in the description, but never in my wildest dreams I thought she would see it! I was overjoyed and just having her recognition made this whole challenge worth it. After her comment and like on my photo it shot up in the amount of likes! As of March 8, it had 190 likes! Before this challenge I barely would get 100 likes on a picture so getting almost twice as much was a huge accomplishment.
Overall, this was a great experience and I want to say thank you to Lexi Corbello, my awesome photographer, my friends and family that encouraged me to do this challenge and most of all Christen Dominique for being such an inspiration to girls all over the world.