Bloggers, Vloggers, Freebies, Impartiality and all that.

Ok. Still doesn’t change to the fact he’s rude. No excuse for the way he’s talked to or treated people.

That’s fine, as long as he abides by this too, which has proven difficult in the past.

I wish Westend Whingers were Still around. I loved their reviews and their "Strallomoter" ( excuse spelling).

It’s not about who might be reading this forum. Vloggers are protected if they are members of this forum because we have a rule  about being respectful to fellow members on this forum. If any actor or creative was a member here under their known name then they would be protected within discussions on this forum in the same way. In both cases critiscism of work on stage or on YouTube would be allowed as long as that stayed with our rules of what is acceptable. I said that in my earlier post. 

I can’t make it any simpler to be honest. 

Obviously very sorry to read this, and apologies to have left a bad taste. Believe it or not I'm quite a socially anxious person who doesn't make great first impressions, I'm not sure when we met but clearly I came across very poorly to you which I regret.

As an aside, if anyone does want to know about the current PR ticket process or the economics of YouTube, I could shed a little light on some of that.

Yes, a beautiful response Micky Jo.

Yes please. I'd be very interested, as would many others, I'm sure.

I follow Shaun Tossell.

He seems pretty much on the ball with what's happening.

I have also met him on several occasions.

Shaun Tossell and Mickey-Jo are friends. I have seen them on many occasions together (along with Mickey-Jo's fiancee Aaron James) at varying events such as the West End Flea Market, West End Woofs and Musicals.con

I know there are local papers who won't publish negative reviews of local theatres for fear of losing advertising revenue. I have only written for them once and wasn't edited.

Similarly when I was part of the WoS team, there was never any pressure to tailor reviews to suit advertisers. That may have changed in recent years but I doubt it.

But the idea of charging for a review is utterly wrong.

I must admit I would love to be able to claim travel/parking expenses but that just has never been an option.

It is very consistent with influencers though. That's the lower end of what very mid level influencers can get for a post.

People who have had dealings with influencers can vouch for that. It has believability to it.

Whether any production would pay that for a review is another matter. But would a self important influencer have the cheek to ask something like that? Definitely

I read recently that an influencer called Father of Daughters was paid £15,000 by Highway Standards agency for a post. Amount confirmed via an FOI request after he was (ironically) filming using a handheld selfie stick, thus actually driving dangerously.

I hope that £3000 for a good review is nonsense, but £3000 to create content is very believable. The problem (I think) is that most people don’t realise that their scrolling is monetised and don’t understand the economics of social media. This is a major problem.

Broadly, I think the Ben Fletcher post is very 'ooh scandal, those damned influencers, you can't trust them'.  It just feels very 'Office Gossip' to me; without any actual evidence we all shrug and go 'yeah, that sounds likely' without actually , y'know, having a scooby about what's going on.

Influencers can get paid silly amounts of money, though it's a lot less wild than it was a decade ago. Not declaring sponsors and interests Payola style kills careers, and £3K just isn't enough . It's a tough gig, I mean it's not working an oil rig, but it's not just £££ for chatting sh*t.

So it could be an influencer chancing their arm, but it's most likely nonsense. Could be jealously and back-bitching, but that never happens in this industry

PR is a thing. I do reviews. If a company sends me a big cake and then asks me to look at  Product X, am I more likely to look at that Product X than I am to look at Product Y, who didn't send me cake? Yes, but not just because of the cake; said company has invested in the product and it's another way of saying they're making a big deal of it.

If Product X is sh*t, I'll say it's sh*t. But Product Y might not even get a review. Because I only have so much time. But more people are interested in Product X, so X gets the time. (And hey, I set aside time every month to talk about indie Product Σ, which doesn't even have a PR budget. But it sucks for Y. )