Bali has become a top destination for travellers hoping to soak up the sun, sea and culture.
YouTuber Natalia Taylor, who has amassed over 300k followers on Instagram, decided to give her followers a glimpse of her recent Bali holiday, only this time she was not at the island destination.
The influencer shared how she faked her Bali holiday on her YouTube channel. The video titled “ i FAKED a vacation at IKEA” reveals how she managed to convince her fans that she was enjoying her holiday in the Asian country.
She said Indonesia was the ideal place to “fake” her holiday as it was famed for being a “gorgeous getaway full of tropical paradise and exotic photo opportunities.” She called it the perfect place to “fake an influencer holiday and lie to all of her followers.” Taylor said many influencers have been caught in the act before.
She decided to test the theory and see whether her followers would fall for it. The influencer headed to IKEA, a European multinational group that designs and sells furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories. She accompanied her trusted photographer Ally Amodeo to take the images of the “Bali holiday.”
“Ever since I went to IKEA for the first time, I always thought it would be funny to do a photo shoot in one of those rooms and see how real it would look,” she said.
“They set it up to look so cute, you could almost mistake them for a hotel or an Airbnb. They really are that well decorated. They do not look like store displays at all.”
Taylor admits that the experience was nerve-wracking and awkward as she had many customers’ staring at her.
She also did not want to get caught by IKEA staff in fear of being kicked out.
After she captured the images, she returned home to photoshop the images.
She said she kept some IKEA tags in the photographs so that her followers would guess that the vacation snaps were fake.
The influencer sourced some pictures and videos of Bali from the internet to make the fake holiday more believable.
She added the sourced content on her Instagram Stories.
She uploaded three sets of images that day, and the majority of her followers were experiencing ‘wanderlust’ over her drool-worthy Bali holiday snaps.
In a series of images titled “The queen has arrived 🌊💖 #bali”, fans commented on their FOMO.
Sierraxwatts commented: “ She really out her living her best life.” (sic)
Wilmasvso commented: “Bali wont know what hit 'em.” (sic).
The experiment aimed to teach her followers not to “ trust everything you see on the internet.”