#10 - WILD CARD

 Social Media Influencer Critique: 

David Dobrik

TW: Talk of Sexual Assault

    While being a social media influencer may seem like it is constantly full of paid vacations, brands sending you free products, and many "friends", there is also a side of the influencer lifestyle that exposes many people and brings to light all of their worst mistakes. Although the Instagram pictures and YouTube videos may make it seem like these people are living the perfect lives, it does not take much for someone on the Internet to find out something that can ruin someone's career. A perfect example of this is David Dobrik, a YouTube personality who seemed to have a huge career ahead of him before recent controversies have put his career on a downhill spiral. 

    24-year-old David Dobrik was born in Slovakia before his parents moved to Illinois when he was 6 years old. After high school, Dobrik moved to Los Angeles in order to pursue his social media career starting with the popular former video app called Vine. David became popular on the app before launching his YouTube channel in 2015. He was very connected in the social media world and collaborated with Vine stars such as Liza Koshy (who he dated from 2015-2018), Gabbie Hanna, and Zane & Heath. Dobrik also became extremely popular on YouTube as a vlogger, someone who films and uploads videos of their day. He even started the well known group called the Vlog Squad that included some of his closest YouTube friends and popular creators on the site. 

    After his YouTube channel with almost 20 million subscribers rose to fame quickly, David was recognized by huge brands like EA Sports and Chipotle, and he has also won many awards and honors like being dubbed "Gen Z's Jimmy Fallon". For a while, things were looking really good for David Dobrik. He was constantly being recognized by television programs and A-list celebrities, he was making lots of money and was even giving away cars (mostly Teslas) to his friends, and he became a household name for most kids around the country and many around the world. However, this is where the dark side of being an influencer comes to play.

    In 2018, former Vlog Squad member Seth Francois accused David of sexual assault because of an incident in a previous video. In the video, Seth was blindfolded by Dobrik and was told that he would be kissing Instagram model and original Vlog Squad member Corinna Kopf. Instead of Corinna coming up to kiss Seth, 47-year-old Jason Nash who is also a member of the group came up and started kissing Francois. Seth was not told it was Jason until after the act happened. Seth also made a video in 2020 highlighting all of the negative and racist things and words that he experienced while being part of the group.

    2021 has been the year that everything pretty much "hit the fan" in terms of David and some of his friends being exposed for their actions. The most recent of the allegations is against former Vlog Squad member Dom Zeglaitis and has to do with a since deleted video from 2018. In the video, Dom invites over a group of girls that had apparently been in his DM's and he says they are going to have a fivesome with him. When the girls get there, they say that they do not want to be a part of that, but the video stars (Dom and David) give them alcohol as they crack sexual jokes about the girls. One of the girls said that she was raped by Dom during that night. It was also said, and some of it filmed, that Jason Nash and other Vlog Squad member Todd Smith were told by Dobrik to give the underage girls alcohol. After all of these incidents and controversies, David Dobrik has been dropped by some of his big name sponsors. These include Dollar Shave Club, EA Sports, DoorDash, and HelloFresh. Even one of David's largest sponsors, SeatGeek, said they were "reviewing" the partnership.

 

    I wanted to use this topic as my Wild Card assignment because I think it is important to understand the downside to being a Social Media Influencer. Of course, David's actions were 100% his own choice and not all influencers will make the same horrible mistakes that he did. However, even the "best" influencers can struggle with having so much of their lives on the Internet for the world to see. For David, his career was climbing and he was gaining more and more popularity through the world of vlogging and social media. The thing about social media that I think David forgot about is the fact that there are always people who can find things out about you and your life. Instead of all of these incidents being hidden or forgotten about after they were deleted from YouTube, they were all still out there somewhere and were brought into the light, causing most of these Vlog Squad members' careers to almost cease. Social media, while it does a great job of bringing people together and being a great source of entertainment, can also be an exposed place that can play a part in ruining people's careers. Not only do these influencers need to make smart decisions in their personal lives, which it seemed David did not do, but they also need to be smart in what they say and share on the Internet. Once the words or videos are out there, they are out there forever, and they can always be used against you in the worst way. 

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