Bad Influence

November 26, 2024 10:04 AM

One Amazon influencer makes a living posting content from her beige home. But after she noticed another account hawking the same minimal aesthetic, a rivalry spiraled into a first-of-its-kind lawsuit. Can the legal system protect the vibe of a creator? And what if that vibe is basic?

Sheil runs what is essentially a one-woman marketing operation, making product recommendations, trying on outfits, and convincing people to buy things they often don’t really need. Every time someone purchases something using her affiliate link, she gets a kickback. Shopping influencers like her have figured out how to build a career off someone else’s impulse buys.

But all of this — the videos, the big house, her earnings — could come crashing down: Sheil is currently embroiled in a court case centered on the very content that is her livelihood.

Sheil and Gifford are but two among the many influencers making money through Amazon’s program, but their case could have paradigm-shifting consequences for everyone else. Gifford is suing Sheil for a litany of offenses, stemming from what she sees as the two women’s strikingly similar videos and photos on social media. The case has potentially wide-reaching implications for influencers and creators, but it stems from a familiar, even ordinary, complaint: Gifford says Sheil won’t stop copying her.

posted by 1970s Antihero (45 comments total)

Neither of them invented that bland "i don't want to challenge or offend anyone who comes into my house with any kind of emotion or personality" white middle-classe lack-of-aesthetic, though. So it's pretty funny. Go ahead, Miracle Whip-on-Wonder bread ladies, duke it out. Who makes the OG bologna sandwich?
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:12 AM on November 26 [20 favorites]

This is so high school and, well, I hope they both recognize that they live very blessed lives.
posted by muddgirl at 10:18 AM on November 26 [6 favorites]

there are eight million apartments painted beige in the naked city - these have been two of them
posted by pyramid termite at 10:18 AM on November 26 [37 favorites]

Modern times are weird.
posted by JanetLand at 10:26 AM on November 26 [4 favorites]

I still hate that "influencer" is an actual thing. Yes yes maybe someone sends you free shit to review or whatever but it must be so fucking tiring having every aspect of your life be on display and artificially posed and endlessly re-shot for the likes.

Also the sheer WASTE of having dozens of packages shipped to you daily? What the almighty fuck. Here I am taking banana peels home from work to compost them rather than landfilling them. How many milliseconds does it take one of these "lifestyle" people's environmental damage to wipe out my attempts to be eco-conscious?
posted by caution live frogs at 10:27 AM on November 26 [29 favorites]

I still hate that "influencer" is an actual thing. Yes yes maybe someone sends you free shit to review or whatever but it must be so fucking tiring having every aspect of your life be on display and artificially posed and endlessly re-shot for the likes.

for good or ill, it's just Home Shopping Network but indie and with a different aesthetic
posted by BungaDunga at 10:29 AM on November 26 [18 favorites]

all else aside, I really loathe this "aesthetic" (it's not) SO.MUCH. such beige. meh.
posted by supermedusa at 10:56 AM on November 26 [4 favorites]

BungaDunga: "for good or ill, it's just Home Shopping Network but indie and with a different aesthetic"

Sure if HSN was a storefront, and people not employed by HSN did all their shopping there, then tried to recoup their costs by telling other people to shop at HSN for a small kickback - most of which is likely then reinvested in HSN to go through the cycle all over again.

I mean thinking about it I recognize that I've been annoyed at the people shilling crap for Amazon, when really I ought to be annoyed at Amazon pushing people to shill crap for them. Start out as a bookstore, end up as a globe-eating MLM I guess. As if we needed another Amway.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:58 AM on November 26 [12 favorites]

A fascinating read. Legally, I have no idea where this will land - but it really is interesting. Based solely on the article and screenshots, it does seem that one is indeed semi-imitating the other, but does it go too far? And of course - how many other "influencers" are involved in similar situations?
posted by davidmsc at 11:09 AM on November 26 [4 favorites]

Both of these people seem to be living in a multi-level hell of bad taste and wasted energy.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:10 AM on November 26 [8 favorites]

The most interesting part of the article comes right at the end when it mentions how Amazon and Instagram and the rest's algorithms start showing you certain kinds of things the more you look at certain kinds of things.

