Every Time a Business Upsets an Influencer by Refusing to 'Collaborate' With Her, an Angel Gets its Wings

As I've no doubt said time and time again in different contexts, I try my best not to be that Boomer who plays the Back 9 of his life convinced that everyone under a certain age is a useless, irredeemable twit, incapable of contributing anything of value to civilization. I refuse to fall into that trope for a couple of reasons. First, because between my sons, my friends' kids, and their groups of friends, I simply know too many people in their late teens and 20s who are great people, living good lives and just trying to do the right thing. Second, because I can't say the same about Early 20s Jerry. Young Balls was essentially a hedonistic carbon blob with no redeeming qualities beyond a head full of baseball trivia and a pretty spot-on Pee Wee Herman impression. 

But for all the good things that can be said about Gen-Z, they've also produced the most insufferable subgroup of any generation since the Facists of the 1920s-40s. And this subset has even given chosen a name for themselves that's as unrepentently awful as they are:

Influencers. 

Imagine if you will, a people who have accomplished nothing of note in this life other than to post photos and videos of other people's work and think that gives them actual influence over the tastes and attitudes of the public. I mean, even a critic - as low on the creativity scale as they are, presumably can write and talk about the things they cover in an entertaining way. Roger Ebert couldn't make a movie, but at least he was clever in the way he expressed his opinions about movies. 

Taking a picture of a dinner plate is only requires you to have eyes and opposable thumbs. So any time one of these societal leeches is told to bugger off by the artists and business people they seek to influence the rest of us about, it is a pure good. Which is exactly what happened between a Melbourne restaurant and an Influencer:

Source - An aspiring influencer who “exposed” an Australian restaurant has defended her decision to slam the eatery – despite being labeled “entitled” when her gripe went viral.

Jamieson May is a budding content creator from Melbourne who has earned almost 17,000 followers with her travel and foodie tips – and says she regularly approaches restaurants with the intention of collaborating together.

But after messaging Patsy’s, a vegetarian restaurant in the city’s CBD, Jamieson said she was “shocked” by the “disgusting” reply she received from the eatery, which questioned how influential she was, citing her follower count. ...

“When I first outed the restaurant on TikTok, it reached the wrong audience of non-creators and influencers who didn’t understand what was happening,” Jamieson told news.com.au.

“People sent extremely rude comments that I am just an ‘entitled influencer’ who just wants ‘free’ stuff and I am complaining about it all.

“I have worked with many restaurants other business over the last four years and I had never experienced such rudeness. I was in shock.”

Patsy’s, owned by restaurateurs Mathew Guthrie and Clinton Trevisi, however has also defended its “blunt” response.

“I think judging from her reaction to me being blunt about her unsolicited marketing reach out, she was surprised that we were not interested working with her…” Mr Guthrie told news.com.au. …

Backlash to Jamieson’s gripe came in hard and fast, and while she’s since turned off comments on the video due to the nasty nature of many of them.

Crikey, is this reply to Jameison May ever a thing of absolute beauty:

And I love her defense, claiming she never asked or expected any freebies. Like Patsy's or any of us are supposed to be believe her offer wasn't transactional. When you reach out to a restaurant expecting to go there, eat, and pay full price, that's what the rest of us call "a reservation." No one calls the hostess desk at Outback Steak House asking for an 8pm "collaboration" with a Bloomin' Onion. If she intended to do actual cash business with them, she simply would have shown up and did her "content creator" thing, with or without their cooperation. But the good people at Patsy's are onto how that con works. They might have an aversion to delicious, healthy animal proteins the rest of us don't understand, but they share a hatred for these deadbeat grifters with us normies. And for that, they deserve the undying gratitude of good men and women everywhere. 

At the risk of sounding like the old man I am, here's a suggestion that's just crazy enough to work. If you truly want to call yourself an Influencer, how about doing something that is actually, I don't know … influential? How does that sound? Write a book. Compose some music. Create an app. Cure a disease. End a war. Do something that will make our lives better. 

For instance, while quarantining during the Plague, Sir Isaac Newton invented Calculus. In one year during the Black Death, Shakespeare wrote King Lear and The Tempest. During Covid, worthless shits like Jameison May ordered DoorDash and watched Tiger King. Forgive me if I don't feel influenced by any of them. And I'd say the same thing if they had 17,000 followers or 17 million. So she and the rest of her ilk can quit sucking the life's blood out of hard working business owners and their employees, and do it 5 minutes ago. And the more places like Patsy's refuse to play their stupid games, the sooner we can make the species known as Influencers extinct once and for all.