Lots of us have gone the extra distance in order to get that one perfect Instagram snap, but now a blogger has been criticised for taking fairy lights “mile-high” to stage a picture for her ’gram on an overnight flight.
Harimao Lee, a social media influencer from Hong Kong, who has 127,000 followers on her account, has been called “cringey” and “staged” over the image.
Lee posted the image, which shows her sitting in business class on a flight from Hong Kong to Italy back in August with the caption: “It was the long dark night during the flight from HK to Rome. Stargazing is one thing to do in the cabin.”
The photo was produced in partnership with the Cathay Pacific airline, although the post doesn’t state it is a paid advertisement. Partnerships of this nature are normally sponsored or compensated with free transport.
Although it’s now over four weeks old, responses to Lee’s image have not slowed down.
“Pathetic staged pictures like this is why social media and YouTube, which all started with great intentions, is mostly bullshit now because of attention and money seeking twats,” said Dave.
“This is ridiculous! This sort of staged nonsense is a joke. Nobody travels like this,” said Roadtrippingroy.
And Robert said: “Oh FFS love, neck your plonk, go to sleep and decide the next day if you actually have a life.”
Some commenters expressed disappointment in Cathay Pacific at the partnership . Ocularius said: “Dear CX. As a lifetime customer of yours I just want to say that spending your marketing dollars on this sort of thing is not doing you any favours at all.”
The fairy lights made it to Lee’s eventual holiday destination where they featured in more snaps.
But not everyone criticised the original picture – some fans enjoyed it and praised Lee for doing what she wanted to do.
May Rose Franco said: “I love this photo. Don’t have to follow what other people are doing. Haters are always going to be haters in my opinion they need to get a life. You enjoy holiday the way you want it weather you pack fairy lights to make it more romantic or more fairytale like. It looks dreamy.”
Samuel Gravan said: “It looks like a very long dress and I can appreciate how much effort would have gone into a photo like this! bravo.”
Lee isn’t the first lifestyle blogger to come under fire recently. Last month, Scarlett London (real name Scarlett Dixon) found herself in the centre of a social media storm for a staged photograph in her bedroom – an advert for Listerine – that featured balloons, perfect hair and make up and supposedly, a stack of tortillas posing as pancakes.
Speaking to HuffPost UK Dixon said: “Initially, I found the comments quite funny. I don’t take myself too seriously as a person and am happy to have a bit of a light-hearted joke.”
“It turned from light hearted to nasty quite quickly. I think people lose touch with the fact there is a real person behind all of this – a human being.”
Have you ever gone too far for the perfect Instagram picture? Email uklife@huffpost.com to share the shame.