One of these women might be purposefully copying the other, but they're also both sucked into a particular eddy of the Internet and it's difficult to judge from the outside what's coincidence and what's copying.
posted by Zumbador at 11:21 AM on November 26 [13 favorites]

Hold on, I'm busy applying for a patent on my own design aesthetic, millenial-grey-everything.

What's that you say, the patent is too broad? Prior art is a thing? Well the hell with you, I'll narrow it down. What do you want, RGB values? Fine: 221, 221, 221.

That's right, now this VERY TEXT BOX is infringing. Rest assured you'll be hearing from my attorney, who is definitely an accredited human being and not a sock puppet on my left hand that I do voices for.
posted by Mayor West at 11:29 AM on November 26 [9 favorites]

Is this the latest backrooms level?
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:32 AM on November 26 [8 favorites]

I miss the good old days when John Daly came on the television to tell me what brand of cigarettes would replenish the protective coating on my lungs.
posted by jy4m at 11:34 AM on November 26 [9 favorites]

All that was old is new again *sigh*
posted by aeshnid at 11:38 AM on November 26

I was going to be really snide about a couple of people suing each other over doing the Amazon version of Kinfolk in 2024, but then I scrolled down and got to the tattoo picture and felt...very Ingrid Goes West about it, I dunno. The internet was a mistake.
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:40 AM on November 26 [2 favorites]

It's weird how the influencers in the article speak as if they'd created something of value, when it's just a marketing hack.
posted by signal at 11:47 AM on November 26 [13 favorites]

It is a little creepy that they have similar tattoos, died their hair brown at similar times, etc. If I was the original influencer I would be creeped out, but I'm not sure it's legally actionable.
posted by subdee at 11:49 AM on November 26 [2 favorites]

nice one, aeshnid! I was thinking of a ?1960s? London fashion for painting everything white - were white birdcages the tippy top? - but I can’t even remember which quondam wit did a good job of mocking the birdcages.
posted by clew at 11:49 AM on November 26

Okay so Amazon is just basically tuning them both into the same algorithm as they collapse into the nadir of taste: millenial gray Amazon sludge right? Like it's this all over again, but with Single White Female vibes
posted by bookwo3107 at 11:55 AM on November 26 [4 favorites]

Goddammit, I should have used “Single Beige Female” as the thread title.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:02 PM on November 26 [55 favorites]

It seems like these people are already in a hell of their own making - the one who is slavishly copying the other, and the one who has aggressively removed all colour and individuality from her life. I feel like both of these people would be the worst person to talk to at a party.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:09 PM on November 26 [5 favorites]

The "attention economy" is bullshit and we should have burned every last copy of Wired, when the first issue came out.
posted by symbioid at 12:13 PM on November 26 [6 favorites]

I wish I had her problems.
posted by tzikeh at 12:19 PM on November 26 [2 favorites]

The race to the bottom continues. The frightening thing is, we aren't there yet.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:24 PM on November 26 [4 favorites]

Adaptive radiation online was fun even though a lot of it (necessarily, as always) turned out not to be adaptive.

And this is the opposite thing.

It seems to me, with broad leading from the article author, that both these people are imitating a Kardashian? And maybe a little Goop, but more Kardashian because Goopsters are whiter than beige? Is there a “prior art” loss of copyright as there is for patentability (AIUI, badly)?
posted by clew at 12:50 PM on November 26 [2 favorites]

They're fighting to trademark Blandness.

