Misunderstanding or abuse of good will? How a food influencer claims to have been cheated out of a free meal.
Celebrities acting arrogant towards service workers is certainly nothing new, but with today's media environment, the total number of celebrities and thus potential abuses have potentially increased – but so has the number of ways in which the workers can clap back.
Fashionsdigest and Pulcinella!
The food review influencer Diane Kronstad, running the TikTok channel Fashionsdigest, was called out online for her behavior in a restaurant in New Orleans. An employee of the Pulcinella! restaurant complained publically that the influencer simply did a runner on her 300$ bill, after apparently claiming that she was only required to pay tip.
Beforehand, the restaurant, co-owned by a dancer going by the name of Bella Blue, and Fashionsdigest agreed that representatives of the latter would visit to post a review of its food online. While it was clarified that the restaurant would not pay anything to the influencer for this review, there seemed to be a misunderstanding of what exactly the process would entail.
After Bella Blue personally confronted Kronstad, the latter apparently explained that "That's how this works", referring to standard food review practice. In response to the public callout, the food influencer has claimed that Pulcinella! was effectively using "smear tactics and intimidation to pressure people" into giving it positive reviews.
General Restaurant Influencer Etiquette
While there are cases in which influencers enter promotional deals with local businesses, it is important to keep in mind that the respective contracts are usually agreed upon beforehand. A verbal agreement like the one between Bella Blue and Fashionsdigest is prone to being abused.
Additionally, Fashionsdigest, sporting less than 60,000 followers on TikTok at the time of the scandal, would be classified as micro-influencer, whose pay per sponsored video averages around 200 to 800 US dollars, meaning that a 300 USD meal – not including tax or tips – as pay would already be somewhat ambitious.
Furthermore, these kinds of "influencer tastings" are usually conducted in collaboration between restaurants and locals, seeing as one of the main appeals of such an advertisement is the perceived authenticity of the spokesperson. Diane Kronstad from New York City would thus be an unlikely candidate to promote a restaurant in New Orleans.
But what do you think? Was Kronstad right to expect her meal to be comped? Or should she have specified her terms beforehand more clearly? Let us know in the comments below!