Overview

Caroline Calloway's Creativity Seminars refers to a series of canceled workshops organized and hosted by Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway, following criticisms that the events were a scam.

Background

On December 20th, 2018, Pajiba writer Kayleigh Donaldson began a Twitter ^[1] thread about Caroline Calloway, an Instagram influencer that she called "the worst." She wrote, "That Instagram influencer I occasionally check in on because she's The Worst is now charging $165 for a 4 hour 'seminar' on how to be yourself." Additionally, in this inaugural post, she added a GIF of Catherine O'Hara saying "It's a scam." The tweet received more than 1,800 retweets and 10,000 likes in less than one month (shown below, left).

Over the next month, she continued to update the thread on the seminars, writing that the seminars had "sold out," grossing "$15k." Eventually, she began referring to these posts as "scammer updates."

On January 13th, she posted a direct message from one of the workshops' attendees. They wrote, "I went to her workshop and was HIGHLY disappointed. No notes, no flower crowns, only about 1.5 hours (max) of actual 'teaching' if you can call it that. Icing on the cake? Her 'staff' are 20-year-old college girls with no event planning/logisitics experience that are just huge fans of hers." The tweet received more than 945 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Developments

Online Reaction

Following the posts from Donaldson, people began joking about and criticizing the events that did happen. Twitter^[2] user @spaghetticat tweeted a screenshot of one of Calloway's instagram stories and added the caption, "i am entranced by the caroline calloway workshop she has these women sitting on the FLOOR eating LETTUCE for $165." The tweet received more than 100 retweets and 765 likes in two days (shown below).^[2]

Following numerous cancellations, Calloway decided to move a number, if not all the dates to New York City, which angered fans and ticket holders. (screenshots below). On January 13th, Wordpress^[3] user abigailscott wrote "An Open Letter to Caroline Calloway. In it they wrote:

Reading your scattered updates last night once again by the blue light of my phone, I start to panic seeing you’re now ‘realizing’ that the ‘tour’ should in fact just be done from New York. And that THAT is really what expectations SHOULD have been since you’re doing it all on your own. Wait what? Move all the dates to New York? When half of the tickets sold were in cities on the West Coast? (???) The unmistakable feeling set in. The one you can’t ignore. The one where you realize you completely misjudged someone.

Calloway's Response

On January 14th, Calloway published an apology on Twitter and Instagram. She wrote:

Yesterday I found out about a Twitter thread criticizing my tour. I think that criticism is really valid and I apologize to anyone who felt cheated by the price point of $165 […] I take full responsibility for letting my total inexperience with event planning and greed create a situation where the details of the tour were ever-changing

[…]

I'm cancelling the rest of the tour. Everyone will be refunded today.

Media Coverage

On January 14th, Kayleigh Donaldson published a feature in Pajiba^[4] the seminars titled "The Empty Mason Jar of the Influencer Economy: The Case of Caroline Calloway and her Creativity Workshop Tour."

Several other media outlets covered the serminars, including The Daily Dot, ^[5] Insider^[6] and more.

Search Interest

External References