This shit is HILARIOUS !
posted by Faintdreams at 1:10 PM on November 26 [4 favorites]

I'm only part-way through but I can't stop getting distracted by how big both of their carbon footprints must be, good lord.
posted by coffeecat at 1:30 PM on November 26 [6 favorites]

This is going to be fun for copyright law classes. Certainly scenes a faire is going to be the biggest stumbling block, but I think there's a merger doctrine argument to be made about appeasing the algorithm and then the fact that the beige defendant may have stolen some sales from the beige plaintiff almost becomes a point in her beige favour instead of against her.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:34 PM on November 26 [2 favorites]

If your brand is authentic curated objects when you're actually just hawking whatever beige crap Amazon's algorithm sends you, and another influencer is just unapologetically shoving that crap in front of a camera in the current style of videos rewarded by yet another algorithm, you've painted yourself into a bit of a corner when you look the same. I have no doubt that they both got to the same place the same way, but they're reverse centaurs - humans driven by automation - pushed into this place by software, not interior designers curating some spontaneous artistic vision that's popular independent of engagement stats and click-throughs. Neither one is doing anything unique enough to be copied.
posted by krisjohn at 1:41 PM on November 26 [4 favorites]

The twist is when they both get pregnant, at the same time, and by the same biological father. However, brand-name influencer step-babies could help drive further lucrative affiliate profits, testing out the best in beige cribs and beige diapers. For this idea, I'm happy to take a ten percent cut off the top.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:02 PM on November 26 [2 favorites]

(Side note, I wouldn't put too much weight on the tattoos--that part of the arm is an extremely popular place to be tattooed, and that style of tattoo has been very popular in the last few years.)
posted by box at 2:39 PM on November 26 [9 favorites]

Ok finished, and then out of curiosity looked up the case docket. To quote from that:

"Promoting and curating thoughtful lists of goods and services is the center of many influencers’ business. The success of an influencer’s business largely depends on their ability to differentiate themselves from other influencers through (i) cultivating a unique brand identity, (ii) establishing trust and credibility with their audience, and (iii) researching, assessing, and promoting goods and services that appeal to their audience."

That seems...aspirational, to use the lingo of the attention economy. Seems like the center of many influencers' business is being inoffensive, young, conventionally attractive, and rich - or at least, appearing rich.

"On average, Sydney spends upwards of ten hours a day, seven days a week, researching unique products and services that may fit he brand identity, testing and assessing those products and services, styling photos and videos promoting such products and services, and editing posts for Plaintiffs’ Platforms."

Uh huh.

From at least as early as January 2023 until the time of this action [April 2024], Defendants have posted at least twenty posts on Instagram, at least nineteen posts on TikTok, and at least twelve posts on Amazon Storefront that directly replicate the products, poses, and/or styling of posts by Plaintiffs on the same respective platforms.

Ok, here seems like one of the weakest parts of the case - besides the fact that the "poses" and "unique content" all seems very ubiquitous, even without algorithms. It would be one think if every post seemed to copy in some way, but presumably 20 Instagram posts, 19 TikToks, and 12 Amazon posts over 16 months would represent a tiny slice of the labor of either of them over that period of time - especially if influencing is a 70hr a week job as Ms. Sydney claims!

Anyway, I appreciated the article - solid reporting on fluff - thanks for posting.
posted by coffeecat at 3:14 PM on November 26 [4 favorites]

So an influencer using Temu's algorithm and products would be a bargain beigement version of these ladies?
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 3:26 PM on November 26 [11 favorites]

I think it's interesting that the plaintiff is now pregnant with a boy, and therefore branching out from her neutrals theme for the nursery, which will be ... blue. Woe betide any of her mutuals planning a gender reveal, I guess.

I do not follow either of these women on social media, and I saw not one thing in the linked photos and exhibits I have not seen in very similar form on the internet. I think the explanation of "genre tropes" of social media is on the right track, but I am not an influencer, a "clean girl," or a copyright attorney, so what do I know.
posted by the primroses were over at 4:00 PM on November 26 [2 favorites]

From the Copyright Office website:

Copyright does not protect
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, or discoveries
• Works that are not fixed in a tangible form (such as a choreographic work that has not been
notated or recorded or an improvisational speech that has not been written down)
• Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans
• Familiar symbols or designs
• Mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring
• Mere listings of ingredients or contents

You can copyright a video, but not a vibe.
posted by zompist at 4:17 PM on November 26 [6 favorites]

