Caroline Calloway: A Middle Ground

I have been following caroline calloway for years. I've followed her since she was first featured in a buzzfeed article about instagramers to follow. I immediately followed her and fell in love with her humor and beautiful writing. I was following her when she launched her Creativity workshop tour, i was one of the people that avidly asked for her to come to Charlotte. I was so proud to think that i was part of the reason that she was coming to charlotte.

I had no hesitation about buying a ticket to her workshop, when i saw that the price was $165 i was actually surprised that it was so cheap. Cheap as in, cheaper than most concert tickets and tickets to anything with any famous person. When Caroline was making all these promises of care packages, home made lunch and orchid crowns, i never really thought that was factored into the price. To my mind, the price was based on the value of her time, and that's for her to determine. While i understand that $165 not including tax and fees is a steep price for me and most young people that follow Caroline, i always thought it was a pretty fair price.

When Caroline started to go back on some of the promises of letters and salads, i wasn't disappointment or thought i was being ripped off. I just thought that she got in over her head with all the things she didn't realize that would take a considerable amount of time. I think that's the base of this whole things and why it went so bad. Caroline didn’t set out to scam people or go back on her promises. The controversy surrounding Caroline started with a twitter thread calling her a scammer for her ticket prices and for the fact that the tour seemed disorganized and some of the promises were being redacted.

Quickly the first day of the workshop was upon us. Her first workshop was in New York, where she lives. Once the workshop was over and counted a success, Caroline took to her instagram to ask her fans if it was okay to move all the dates to new york instead of the requested Cities across the United States. She did this with a poll, which offered an option of ‘Fuck yes’ or ‘This is our spot’ referring to the loft that the workshop had been held in. this enraged a lot of fans, who did not have the means to get to new york, myself included. Caroline would later say that while she has and will continue to offer polls with only yes answers, that she listens to fans when they comment and DM her.

I will admit that i was super upset when she posted that poll, i felt like there was no safe place to say that i didn’t want the workshop to be moved to New York, i had to go out of my way to DM her, how i felt instead of being given a safe place to vote no and see how many others felt the same way. For the rest of the day Caroline, talked about how the poll was unanimously in support of the move and i felt so unheard and efrelivent.

I was sure that all the dates would be moved to new york and i would have to ask for a refund. I was taken by surprise when Caroline announced he would only be moving some dates and would be keeping the Charlotte date. I was elated, until i woke up the next day. I woke up to Carolie announcing that she was cancelling the workshop tour because of critizume that she received on twitter and online in general.

I was crushed, i had been so excited to meet her and listen to her talk about how and why she writes and what motivates her to write. I was angry at whoever criticized this workshop because at the time i didn't see what the problem was. So i went to twitter to see what was being said. While some of it i thought was outrageous, other parts of it i did agree with. During those two days that the tour was cancelled, i received my refund for my ticket and really thought through what had happened and i dived deep into the internet to read accounts of people that had been to the two workshops that went ahead.

Overall, everyone that went to the workshop enjoyed themselves and almost nobody regretted going, although some had expressed some disappointment in what was offered at the workshop. One the third day after the cancellation, i woke up to Caroline’s announcement that the tour was back on. While i was excited that she was taking the criticism in stride and trying to learn and grow from it, my excited and eagerness to had calmed. Caroline has said that this reinstatement of the tour is now better planned, executed and she now had a staff of two, to help her with the workload, she hasn’t really been sharing that much about the planning act or what is going on with the workshop.

Instead of updating her follows about the new details of the tour, Caroline instead made a t shirt that said ‘Stop Hate Following Me Kayleigh’ with the caption that haters can't bring her down. I understand the want to lash out at someone that has made you feel horrible however i don't agree with Caroline’s action in making this t shirt. Although i don't believe she actively asked her followers to insult or harass Kayleigh the journalist that was reporting on her workshop and was of the opinion that it was a scam. It was not a moment of going high as Caroline would say, instead it looked and felt really vindictive. I don't blame Caroline for this reaction, i have reacted vindictively to situations before. I will say that while i understand, i do think that Caroline should have thought it through and realized that releasing that t shirt would do her no favors. It is currently not available for buy, i believe that it was reported to the site as a violation of the guidelines. Caroline has not said anything else about the t shirt since she first announced its launch.

A main criticism i had read about the workshop was that it was too white. It's unfair to lay that completely at Caroline’s feet. Caroline doesn't have any control what what kind of people follow her or what kind of people can afford to attend her workshop. Caroline acknowledged that her tickets are expensive and offered at least one person per workshop a scholarship, to come to her workshop for free.

From what i have read from the people that attended her workshops, said that the scholarship recipients are mostly white. Again, it's not Caroline's fault if the only people that applied for this scholarship were all white, having said that. I do believe that Caroline should have taken this opportunity to really try and make sure that she was actively including those of color. Representation is so important in tv, music, film and even influencers workshops.

I don't believe that Caroline started her workshops with an intention to scam people, i do believe that she was overwhelmed and lacked the planning and experience needed to make and execute a world tour like she wanted. I commend her on her larger than life dreamers and her want to teach and empower other young girls, through her stories and life experience. I think Caroline is like any other 20 something young woman, big dreams but little experience to make them happen. The hate that she had gotten for this is completely uncalled for and i'm glad to see that Caroline is not letting it bring her down. I will continue to follow her and her endeavors.

Here are the links to the other articles written about Caroline Calloways Workshop:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/inside-influencer-caroline-calloway-uncanceled-tour.html

http://www.pajiba.com/web_culture/the-case-of-caroline-calloway-and-her-creativity-workshop-tour.php

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nep8xx/influencer-caroline-calloway-isnt-a-scammer-just-a-self-obsessed-mess

https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/caroline-calloway-instagram-seminars-cancelled.html

https://medium.com/trend-tableau/in-defense-of-caroline-calloway-5060a248b12d

https://www.wmagazine.com/story/caroline-calloway-creativity-workshop