PUBLISHED ONAugust 25, 2022 8:45 AMBYCandice CaiA Singaporean content creator has called out a public relations (PR) company here for their appalling and racist actions, after she was allegedly dropped from their campaign because she's Malay.
Tina Amir, who goes by her handle Tinadestruit on TikTok, posted about her experience in response to fellow influencer Theonlykarishma's sharing on "being an influencer or content creator in Singapore as a brown woman of colour".
In her video posted on Saturday (Aug 20), Theonlykarishma, whose real name is Karishma Jashani, spilled about beauty influencers of minority race in Singapore being overlooked and denied access to products due to "gatekeeping" by PR agencies here.
"This makes me so mad and I felt I have to share my own experience as well," said Tina in her response video, which was uploaded on Sunday (Aug 21).
According to Tina, a PR agency had reached out to her a year ago about a paid campaign for a Korean skincare brand and asked if she would be interested.
"They got back to me the next day after I said yes, I'd love to be part of it, and guess what they said? They said the company loves your profile but unfortunately, you're Malay," Tina revealed.
It gets worse.
"Then the company said, 'Oh but we can fight for you because you're a fair Malay'," said Tina, who admitted that the first response which came to mind was, "What the hell?"
Despite not replying and leaving the PR company's employee "on read", Tina said the agency contacted her again the next day to ask if she'd like to be part of the campaign.
However, it would have to be with the understanding that she would not be paid for it, she claimed.
What it came down to, posited Tina, was that it was entirely due to her race as she "did not fit the profile they were looking for, which is basically Chinese lah".
"So long story short, because I don't have a Chinese name, they wanted me to work for free," said Tina, to which she called "bulls***".
Not surprisingly, commenters expressed shock and revulsion at the revelation and badgered Tina to reveal the name of the company, to which she has refused.
"At the risk of being sued, I can't expose the name but this company does have a bad rep," was all she shared.
Well-known comedienne and influencer Preeti Nair (Preetipls) too, also jumped into the fray to comment on "the lack of minority representation" in the beauty and skincare community.
In particular, Preeti highlighted how she was dropped from a cosmetics brand's PR list while another content creator whom she described as being "fat-phobic and all around problematic as hell" was included.
According to Preeti, it's "just a bad idea", especially when said cosmetic brand is known for its inclusive marketing and all about diversity in its product lines.
"So this just shows that when you speak up about things, you're constantly just going to lose out," she added.
In a follow-up to her original video, however, Karishma shared that PR agencies may not be entirely to blame.
"I realised it's not just PR agencies and that's even more scary to me you guys," said Karishma, highlighting a comment from a TikTok user which shared the insight.
"It seems like brands are asking these PR agencies as well to use certain types of influencers or non-POC (people of colour) influencers," added Karishma, who called for users to call out the brands who do so.
"If they're a beauty brand that is internationally acclaimed and they have 40 over shades of foundations and they're not sending the caramels or the ebonies or the tan foundations to influencers here in Singapore, that's messed up and we should be calling them out."
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