I wait for one to stand atop the broken body of the other screaming “WHO RULES BEIGETOWN?!” And the adoring crowd rattles the fences and screams back “MOMMA BLAND RULES BEIGETOWN!!” It could go either way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:11 PM on November 26 [11 favorites]

I'm not sure this is actually about "copyrighting a vibe". From the article:

Gifford says there’s been a pattern of copying: days or weeks after she would share photos or videos promoting an Amazon product, Sheil shared her own content doing the same thing. In dozens of cases, Gifford says the angle, tone, or the text on Sheil’s posts ripped off hers. Exhibits submitted in court include nearly 70 pages of side-by-side screenshots collected by Gifford comparing her social media posts, personal website, and other platforms where she says Sheil copied her. In one instance, Gifford promoted gold earrings in the shape of a bow, modeling them by gently swooping her hair back to show them off. Just a few days later, Sheil posted her own photos of the same earrings, similarly photographed. In another example submitted to the court, Gifford unboxes and tries on a white two-piece top and short set; a few weeks later, Sheil did the same. The pattern continued for around a year, Gifford alleges...

Gifford’s commissions took a hit: months that were historically her biggest earners made much less, up to “a little less than half” of what she ordinarily could expect.

Even so, I don't think this sort of thing should be copyrightable. It sucks for Gifford to have someone copy her and apparently take her business, but that's what happens: success results in imitators.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:33 PM on November 26

I haven't read the article yet and I don't know if I will because I don't want to choose violence today, but I was scrolling through looking at the pictures and this line jumped out at me:

Sometimes, you can be so basic that copyright law doesn’t even protect you.

lol savage A+
posted by obfuscation at 5:37 AM on November 27 [1 favorite]

Is either one of these women the beige-fluencer who turns the books on her shelves backward so the colors of their covers won't ruin the vibe?
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:25 AM on November 27

They both are, but only one of them thinks she invented it.
posted by box at 11:17 AM on November 27 [4 favorites]

“I hope that it changes how people make content,” Gifford says. “I hope that it makes people more mindful"


I find it hilarious or maybe just sad that she wants other people who do her job to be MINDFUL when her career is based on encouraging as much consumption as possible.
posted by vespabelle at 8:58 AM on November 28

I watched a video on Instagram today in which one of my fave makers of only slightly beige polymer clay jewelry showed off her entire new line of earrings by clipping together like 40 vids of her doing the hair thing described in this article.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:04 AM on November 29

I just reread this article and on second read I was struck by how many times the photo examples of the "same product" were not actually the same product. Either a different product from the same company (as in the pot and pan set) or a similar looking product from a completely different company (the sweater and shorts). How is it not a lawsuit based on vibes?
posted by muddgirl at 9:10 AM on November 29 [2 favorites]

Just came across what might be the beginning of white interiors as a fashion. This is from Among the Bohemians, Virginia Nicholson, p 115:

`First Russian Ballet ' people favoured orange, purple and emerald green. Viva King papered her sitting room navy blue. The young Clifford Bax and his flatmate painted one bedroom in brilliant gamboge yellow, the other in scarlet. In 1925 Robert Medley arrived at a turning point when he settled into a flat in Swiss Cottage and, putting Bakst, Benois and Matisse behind him, went for a more radical look -- white.

Cleaned up and repainted in white distemper, this room with its Victorian marble mantelpiece and the mirror fixed over it was recognizably the prototype of all those rooms I have since liked to make.

Medley was looking for a colour that would reflect light, and a neutral background for his paintings, but it was around the same time that the craze for white took off. Mayfair adopted the Bohemian studio look. The fashionable interior designer Syrie Maugham's unearthly white rooms, furnished with lavish white sofas, were an end in themselves. Cecil Beaton loved them, and went for the 'albino stage set' look at his country house in Wiltshire, Ashcombe, where fashionable haut Bohemia gathered in the twenties. Until people discovered how miserably impractical it was, the delicious clarity of white brought a breath of badly needed fresh air into English homes.

Oh. The 1920s, the 1960s, the 1990s.... white interiors mark extravagant eras, and have long unpredictable come-downs?
posted by clew at 5:23 PM on November 30