I feel the same way as you do about this. I was honestly shocked that people thought that they should be able to get stuff for free just because someone else said so. Noone should work for free (unless they are an artist who says themselves that they want to do freebies of course) :P

Elle Darby calls herself a social media influencer, but never really heard of her since this came up. She's basically a nobody who thinks she is famous. I saw her response and all I could think is that she is a "princess". One thing that does concern me is this new type of bulling,self vicitimizing and sheep mentality people have. The mindset that you have to threaten, harass, stalk and make sure a person gets a bad rap/fired just because you are offended or they don't agree to your demands. As for artists, agreed, unless you do a raffle or you do a freebie for a close friend shouldn't mean everyone is entitled to a freebie nor is this "exposure" bs argument a valid one.

I’ve literally never heard of her.

If you want exposure you come to them, not the other way around in my opinion. Like for example if I make an indie game on steam I will offer it for free to the popular YouTubers in exchanged for showing it on their page, but again because I seeked them out. But yeah it shouldn't be expected as a form of payment to you at all.

I felt a bit impressed with the frankness of the hotel’s letter.
I know it isn’t cheap to run a hotel and I applaud the owner’s stance of defending his staff and expenses.

Thank you for mentioning this, I wouldn’t have stumbled across the story without it!

So why has the hotel banned vegans? Like I don't understand what vegans have to do with any of it....

The hotel owner has a long history of going to bat against what he feels to be entitled groups that have criticisms of his hotels. He routinely debunks claims of certain behaviours or practices from customers and has quite a bit of social media notoriety from these previous encounters. The vegan thing relates to a previous history with what he perceived to be bad customers. Their marketing thrives on their no-shit honesty and ballsyness. Works for some people I guess.

I've offered to bring my own food to hotels or eat dishes with certain things removed so I am not an inconvenience to places like this at all. It seems kind of arrogant to assume all vegans are entitled. I don't expect everyone to cater to me. But there's always some give and take with these things. I've never had any problems with small non vegan hotels. I guess this is a hotel I'll be avoiding.

Apparently, I must be old fashioned nowadays... I would never, have never asked for 'free art'. (Or, really, free *anything*..)

It really sucks, because she's I think 22 from the UK, I'm 21 from the UK. and It's just like.. because of her, people are going to see me - or others my age, and assume we're all out to get what we can out of the worl because we believe we're "owed it" when it's not the case at all. This is exactly the reason so many people bash "millenials".
Some of us have decent worth ethic ;u;

Oh, that's true, but .. you can't escape it. (I mean, NOONE can..) That initial reaction - when I was over there a year ago, right before our president got hired, people would comment to me, 'How can you be a part of that?' .. I'm not. Just because I'm from across the pond does not mean I'm in the same boat.

You have an advantage as well though - you can ALSO see the 'other side' of it, in regards to people asking you for 'free artz!'.

Nothing is free in this world... unless there's a catch. people shouldn't feel entitled to free things in exchange for exposure... its pretty sickening ;o

Honestly kinda think that hotel owner is a bad ass, and his cheeky response was just amusing. Darby does seem kinda like she's painting herself a huge victim, especially not taking any responsibility with her 'well every blogger has sent an email like this!' .. also calling it a "business proposal" lol. People took it too far with sending her death threats though, so she's using that to completely miss the point of the hotel's response in the first place.

Oh for sure, total pisstake - the death threats are fully unwarranted though.
If someone's being an idiot, you should calmly and kindly explain to them why they're being an idiot, and how they could improve, and not be such an idiot in the future.

Maybe it's just because on art sites, we have that different perspective? I'm not sure. But I kinda wanna meet her and like.. explain why so many people are against her and think she's entitled.

I think maybe if someone sat her down and actually explained, she might learn. But it seems too far gone now what with these other idiots sending her death threats. That's just equally as idiotic imo.

I'm actually curious if she would take it to heart, or just be like 'but look at all these followers I've gained!' Some people are willing to take some negative spotlight for a chance at stardom. Especially with all the changes to youtube in the past couple years, they've made it harder for small content makers to get their stuff out there and be visible.

At the very least, it did open a discussion about it! Even if she doesn't take away anything from it, others might and hopefully realize that asking for freebies has a greater effect than they originally presumed.

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I don't really appreciate either party in this particular instance. I think the girl never should have asked for free shit but I also feel like the dude overreacted and acted like an ass.
Then again, I wasn't aware of their history of basically being just that way long before she ever came into the picture, so that did shed some light on things, at least.

