When Youthforia, a young makeup line that once received a nearly half-a-million-dollar investment from one of the celebrity investors on “Shark Tank,” released its darkest foundation yet, a collective sigh among Black women could be heard across social media. In the past, beauty brands, including many industry heavy-hitters, have fumbled products for darker skin tones,…
Most days, Anne Higonnet is able to keep her cool. She’s a distinguished professor of art history at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim and Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellowships. She chooses her words, her tone and her clothing carefully. One day in 2017, though, as Higonnet was quietly…
Being an influencer can be a lot of work. Instagram thinks A.I. can lend a big hand. Instagram is pitching popular influencers on a program that relies on artificial intelligence to interact with fans, the latest example of how Meta, Instagram’s parent company, is trying to expand the technology across its products. The program, which…
The influencers were not in Aspen to ski. In their Barbie-pink ski suits and matching Moon Boots, they rode the Silver Queen gondola to the top of the mountain, smiling and jumping for their cameras and social media feeds. Soon they would get back on the gondola and ride down, perhaps to pose for more…
The ominous messages began arriving in Elissa’s inbox early last year. “You sell pics of your underage daughter to pedophiles,” read one. “You’re such a naughty sick mom, you’re just as sick as us pedophiles,” read another. “I will make your life hell for you and your daughter.” Elissa has been running her daughter’s Instagram…
Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have accounts, but parents are allowed to run them — and many do so for daughters who aspire to be social media influencers. What often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a…
