Several years ago, before 2008-2009, when blogging was just starting in Romania, I remember talking to somebody and saying that, at some point, a real-estate developer might want to pay a blogger to live rent free in one of their apartments to promote the building(s). I actually tried to find someone to pay me for that, but I think it was too early. Or I wasn’t interesting enough. Well, no, that couldn’t be it, right? :)
Yesterday I was reading an article on the life of an Instagram influencer that started as a kid blogger: Who Would I Be Without Instagram? An investigation. She was actually paid to live rent free in a luxury apartment in New York.
This is where the luxury rental building comes in. I was asked to live at 300 Ashland, right by the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn, as part of a campaign the real-estate company Two Trees was doing to promote three new developments. In a deal that covered my rent for a year, I agreed to do press about the building, host an event for my followers on its plaza, and post about the building and neighborhood on my account. I’d long shared my living space online and decided to see this as no different, except I would get paid. And so, for a year, I lent my face to promote a borrowed home.
Who Would I Be Without Instagram? An investigation
It only took 10 years to see it happening, but I’m happy I was mostly right. You can read the story of the apartment here as well.
The initial article is really good and puts a lot of things into perspective: from the fake image we put online, no matter how good we are with “being real” to the costs it carries.
The lady in the article – Tavi Gevinson – also expands her online influence to an online business, then she moves to acting.
In some ways I feel a kinship with that, since I started online as a blogger, before becoming an entrepreneur and, apparently, a blogger again. I also have an Instagram account I rarely use, so there’s that, as well.
Photo from Canva. Article via Ben Evans’s newsletter
