Chiara Ferragni, Anne Boleyn, and the pleasure of burning someone at the stake.

Influencer scandals and hating young powerful women.

Have you ever had Pandoro? Vaguely resembling a Panettone, but with a characteristic yellow tone and an eight-star-pointed shape, it’s a classic Christmas cake, especially in the north of Italy. It is also the product that influencer Chiara Ferragni decided to endorse and promote in the 2022 “Pink Christmas” campaign, for the Italian food company Balocco.

The Pandoro in question proudly announced in its package that for each unit sold, Balocco would make a donation to Turin’s Hospital Regina Margherita, specifically its children's ward. It was a wonderful initiative that kind of justified the price tag- at nine euros when traditional Balocco Pandoro retailed around three euros.

It was not an unusual endorsement for powerhouse Chiara Ferragni. One of the more successful representatives of the fashion blogging wave of the early 2010s, she experienced an astronomical ascend to fame. In an almost fairytale “fashion”, she went from being an underpaid magazine assistant to one of the most influential writers in the sector and director of her own (and incredibly profitable) brand. And while some of her peers struggled to maintain their status and economic endeavors when Instagram replaced blogging in the mid-2010s as the main channel of internet content consumption, Ferragni made the transition from blogger to influencer almost seamlessly. And not a run-of-the-mill type of influencer either. When in 2020 shoemaker Tod’s announced the inclusion of Ferragni in their board of directors, its stock experienced a 100 million euro revalorization.

But last December, the Italian Competition Authority (L'Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato), sanctioned the Ferragni’s societies that benefited from this initiative with a million euros fine for “incorrect commercial practices”. That malpractice derived from the fact that the Balocco donation had happened, but it was a prefixed quantity that was not directly linked to the number of sold-pandoros. It’s estimated that Ferragni’s societies generated more than a million from the sales.

Although Chiara did her best to reverse-truck the situation, in terms of social image, the damage was done. And when social image is your main source of income, this kind of backlash can effectively end your life and career.

It is a fact of law that the business was deceptive to customers, and for that, she has been rightfully condemned. She has also made a point of donating all the earnings she received for the campaign to the Hospital.

The announcement of the donation was done in an apology video. Although influencer’s video apologies as a genre, are worth their own article, this one did not have (do any of them do actually?) the effect intended. Internet users were quick to pick apart the video and Ferragni. “Wonderful interpretation”, “Charity is done in silence otherwise it is advertising”, “There are various forms of disability, the most dangerous is being without dignity”, “her tears seem to be as if she is crying because of the damage to her image”, “Pathetic” “I would condemn you to spend a day with children suffering from bone cancer and look them in the face after it has been explained to them that you have robbed them of a bit of hope!”.

Analysis by color experts where made from the video, pointing the use of neutral-colored clothing and background as an emotional manipulation tool. For the time being, she has lost 175.000 followers and the numbers are still going down. Ferragni has since stopped posting on any platform and the comments on her profiles are being filtered. Just last month, reports confirmed that she and her husband, Italian rapper Fedez had separated. And again the comments

And here is the thing. Ferragni, at the time being has not been accused by any legal authority of committing fraud. There is no concrete evidence that proves that this was the intention of the initiative from the beginning. She probably just went through this campaign like she did with the hundreds of other endorsements she makes yearly.

The package is still dishonest? Yes. Costumers should be reimbursed? Absolutely. Should this give us the right to suspect that every move of hers is a product of a ruthless money-making mentality?.

One cannot help but compare her case to other scandals in the influencer zeitgeist over the last years, like the mysterious case of Hilarias Baldwin's Spanish heritage (or lack of) or the involvement of Olivia Jade in the Varsity Blues Federal Operation. None of them came close to Ferragni's level of influence and economic impact, and even in these cases, the influencers involved were only hunned by the majority of their respective platforms after several.

For a public figure who has maintained an impeccable track record in her career until now (a difficult achievement on the internet, where every move of yours is written in stone for public examination) it seems that a scandal like this, although incredibly sensible in nature, shouldn’t be causing tremendous impact in her platform, especially considering the scarce prove of her direct involvement in the conception of the operation.

The intensity and speed of the public response to the scandal are simultaneously comprehensible and curious. In a way, makes one wonder if this reaction is the direct result of the recent events or rather, the catalyst of a long-built resentment against her. It is strange to transition from being the nation's sweetheart to a pariah in a month, so strange, that it puts in question whether she ever was even liked to begin with.

From this point on it is tempting to argue that Ferragni is being subjected to a disproportionate response, originated in her status as a young, wealthy, self-made woman. This line of thought gains traction when we remember how instances of male influencers misbehavior (Grooming, racism, reckless endangerment of their crew, are the first ones that come to mind) are envolved by controversial debates about the exact level of guilt that the content creator must asume. All examples linked are instances of direct acts or behavior from the influencers themselves, and not, as we face in Ferragni’case, a broader campaign- but the level of personal backlash seems comparable or even less, even when having a higher input in the controversy.

Here it’s seems that no debate it is taking place, at least on the court of public opinion.

While reading the news and social media feedback from this case, I couldn’t helped but think of Ann Boleyn, and her relation with public opinion, which was as rocky and spiky as Ferragni’s. When ultimately abandoned and sentenced to death by her husband, Britain rejoiced that the usurper was finally gone. During her reign, although mostly banned and repressed by King Henry VIII, public condemnations of her figure were notable enough to have been widely documented and preserved in popular memory. Whether it was by a “wives uprising” in the royal court or the visions of a mystical nun and its spread by her followers, we have many examples of the disdain that the queen inspired in most of the population, especially when compared to Catherine of Aragon. Catherine in turn had also never been as popular as she was once dethroned, having to endure political and social rumours and schemes sans the moment she arrived at Westminster.

However, inversely as Anne Boleyn, who was once looked favorably as the king’s lover, it was only when stripped off of her privileges and power that she reached the peak of public acceptance. Many centuries later, one of her distant relatives, Queen of Spain Isabella II was dethrone and exiled to France following a military revolution, and surrounding varying rumours and gossip about her foul character or her sexual deviancies (!). However, least than one decade latter and with a new queen in the throne, popular classes and high nobility alike, started to imitate Isabella’s traditional hairstyles in order to further scorn the current monarch, who was of foreign origin and style.

Woman enjoying influence and privileges today it is not the rara avis that it was in past centuries. Not it is restringen to those of high breed and even higher marriages, but it has become a (remote but possible nonetheless) to anyone with a smartphone and decent wifi connection.

But while we don’t (publicaly) tolerate anymore the censoring of powerful women just for being that, we surely take advantage of when a situation makes us able to criticize her for it. There’s obviously the consumer and internet user right to denounce and condemn this foul practice in public, but the comments observed previously show that it’s something more that just that.

We maybe don’t behead them anymore, but am not so sure that we have come to accept them.