An aspiring influencer who “exposed” an Australian restaurant has defended her decision to slam the eatery – despite being labeled “entitled” when her gripe went viral.
Jamieson May is a budding content creator from Melbourne who has earned almost 17,000 followers with her travel and foodie tips – and says she regularly approaches restaurants with the intention of collaborating together.
But after messaging Patsy’s, a vegetarian restaurant in the city’s CBD, Jamieson said she was “shocked” by the “disgusting” reply she received from the eatery, which questioned how influential she was, citing her follower count.
In response, the keen social media user decided to publicly lash out at Patsy’s, and shared what she described as the “horrible” way in which they declined her offer to work together.
But things didn’t go to plan when her video, titled “exposing a restaurant for being extremely unprofessional and rude”, saw her become the target of criticism.
“When I first outed the restaurant on TikTok, it reached the wrong audience of non-creators and influencers who didn’t understand what was happening,” Jamieson told news.com.au.
“People sent extremely rude comments that I am just an ‘entitled influencer’ who just wants ‘free’ stuff and I am complaining about it all.
“I have worked with many restaurants other business over the last four years and I had never experienced such rudeness. I was in shock.”
Patsy’s, owned by restaurateurs Mathew Guthrie and Clinton Trevisi, however has also defended its “blunt” response.
“I think judging from her reaction to me being blunt about her unsolicited marketing reach out, she was surprised that we were not interested working with her…” Mr Guthrie told news.com.au.
“Obviously the reason we did not want to collaborate with her is quite easy to understand when you glance through her profiles on various sites.
“Her followers are not really people that we have in the venue often and probably not the market that we are looking to engage with.”
The chefs, who own a string of popular restaurants in Victoria, stressed that while they didn’t want to “add to the pile on”, they suspected her video was a marketing tactic for her personal brand.
“I think she was just hoping to increase her visibility with these outrage posts,” he said.
“It sort of has worked already but I am not sure how it will be able to be monetized as marketing.”
Jamieson shared screenshots of the messages from the Patsy’s Instagram page that angered her, stating she was “gobsmacked” by the interaction.
“You don’t seem to have any followers, maybe you should approach us when you have over 100k,” the message read.
After she replied, accusing the restaurant of being “extremely rude”, she received a second message that read: “Perhaps… but you are pretending to be influential on social media and that’s just not true.
“Rather than me just saying that you are lying and pretending to be beneficial to our business, I just said come back when you are actually able to do what you think we should engage you to do.
“Is it rude to question something that is obviously not true?”
Jamieson swiftly blocked the business, but later took to TikTok to condemn the vegan eatery, in a clip that has been viewed almost 25,000 times.
“I had no words, I am disgusted someone could say that to another person,” she said.
“Your follower count does not define you! You might have 10x better content then someone with 1 million followers!!
“I wanted to create this video to let all other content creators know that this is extremely unprofessional.”
Backlash to Jamieson’s gripe came in hard and fast, and while she’s since turned off comments on the video due to the nasty nature of many of them, she told news.com.au the suggestion she only wanted a “freebie” wasn’t true.
“When I first reached out them, my message was a simple direct message that said ‘Hi! My name is Jamieson May and I am a UGC Creator! I would love to create some content for your business’,” she said.
“I never asked for any free services or free things but they bluntly responded with their 100k comment.
“I completely understand that they want specific influencers with high follower count, which is perfectly okay because they want it for exposure, but there is a much more polite and professional way to get say it.”
