Brands Behaving Badly

How it started...

 

One day I just got fed up.

 

Fed up with brands reaching out to me asking to "collaborate" only to find that they wanted to steal my labor and access to my audience to advance their business.

 

And we're not just talking about small brands. Multibillion-dollar businesses are engaging in this practice. And it's not OK.

 

Maybe it's greed. Perhaps ignorance.

 

Whatever the reason, the practice is unethical and disproportionately affects women and BIPOC.

 

So I decided to speak up. I began naming and tagging brands in my Instagram stories that had reached out to me asking me to work for toothpaste, donuts, tee shirts, etc.

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Soon my DMs were flooded with creators experiencing the same.

 

Since that first day, so many people have been empowered to say no, speak up for themselves, and collect the checks they've earned for the work they do.

NY Times, The Guardian, Buzzfeed, HashtagPaid, Carusele, and others have covered this advocacy work. And I hope more publications will do the same. 

 

Because brands haven't stopped.

 

And until there is enough public pressure or legal ramifications for requesting this sort of unpaid labor, I will dedicate time to individually hold brands accountable and request change.

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This work is being documented below, on @brands_behaving_badly and YouTube.