The Deceptive Allure of Social Media Success: The Mikayla Nogueria Controversy
Success on social media is measured by numbers. How many likes, shares, comments, and mentions your posts, or in many cases your products, get over a certain period of time. If the numbers are high and your content spreads online exponentially in a short amount of time, then you might find yourself going viral. After all, exposure is always a good thing. Isn’t it?
Earlier this year beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueria posted a video to her TikTok page trying out one of L’Oreal’s newest products the Telescopic Lift Mascara. While there is seemingly nothing out of the ordinary about this video, it rose to popularity exceedingly quick and within a couple of days had received over 24.6 million views. At the time, it felt like everyone within the online beauty community was talking about this product, Mikayla, and L’Oreal as a whole, but not for the reasons you might think.
In the video, Mikayla is shown applying the mascara before editing in a quick cut that reveals the final look. Something online influencers have done for a long time, especially within the beauty community, as it saves the audience and creator time from filming and watching repetitive content. Mikayla’s followers and other people who viewed the video, however, were not convinced. People flooded the comment section on the TikTok accusing Mikayla of editing the video around her applying fake eyelashes. Comments like “Looks like Ardell Wispies to me,” “Mikayla I’ve watched you for a long time now. Please don’t insult our intelligence like this,” and “Maybe it’s L’Oreal, maybe it’s Ardell” can still be found under the video today.
The problem, however, was not the product. In fact, the Telescopic Lift Mascara was a hot seller because of the video. Other influencers both big and small, including beauty entrepreneur Jeffree Star, went out and bought the product themselves, uploading their own (and self-proclaimed “honest”) reviews on TikTok so that users can compare those to Mikayla’s. A lot of these customers were pleasantly surprised. Jeffree Star stated that the mascara was “cute” and “looked pretty,” but he didn’t consider it the “greatest” mascara out there, leaving the Telescopic Lift Mascara to currently sit on a 4.3/5 rating on the Ulta Beauty website.
No, the problem, despite the questionable editing and the accusations of wearing falsies, was that fans felt deceived by Mikayla not disclosing that the review she posted on this product was paid for by L’Oreal.
While some can argue that she did disclose it, the text “L’Oreal Paris Partner” is briefly displayed in small font on the bottom left of the screen for all of 7 seconds, but the comment section was quick to point out that it seemed to be deliberately hidden behind the video’s caption.
This controversy was picked up by beauty influencers across platforms and created a discourse about trustworthiness within the beauty community and when can paid partnerships be considered counterintuitive. Jeffree Star commented, “A lot of these people are accepting money, and it makes me very uncomfortable. The beauty space has changed immensely [...].” And he’s not wrong.
MMI Analytics reported that beauty brands like L’Oreal, NYX, Urban Decay, Maybelline, Morphe, and Glossier, among many others have investing more and more money in partnerships with influencer channels on TikTok.
Alissa Ashley, a beauty YouTuber with 2.02 Million subscribers weighed in stating that the fabrication of product reviews are “not OK” and that they affect not only Mikayla’s consent and the audience reception of it, but the community as a whole because people will not know who to trust, generating skepticism in a space where trust is valued above all else.
Moreover, the legalities of disclosing a paid partnership come into play here and it’s something that should always be considered when thinking of best practices in social media “influencing.” Said influences could face a fine from the Federal trade Comission for failing to disclose or deliberately hide the fact that something is sponsored content.
Mikayla disappeared from all social media platforms for a few weeks after the scandal but returned right before valentines day with a new makeup look to share and not a word to say about the scandal.
The situation worked out favorably for L’Oreal, they made it out relatively unscathed from the whole ordeal, but the general consensus among fans from here on out is that people will engage with Mikayla’s content with a little more caution before fully trusting her product reviews.
