Journalism has always prided itself on holding power to account. Politicians. Conglomerates. Landlords who secretly film their tenants through tiny holes in the wall.
But what about the powerful individuals who wield more influence? Like, say, influencers.
The official governing body tasked with holding influencers to account has been missing in action for a week and social media stars are now running rampant through online feeds around Australia.
Celeb Spellcheck, a popular Instagram account famous for mocking the typos made by celebrities and influencers in online posts, unexpectedly shut down just days ago. As you can imagine, the internet is now in complete disarray. Rogue typos are everywhere and we’re all just expected to ignore them.
It’s complete anarchy. The Wild West.
Just days ago I witnessed one reply from an influencer who wrote “chow” instead of “ciao”. With no snarky online authority to shame her, I was left with no other choice but to report her to the police.
JAMES WEIR RECAP: Read all the recaps here
Until its sudden hiatus, Celeb Spellcheck had been in operation for several years and gained international interest over recent months with wallahgate when it exposed the embarrassing typo made by former The Block contestant turned Byron Bay influencer Elyse Knowles.
If you haven’t been keeping up with breaking news, wallahgate blew the lid off what might be the biggest story of the year. It’s pretty complicated, so pay attention while we try explaining it succinctly: Basically, Elyse thought the French word “voila” was spelled “wallah”. OK, fine, it probably isn’t that complicated.
Wallahgate was to Celeb Spellcheck what Watergate was to the Washington Post.
After becoming a respected authority on spelling and punctuation, the account branched out into more detailed reportage about the lives of influencers and made headlines earlier this month when it re-posted a video of former The Bachelor contestant Laurina Fleure appearing to snort something off a countertop.
Given Laurina became a viral sensation when she famously rejected a “dirty street pie” from a food truck on the 2014 series of the dating show, it was of public interest to see she doesn’t turn her nose up at everything.
Many influencers deemed this video the final straw. They polished their social media handles, loaded their emojis and sharpened their hashtags before marching out into Instagram feeds to riot.
And when Celeb Spellcheck suddenly vanished, they gloated as the account’s 145,000 devoted followers mourned.
Rumours that the profile’s anonymous administrator was about to have their identity revealed began to swirl along with whispers of a lawsuit. Fans grew concerned about the welfare of the grammar stickler.
But the distress was calmed with one final stoic message.
“I’m not being sued (that I know of, lol) and I’m not at risk of having my identity revealed,” read the lone post on Celeb Spellcheck, which also hinted at a monetised comeback that would, ironically, place the account alongside the influencers it has mocked.
“I will be taking a break while I think about the future of this account.”
Keira Maguire, a former “villain” on several iterations of The Bachelor who has been featured regularly on Celeb Spellcheck, was just one of many influencers who celebrated the account’s sort-of demise.
She wrote a very long message and, while we’d usually paraphrase it, sometimes you just have to quote directly.
“I woke up to several message (sic) last night from people who support and follow celeb spell check (sic) page, attaching (sic) my character,” Keira wrote on Instagram.
It continued: “ … I couldn’t careless (sic) about what people say about me.”
She added: “To anyone jumping in my inbox calling ma (sic) a hypercrite (sic) …”
You get the point.
As the old adage goes: You can lead an influencer to a dictionary, but you can’t make them think.
Disclosure: There are probably seven typos of my own in this article. What can I say, I’m a hypercrite (sic).
The Emperor’s New Job
So Prince Harry is still pretending to be an adult.
And just a few weeks after whining to Oprah about his dad cutting off the free money, he now has a fake job as the Chief Impact Officer for BetterUp, a billion-dollar Silicon Valley coaching and mental health company.
We’re all on the same page about this, right? Chief Impact Officer is not an actual job.
It’s kinda like when people who work at delis call themselves “sandwich artists”. Still, despite the ridiculous job title, at least those sandwich artists are actually doing something specific. Harry probably wouldn’t even know how to make a sandwich.
He also probably doesn’t even know how to use email which makes this fancy new Silicon Valley job even more confusing. Can you imagine getting trapped in a conversation with him in the office kitchenette? The moment you shut the door on the microwave to heat up last night’s pasta, he wanders in and you have to make awkward small talk about what it was like living in a castle turret.
A few years ago, Forbes published an article about Chief Marketing Officer being the most dangerous job title around – the main point being it’s a “glorified role without any purposeful impact on the bottom-line”. Harry’s glitzy new CIO gig may just overtake it.
This is like a modernisation of that old-timey folklore tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. But instead of two swindlers tricking the emperor into buying an invisible outfit that only smart, rich people can see, it’s a couple of Silicon Valley nerds on electric skateboards giving the prince a job that doesn’t exist just to get free hype for their start-up.
The Wall Street Journal broke the news of Harry’s new fake job this week and the prince told the paper, “I intend to help create impact in people’s lives”.
He’ll be toiling away in the fake job while also meeting the demands of his $50m Spotify partnership and eye-watering Netflix deal because he’s also a fake auteur.
“Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope,” he said in a statement to the New York Times about the Netflix deal. “As new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us.”
It’s all very worthy and important but let’s be honest: all we really want from him are more dirty confessions about those other losers who are still stuck in that dusty old palace.
Reveal more secrets!
That’s what his Spotify podcast needs to be about. Just weekly hour-long episodes where he haphazardly lists what else he hates about his family.
It doesn’t need to be this hard.
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