A mural in Los Angeles that only allows verified influencers and people with more than 20,000 social media followers to pose in front of it has sparked outrage.
Located on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, the mural is flanked by security guards and covered with a white sheet to limit access to the hallowed artwork.
The mural is comprised of a set of wings encased in a heart emblazoned with the words “City of Angels” and the words “love” and “art” at its base. “It’s not even a good mural,” tweeted Rachel Mayes.
Vice journalist Justin Caffier posted an image of himself in front of the mural, which has subsequently gone viral, prompting outrage on social media. One commentator called the stunt “un-American”:
An information board adjacent to the concealed mural encourages influencers to tag the people behind the artwork, @likeandsubscribe, on social media. The Like and Subscribe Instagram and Twitter accounts had just 734 and 3,881 followers respectively at the time of writing. The sparse Instagram account simply reads, “Coming July 9th”.
The stunt is widely speculated to be a viral marketing campaign, although what it’s for has not yet been revealed.
Taylor Lorenz, a staff writer for the Atlantic, who co-hosts a podcast also called Like and Subscribe, confirmed the mural was nothing to do with them.
“I actually think this is hilarious and just such a perfect encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with today’s influencer culture. Influencers are already getting upgraded at hotels, free meals at restaurants, subsidised apartments in luxury buildings – why wouldn’t they get their own exclusive Instagram Playgrounds?” she said.
In the city that’s currently hosting a two-month pop-up museum on selfies, it’s no surprise that digital culture is finding yet another way to divide and conquer social media users. With more than 4,000 retweets from Caffier’s Twitter post alone, whoever’s behind the stunt can’t doubt it’s been a success.
