Super well-known YouTuber, artist and influencer Gabbie Hanna underwent one of the craziest pranks in Instagram history. Coachella, the mega festival in Palm Springs just occured in the past few weeks and Gabbie had a pretty good idea on how to create some solid content.
To show off the warped sense of reality that social media creates, the YouTuber faked her entire attendance to the festival, complete with insta shots, stories and wristbands. Connecting with a pro Photoshopper, Gabbie Hanna manipulated photos taken of herself to place her on a Coachella backdrop…spoiler alert: they’re SUPER convincing.
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OOPS i faked it all! go check out the video on how i pretended to go to coachella up now! ? *photoshop by @kellansworld – felt kinda weird going to hoechella on such a holy day so i decided to cover up in my great-grandmas AdOrAbLe 2 piece set for day 3 ? getting day drunk with my nipples out in a field surrounded by EDM music doesn’t exactly scream “Christ Has Risen!” so I decided to take it easy today. On a side note: Kanye’s service this morning was beautiful. Happy Coachella! i mean, Easter! #coachella #coachellaweekend2 #weekend2 #coachella2019 #day3 #easter #hoechella #chella
For a whole weekend, the vlogger convinced her 3.8 million followers that she was somewhere she wasn’t. While the prank is pretty hilarious and a great ruse, it’s also pretty scary and eye-opening. How many Instagram influencers are really living the life they share?
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OOPS i faked it all! go check out the video on how i pretended to go to coachella up now! ? *photoshop by @kellansworld – and you thought my yellow hair was over ? (tysm @guy_tang for coloring this @bellamihair wig so beautifully?) side note: if you’re someone who isn’t familiar with wigs, a day long music festival in 95 degree heat is not the place to give it a go ? learn from my mistakes, children!? #coachella #coachella2019 #coachellaweekend2 #weekend2 #chella #ootd #coachellaoutfit #roadtocoachella #420 #day2
If you can pay someone to superimpose yourself on to backgrounds, you would really never have to leave your house to be an influencer. It’s a sad reality that many are still unaware of. With apps like FaceTune and Photoshop, how can it be fair to compare yourself to anyone? Is anyone really living how they portray themselves to? Is this the message we’re sending to younger kids?
It’s nice to hear that Gabbie Hanna touches on the fact that social media can be very false. Her explanation, while she says is obvious, puts a lot into perspective for viewers who may not understand the wild and often edited world of social media.
“How easy it is to fake things on social media…I know a lot of people look at people on Instagram and social media and they think, wow, their life is impossibly perfect…so much of it’s fake….so much of this is just photo manipulation and setting things up to look a certain way.”
“Social media for the most part is just a very curated and manipulated version of reality.”
It’s an eye-opening video that while is just a harmless and late April Fools joke, as Hanna described, is a really serious look into how untrue and influenceable Instagram can be. Always important to remember that not everything on the internet is what it seems.
Image Credit: @gabbiehanna
