ColumbiaMissourian.com / Instagram

As schools are reopening across the country, we’re seeing a different kind of messaging on social media. College students are posting on Instagram to share COVID-19 safety information from their campuses. According to reports, schools like the University of Missouri are actually paying some of their students to be official brand ambassadors and influencers for their schools.

I mean, is anything more American than this development?

The concept is dicey. While on the surface it makes some sense, because American universities are run like businesses, the implications and consequences are much more complicated than if an average corporation ran similar influencer campaigns. Like my former colleague Anne Helen Petersen pointed out on Twitter, if college students are indebted to their schools, they can’t openly speak their truths or be critical of them.

When it comes to pandemic-related content, the stakes are so high that I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say it is an actual matter of life or death. Anne Helen reported in one of her recent newsletters that it appears popular twin influencers Brooklyn and Bailey McKnight may have a preestablished relationship with Baylor University, where they’re currently enrolled. The two have shared tagged Instagrams about Baylor in the past. However, a recent post they shared to their 5.8 million followers about contracting COVID-19 has raised some concerns. Brooklyn and Bailey made a point to say in their long Instagram caption that it “is NOT due to in person classes that this happened.”

If the twins have an influencer-spon partnership with the school, it’s then hard to trust their words.

(I reached out to the twins and to the university to ask if they could confirm or deny any previous or ongoing brand deals. I also reached out to a handful of Mizzou students this week who shared curated COVID-19–related content to ask about their alleged partnerships, but none of them have gotten back to me.)

Instagram / @brooklynandbailey

Anyway, the ethics of any alleged spon between an educational institution and its students is tricky, to put it diplomatically. But most of the details are speculative at this point, and it’s not my job to litigate them. I wanted to address the college influencer stuff because it’s made me think about another issue: the controversy of college athletes as brand ambassadors who aren’t paid.

In my opinion, college athletes have historically been influencers for their schools. Not only do they train and perform rigorously on top of their schoolwork, they’re constantly auditioning for pro league scouts when they’re out on the field. Can you imagine that kind of pressure? Their performances also bring in hype and brand recognition, which translates to ungodly amounts of money pouring in for their schools and the National Collegiate Athletics Association at large. In 2018, the association reported over $1 billion in revenue. Schools depend on high-achieving athletes to sustain the business.

Student athletes are the faces of their schools and have a huge amount of influence. It’s why a school like Duke University has a lot more visibility and brand recognition than a school that has similar academic standards. So why aren’t student athletes compensated for this critical role? People who play devil’s advocate may say, “well, many of them are given full-ride scholarships,” which is true, and that is the agreement that they sign off on. But the impact that college athletes have on their colleges is profound and lucrative, and they see none of the earnings. NCAA officials and those running athletic programs at prospective universities are pocketing most of it. It begs the question, is a full-ride scholarship enough compensation, especially when schools might now be paying students to be brand ambassadors?

I spoke to Bomani Jones, a sports journalist for ESPN, who has written extensively about this imbalance of power and who has been advocating for student athletes to be paid for a while now.

He laid it out very succinctly. “I absolutely believe college athletes should be paid,” he said. “College athletics is a billion-dollar industry. It makes millionaires at every school. Everyone associated with the games gets paid but the players. There are adults willing to break the law to spend money to procure the services of players. Their market value is demonstrated many times over.”

Bomani also resoundingly agreed that players are the original influencers. “If they weren't, shoe companies wouldn't outfit them in their gear. If they weren't, applications wouldn't go up when a team wins a championship,” he added.

These new influencer models make it hard to ignore the disparaging ways some students are treated. And it may be time to finally ask ourselves why. If your answer is, “Because that’s what’s written in the NCAA rulebook and how things have always been done,” perhaps it’s time to amend some policies.

“No other students, for any reason, are asked to pass up money. They are a wholly unique class of students,” Bomani said. “The schools are paying these influencers because they have to. They cannot procure their services without compensation. They don't pay athletes because they don't have to, and they are the only adults in America expected to work without receiving money in return.”

Gucci has been sharing TikTokers’ content about Gucci. Is this an ad?

TikTok / @gucci

This past week, Gucci has been sharing videos of people doing “The Gucci Model Challenge” to its own brand page. It’s shared about nine separate TikToks so far, which have gained hundreds of thousands of views. One of them was heavily promoted by TikTok and has been viewed over 5.8 million times.

The “challenge” was started by a 21 year old named Morgan Presley, who parodied the ridiculous and signature Gucci style in a TikTok in mid-August. After Gucci discovered her video, it reached out to Morgan to ask her for permission to use her content. Morgan told me it was “surreal” to hear directly from the legendary fashion brand, and she gladly gave them permission.

Her original video eventually turned into a meme or “challenge” where other people used her audio to recreate a signature Gucci look. Gucci has since been uploading peoples’ challenges to its own TikTok page, tagging the OP and crediting Morgan as the voiceover. It’s a kind of wink and acknowledgment that it’s in on the joke.

“Gucci’s new video project for @tiktok will feature talents that took part in the #GucciModelChallenge,” it captioned one of “its” videos in the series.

Morgan, like me, thought the idea was unexpected and brilliant. “I know big brands [like Gucci] don’t work with influencers. They’ve worked with celebrities, so it was so surreal. I’ve never seen that. The fact they were playing along in the joke was really cool, instead of suing me for making fun of them,” she said. Although Morgan told me that she was a bit disappointed to know the brand only used her voice instead of her whole video.

Morgan also noted that since Gucci started posting parody videos that she inspired, its account grew immensely. Previously, the brand had posted experimental and high-concept videos that garnered a few thousand likes. The posts of Morgan’s challenge videos get tens of thousands of likes. “They grew a lot; their account grew a ton,” Morgan said. “And their engagement is so high they [don’t have to do] normal advertisement.”

But because TikTok doesn’t allow a direct repost, and Gucci has to acquire rights to other people’s videos to post directly, it makes me wonder: What kind of content is this? Is it an ad campaign? Is it some kind of fun advertorial thing to engage with users? Who’s benefiting from this cross-promotion?

I reached out to Gucci earlier this week to directly ask them these questions. A spokesperson provided a lot of information on background, but they did not provide any comments I could cite directly.According to top comments on their reuploads, the original posters seem grateful to be promoted by the brand. And I imagine they’re getting new followers from being tagged, which is great.

But other comments from TikTok users are asking the luxury designer to do more for Morgan, who essentially created the original content that it’s now being recognized for. “But did you hire the girl that made the sound?” one user asked; “C’mon Gucci I hope you bought her sound and didn’t just take it. Also, hire her!” another wrote.

To me, the Gucci campaign is a smart move. It makes the aspirational brand so much more accessible, and it’s generally fun when a brand that takes itself so seriously all the time is able to laugh at itself. But the incessant posting of other peoples’ videos makes me wonder how much they’ll milk a joke for their own benefit, and if we should ask ourselves where we should draw the line. If you have any thoughts about this, email me!

Until next time,

Tanya

Want more? Here are other stories we were following this week.

A doctor went viral for saying his daughter was attacked by BLM. She wasn’t. A clash between motorists and so-called squeegee kids in Baltimore quickly spread on Twitter after a respected doctor falsely described it as an attack by Black Lives Matter protesters.

TikTok star Addison Rae has been cast in a She’s All That remake. The remake will be a gender-swapped version of the iconic '90s rom-com called He's All That.

Jo Malone calls its decision to cut John Boyega out of a commercial for China a “misstep.” "While we immediately took action and removed the local version of the campaign, we recognize that this was painful and that offense was caused,” the company said.