How an influencer lied to her followers about Coachella for three days and got away with it.

Over the Easter long weekend, Gabbie Hanna’s 3 million-plus Instagram followers scrolled through her Coachella posts with envy.

“Wow you look incredible babe,” one commenter wrote on a picture of the YouTuber and Instagram influencer dressed as a Coachella ‘anime queen’, complete with a baby pink wig worn in space buns and festival wristbands.

 

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A post shared by GABBIE HANNA (@gabbiehanna) on Apr 19, 2019 at 6:18pm PDT

On another photo of Gabbie sitting on the grass wearing a rainbow bikini top and covered in glitter, presumably taking a rest in the middle of her weekend-long stay at the California music festival, another commented, “Where is your top from, obsessed!!”

 

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A post shared by GABBIE HANNA (@gabbiehanna) on Apr 20, 2019 at 5:49pm PDT

And of course, what trip to Palm Springs would be complete without a photo sitting in front of the iconic Coachella ferris wheel, with the sprawling Coachella Valley mountains in the background?

 

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A post shared by GABBIE HANNA (@gabbiehanna) on Apr 21, 2019 at 2:44pm PDT

Judging from Gabbie’s social media activity, her 2019 Coachella trip involved multiple wigs in various bright and pastel colours, several outfits and pairs of sneakers, complete with matching bum bag and ridiculously small sunglasses, face paint, an Instagram boyfriend and a heck of a lot of glitter.

So dedicated to giving her followers a complete insiders look at what it’s like to go to one of the world’s most recognisable music festivals, the singer also posted videos and updates to her Instagram story over the whole weekend, from inside her hotel room to in amongst festival goers on the grass.

Only, Gabbie wasn’t at Coachella. She faked the whole thing.

In a video uploaded to her more than six million YouTube subscribers on Tuesday, Gabbie explained exactly how she managed to fake her entire Coachella social media coverage.

“Social media is a lie,” she said in the video that’s been viewed over two million times at the time of publishing. (Watch a snippet from Gabbi’s ‘I Faked Going To Coachella’ video below, post continues after video.)

“I talk to a lot of people leading up to the festival, and it seems like not many people look forward to Coachella. Going to Coachella for most people is weeks of preparation, thousands of dollars into outfits, hair, makeup, extensions, weaves, wigs, alcohol, hotels, food, accommodation, tickets – it’s an investment. Sometimes it pays off… but it feels like a lot of work for something you’re not enjoying.

“What I’m saying is, there’s a lot of people who go and don’t enjoy the experience, but they’re going just because of Instagram.”

The 23-minute long video shows exactly how Gabbie was able to fake her Coachella weekend, from printing out fake wristbands and pretending to get ready with friends in someone else’s house, to photoshoots in an empty park perfect for photoshopping people into the background of.

She also enlisted the help of a friend to photoshop real people and scenes from Coachella into the background of her photos.

 

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so i pretended to go to coachella for you a youtube video, which was substantially more believable than me actually GOING to coachella ???? i worked SUUUPER hard on this one and had a TON of fun with it, link in bio! ????????TYSM TO @kellansworld FOR THE WITCHCRAFT PHOTOSHOP!! never could have pulled this off without his skills, seriously an amazing artist, ty ty ty ????

A post shared by GABBIE HANNA (@gabbiehanna) on Apr 23, 2019 at 4:07pm PDT

While Gabbie said the process of faking Coachella was fun, and gave her a better understanding of why people enjoy going to Coachella and getting dressed up, but she also noticed the FOMO culture among her followers who wished they were a part of it, and stressed that it is quite easy to fake a perfect life on Instagram.

“People look at people on Instagram and social media, and they think, ‘Wow their life is impossibly perfect’. That body, that vacation, that car — so much of it’s fake, and that’s OK,” she said.

“Instagram is a viable career, I make money from social media, but for an average viewer… just know that those things aren’t always as attainable as they seem, just know it’s OK, it doesn’t make you any less cool. Don’t base your life off the few posts a week you see from your favourite influencer living this cool, amazing life.”

You can watch Gabbie’s full ‘I Faked Going To Coachella…’ YouTube video here.

Do you agree with this influencer’s decision to fake going to Coachella, or do you think she’s a hypocrite? How do you feel about how social media creates a sense of an ‘us versus them’ mentality? Tell us in the comments.