Heroic Beach Club Owner Tells Instagram Influencers To Fuck Off
Last week, Gianlucca Casaccia, 40, the manager and co-owner of the White Banana Beach Club, decided it was time to take action after opening his inbox and finding yet another message containing the phrase: “I am an influencer.”
Since May, when Mr. Casaccia, who is Italian, and his wife, who is from Manila, opened their cocktail bar overlooking the turquoise Philippine Sea, they have received about 100 of these messages, he said.
The typical email from a “wannabe influencer” is something like: “I’m coming from the 25th to the 27th. We need three beds and food and accommodation.” In exchange, the traveler offers content instead of money.
“We found this disrespectful,” he said in an interview Monday night. It didn’t help that often the “influencers” had fewer than 2,000 Instagram followers. “How can you help me if you are no one?” he asked.
White Banana Beach Club was not against “real influencers.” He had even reached out to some of these in the past. (Asked to put a number on legitimate social influence, he put the number at half a million followers.)
The people who bothered him were the “wannabe freeloaders,” he said.
Take that, dickwads! Score one for small businesses, reality checkers, and anyone who finds him/herself quaking with rage over a photo of two girls looking at each other, smiling, pretending they didn’t ask their ugly friend to take a photo. Or (here comes the requisite counter-punch against men to cover my sexism bases!) a couple creamy cream boys, flexing their titties off, twenty seconds removed from a furious set of resistance band curls. You are not welcome at the White Banana! Your money (“influence”) is no good here!
Can you even fathom the gall it takes to ask for free lodging based on an instagram account with less than 2,000 followers?! How fucking arrogant would you have to be to expect favors based on such a pittance of clout? I didn’t start asking for free hotel rooms until I hit 20,000 followers. And only then because I have an extremely high engagement. But back when I was just a pup, with triple digit followers? I wouldn’t have deigned to ask for lodging, clothing, free meals, or any of the perks I now find myself swimming in thanks to the incredible commitment and thought I put towards my social media. Fuck these delusional morons.
As for the proprietor, Gianlucca, he is a hero from where I stand. Because he didn’t just tell them to leave him alone; he became the judge and jury of social media influencers. He didn’t just tell them they weren’t good; he told them they weren’t good enough. By allowing some of them to take photos and come stay, he hit these worthless, small-following losers where it hurts.
For example:
He said he even surprised himself by striking a conciliatory tone with one correspondent. “I can see you have good content,” he wrote. “But I suggest you do not introduce yourself as an influencer.”
Who is this guy, DAVE? I can see Dave saying that. “I suggest you do not introduce yourself as an influencer.” lol. Well done, sir. We, the true influencers, salute you.
UPDATE:
Read the Tripadvisor 1-star reviews. The guy responds to every single one of them with long responses. HATES negative reviews. One guy said “most of the tables don’t even have legs, so you sit on the floor.” To this, Gianlucca wrote:
Every single table has legs, in the whole world, otherwise it would not be a table but a board. We willgive you an award of 1000 usd if u can find a table, in White banana, without legs.
Can’t fault that logic.
h/t Josh