The number of cultural products that have their origin during the pandemic and, especially, during confinement, is striking. Those terrible weeks that kept us in suspense, terrified, locked in our homes and with much more time than usual for reflection and the production of homemade bread, gave a lot of themselves from a creative point of view. The Instagram account @hazmeunafotoasí is also an example of that. The publicist Lorena Macías (Valencia, 1989), its creator, who had worked in several advertising agencies in Spain and Argentina, did so at the time in a hotel in Madrid as head of social networks. When Covid-19 arrived, his company implemented an ERTE and sent all employees home.
“Until then I didn’t know much about the ecosystem of influencers Spanish,” he explains, “but then I started coming across some photos on Instagram that I found very strange and very comical. So I made a meme, two memes, four, five… I published them and they were quite successful, so I started to gain a little relevance.”
The interest generated made him delve a little deeper into the subject. “I was discovering this whole world of people who sell on Vinted the things they had promoted the day before, the fights between them, the promotion of creams that are supposed to make your boobs grow… Then I started telling them with my humor and from my own amazement, because it was new to me too. That’s how ‘Take a photo of me like this’ started.
The growth was spectacular. Within a few weeks, the account already had more than 100,000 followers and has continued to increase steadily to 333,000 today. “I guess it helped that we spent a lot of time at home on our phones,” he says. “It also had a lot of impact among people who work with brands and advertising agencies who wrote to me saying ‘thank you for saying what we can’t.’
Now, Lorena, who after the success of her account opened her own agency, Make me a public like this, has just published One hundred years of mendigram. The great history of Influ-Magical Realism (Roca Editorial, 2024), a book in which, with his acid and witty humor, he tells his story and enriches it with the most hilarious anecdotes in the universe influencer.
You say that one’s friend influencer He defined you, more than as a creator, as a “destroyer of content.” Of course that’s genius, but how do you define your account?
The official definition was at first “the current influencer told with memes”, but I think that over time it has mutated. It is an account where we laugh at the pantomime that is Instagram, in which we all participate as consumers and as creators. I also try to ensure that the audience, in addition to laughter, takes away a little bit of information so that they can be more critical of this new medium. When we see advertising on TV we all identify that it is advertising; However, on the Internet everything is much more diffuse, ambiguous and crazy.
Furthermore, to this is added the lack of ethics of the influencers who try to sneak advertising into us through supposed content. The problem is not that the influencers make money, they take us for fools to do it. So I think it’s a good place for that: to have a laugh, but also to learn something about how this new digital medium works.
‘Take a photo of me like this’ had a lot of impact among people who work with brands and advertising agencies, who wrote to me saying ‘thank you for saying what we can’t.’
You also have a podcast, Influ-Magical Realismin which this informative facet goes even further.
For me, the podcast was a vehicle to begin to separate Lorena Macías from ‘Take a photo of me like this’ and transition towards a more professional facet. I wanted to delve into some topics and, of course, networks or memes were not the best format. I’m happy because it generated a lot of interest. When I presented the idea to some platforms they told me: “Look, we love it, we follow you, but we’ll buy you a podcast if it’s about salsa,” but I didn’t want to continue doing what I was doing on Instagram for anything in the world.
So well, I self-produced it, I carried it out myself, and it was very pleasant to see that the audience had a lot of interest in topics such as the commercialization of breast cancer that is done on networks; the exhibition of minors – for which Minister Sira Rego came – or the relationship of the influencers with luxury, for which we have the marketing director of Porsche.
One of the star concepts of your account and that appears in the title of the book is “mendigram”. For those who don’t know yet, what is it?
It is something that is not practiced as much lately, but before it was very common to see a influencer record a video saying “do you know any place that sells cakes?”, “do you know any good brands of vacuum cleaners?” or “I’m going to Mallorca from April 4 to 20, do you know of any hotels?” And, coincidentally, the next day I would receive a pallet of cakes, a pallet of vacuum cleaners or whatever, and then a message would be recorded. story saying: “Well my friends from ‘@marca’ have sent me this wonderful set of vacuum cleaners and nothing, I’ll tell you how it goes.” So begging on Instagram: mendigram. I find it funny how the term has even spread among the people themselves. influencers.
When we see advertising on TV we all identify that it is advertising, however on the Internet everything is much more diffuse, ambiguous and crazy.
Have you made many enemies among the influencers?
Don’t believe it. In the end, I’m not inventing anything. I’m saying “this screenshot is your post from yesterday and this screenshot is your Vinted today.” I have only compiled it, I have transformed it into a sketchI make humor with that, but the objective reality is there and you were the one who did it.
I also understand, of course, that they don’t find it funny, but because they look dismantled. In the end it is a job similar to that of a film critic. In other words, no one touches Boyero’s palms when he says “this is shit.” I have perhaps proclaimed myself the critic of Instagram and I understand that there are people who don’t like it.
One of the stories that interested me the most in the book was the part in which you explain your loss of innocence on Instagram, when you discovered how, for example, agencies made bad campaigns only for you to show them on your account and promote them. free. Or also the groups of likes by likesto pretend that you have a follow-up that is not real.
One day a career colleague called me and told me “in my agency they are baiting you. They are giving these girls two coins to make a fool of themselves and you amplify it on your profile with 300,000 free followers.” That was a real blow to reality. I could sense it, but I couldn’t imagine that they were already conceiving the campaigns for me to take them out.
Once you start pulling the thread, you discover many ugly things, such as this thing about groups of engagement that left me stunned. Crazy people who are dedicated to reviewing likes that you leave in a photo and if you don’t leave them they expel you from the group. There is a whole mafia there and there are many groups. In the book I explain what happened when I infiltrated one of them. It is a very murky world with a lot of people fighting to excel and earn 20 euros at the end of the month.
The problem is not that ‘influencers’ make money, it is that they take us for fools to do so
As a network expert I wanted to ask you the eternal question: is it really very hard or not to be an ‘influencer’?
Let’s leave it at that it’s a job. Nowadays the influences They are just another advertising channel. Naturally, there are very professional people doing things well, whether it be scientific dissemination, humor… Any type of professionalized content requires research, editing, etc.
It is true that it has already become a joke that “there is a lot of work behind it”, but there is, as in all jobs. So yes, be influencer It’s a job, but most of them don’t take it that way.
And from your privileged position, how do you see the future of influencers? Do you think they will survive?
I think things will change, as happens on any platform. Creators who are truly professional and truly profitable for brands will survive. And I think there are profiles that are very similar because they come from humor or, well, from lifestyle also. The Pombos really use up many of the things they put out, Laura Escanes too. They are profiles that work because they attract many visits to a website. And then there are other people who do it from humor like @lalachus or @grtamara, or from dissemination or activism like @climabar who do achieve results for brands.
I think that until now the brands have been blindsided a bit, because it was a new sector and now it is becoming more professional, results are being demanded and investment is being made accordingly.
The publication of the book has coincided with your departure from anonymity, why precisely now?
The truth is that I have been teaching for four years, giving talks… People in the sector more or less already know who I am. There were already photos of me out there and in the end I think the smartest thing was to make it natural and even more so with the promotion of the book ahead. For me it has been like lifting a weight off my shoulders. And the truth is that the answer has been very nice. I have received very, very nice messages. It’s not that I was afraid at all, but the welcome has been very affectionate, very warm.
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