I dunno, just... whether or not it was rude (which it was) to ask for free shit like that, she DID word it very professionally and politely. I didn't get any vibe of 'I'm entitled to this' from her, I think she was just... naive? idk.
She shouldn't have asked, but she certainly could have worded her request much worse. I'm not saying the dude should have just bowed down to her or accepted her proposal but I'm saying I think he took it too far.

The fact that he half assedly blacked out her email to the point that some people could see and find it and harass her is unacceptable imo. The fact that he continued milking this and went so far as to tell her to "get a real job"
and she might be able to afford conveniences like everybody else... the fact that he banned ALL bloggers from his hotel (which how the fuck would you even know who is one if they don't make it readily apparent??) all just...
really pushed the entire thing overboard for me. Particularly the 'real job' thing.

The dude hates millenials with a passion and does the one thing I absolutely cannot stand people doing; generalizing and stereotyping the masses, assuming they all act and think the same. So honestly, he made himself look
far worse than the girl by the end of it in my opinion but again... I think I'm in the minority since all I see is people praising him. lol

Bottom line: asking for free shit is fucked, but so is judging a whole group of people based on the actions of a few!

Just saw Phillip DeFranco's video covering it, I didn't realize he'd taken it any further than the one post about it, and the "banning vegans" thing I hadn't heard of either.

With that in mind, I do think his *first* reaction to it was alright, but any further escalation was uncalled for.
But now seeing that that's how he seems to respond to everything I'm sort of on the fence about it.

At least in terms of art, I have the same standpoint, but in terms of this, I'm now on the fence.


I agree with you, I think the girl was naive. But I can't escape the feeling that she has to have some degree of entitlement to have even asked in the first place.

At least from my stand point, or how I would behave, I would *never* presume to get something for free, I'd never ask, I'd never think I deserved anything for free. If something is offered to me for free, I'll try and get the person offering to take *something* for it, as I don't think it's right to be handed stuff for free just as a general rule. But I suppose that's just me.
I don't ever want to take advantage, and it would never occur to me to try either.

Bottom line: asking for free shit is fucked, but so is judging a whole group of people based on the actions of a few!

^^^^^^^ THIS. So much THIS. ^^^^^^^^

Definitely not just you! I have a hard time accepting gift art from friends I've known for years, even. I feel like a mooch and I'm very vocal about my hesitancy to accept it. xD It's not that I'm ungrateful for it, I'm VERY grateful!
I just feel horrible about it. I want to support them. I had a friend who had to beat me into submission over IM because I wanted to pay her for the art she did for my birthday. LOL. So no I totally get it!

I watched Phil's vid as well! I love his videos. Straight to the point and informal~ I hadn't heard about the escalation part before his video either which actually makes me wonder how many people don't KNOW about that part.
Seems like not many outlets are talking about the full details beyond the initial communication between those two. Leave it to most media outlets to leave out the details. :P

Urghhh, yesssssss. Sister from another mister over here! <3
If my bestie does me art, I feel obliged to do her one back at least because she never lets me give her funds for it!! xD

It is worrying about the lack of detail though, you'd think considering the current climate everyone would want to be transparent - but seems not :s

Unfortunately not! But, level headed folks like ourselves tend to stick together, so at least we're not alone on that front. ;P

^ This so much Lexa 100 percent agree.

She may be an entitled princess, but the hotel owner is a still a massive dickhead for banning entire groups of people he doesn't like.

Agreed. I did not have the backstory info on the hotel manager until after watching Philip DeFranco's video on it ;u;

I love PhillyD!

eh my issue with the whole thing is that as a professional who supposedly has all this influence etc. she should know that there is a proper way to do things. for example maybe even something like hi i'll be frequenting your establishment on x day and time and i was wondering if you have a policy in regard to bloggers or exposure deals, like sponsorship of a video in return for exposure in said video, or things like that and if you do if you would be interested in working something out with me during my stay. that gives the business the opportunity to say something like oh normally we dont have a policy in regard to bloggers but maybe we could do X... or give them a chance to say like oh yes we offer x in return for y types of exposure etc etc

THISSSSSS.

I think that if the blogger had done her research, she would have seen this as a foreseeable, if not expected outcome of her request. There are plenty of establishments that have a certain culture they present that runs against norms and thats what their patrons expect, or even flock there because of that culture. Ive always said that you should research places you want to go to find out what they are about, rather than going in with mismatched expectations.