Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Kayla Malec update, Mary Phillips quotes bride $100K for glam + Chappell Roan viral perfume

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MINI SCROLL: Kayla Malec update, Mary Phillips quotes bride $100K for glam + Chappell Roan viral perfume · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:04
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
• 0:07
  media, the creator economy and the digital space.
• 0:10
  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
• 0:12
  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:16
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini School
• 0:20
  everyone. This is take two.
• 0:22
  I just recorded all of mini Scroll and it was a recording
• 0:25
  fun. OK, before I get into the
• 0:27
  stories for today, I wanted to let you guys know that I was on
• 0:30
  the ABC radio on Friday here in Australia, which is so cool.
• 0:36
  I'll put the episode in the show notes.
• 0:37
  So I was on their media land. It's like a podcast slash radio
• 0:41
  show. So it goes up every Friday at
• 0:43
  5:30 on ABC radio and then it also goes up as a podcast.
• 0:48
  So I got the e-mail on Wednesday and then I did a phone call on
• 0:52
  Thursday and then I went in on Friday and it was so cool.
• 0:55
  We talked about influencers as a gender term.
• 0:59
  We talked about the disproportionate amount of hate
• 1:02
  that women commentators get versus male commentators and a
• 1:05
  whole of other things. It was very cool and it was very
• 1:08
  legitimizing. It felt so big for like my
• 1:11
  imposter syndrome, you know, it felt like a really big moment
• 1:15
  being taken very seriously as an expert in this space.
• 1:18
  It was very cool. So yes, I will put a link down
• 1:20
  below. All right, let's get into the
• 1:22
  stories for today. So 1st, I'm going to give you
• 1:25
  guys an update on the Caleb Malik, Evan Johnson, Be Better,
• 1:29
  James Charles situation. I'm not going to recap
• 1:32
  everything that's happened because I've talked about it so
• 1:34
  many times over the past couple of weeks on this podcast.
• 1:37
  However, James Charles, Kayla, and Be Better have all done
• 1:42
  other responses over the weekend.
• 1:44
  There's been some development, so I'll cover those.
• 1:46
  As we know James Charles last week, he made a video basically
• 1:48
  like scolding people on the Internet for dragging him into
• 1:52
  this situation as he was rumored to be very friendly with Evan
• 1:56
  Johnson even after Kayla Malik had come out about his abuse
• 2:00
  against her. So Kayla Malik is a TikTok
• 2:03
  influencer. She was dating a man named Evan
• 2:06
  Johnson. James Charles is obviously a
• 2:08
  very huge influencer slash YouTube.
• 2:10
  And yes, James and Evan allegedly got quite close after
• 2:14
  Kayla and Evan broke up. And according to text that Kayla
• 2:18
  showed, James did know that he had abused Kayla.
• 2:22
  Be better is that TikTok creator who does like the downfall of
• 2:25
  series where he basically talks about like marketing and PR
• 2:29
  strategies that have gone wrong for different celebrities, his
• 2:31
  creators, politicians. And now he did this long form
• 2:35
  interview with Evan Johnson's ex best friend and they basically
• 2:39
  dragged James Charles into it. OK, so Kayla made three videos
• 2:43
  in response to the whole situation with James.
• 2:46
  And here were the main takeaways.
• 2:48
  She said she didn't appreciate that James made a response video
• 2:51
  like hours after the hearing. So Evan had a hearing last week
• 2:56
  and he was sentenced and within like hours, James had made his
• 3:01
  video. She said she wanted more time to
• 3:03
  like, relish in that without having to like, get back on the
• 3:05
  Internet and talk about it all. She does say she stands by the
• 3:07
  allegations that she had told James that Evan abused her and
• 3:11
  he still chose to get close to Evan.
• 3:13
  And she says she thinks that James's response video was
• 3:15
  bullshit and it pissed her off. And then Be Better made his own
• 3:19
  response video to both to James because James talked about Be
• 3:23
  Better and Zach's interview and stuff in his response video.
• 3:26
  But then Be Better was also responding to critics who
• 3:28
  basically said he had used Kayla's situation for clout.
• 3:31
  So I want to start by addressing the narrative that is honestly
• 3:34
  the most hurtful to me, which is that I did this interview for
• 3:38
  attention or financial gain or to monetize the horrific trauma
• 3:44
  experienced by Kayla. So I just want to be clear about
• 3:46
  the facts. I invested my own money from my
• 3:50
  own pocket in producing this interview knowing full well it
• 3:53
  would be a financial loss to me. Purely because I felt it was a
• 3:57
  story, and still very much feel it is a story that the world
• 4:00
  deserve to know. In which one of the biggest
• 4:03
  influencers on the planet is a now self admitted abuse enabler
• 4:08
  #2 The small amount of money that was made from the
• 4:12
  interview, I believe it was about $1500, was already donated
• 4:16
  to a domestic violence charity called No More.
• 4:19
  I learned about them during the Blake Lively case and it was
• 4:22
  donated in Kayla's name and that was my plan from the very
• 4:25
  beginning. In addition to that, the only
• 4:29
  reason this interview existed in the 1st place is because it was
• 4:32
  a story that Kayla wanted the world to know, and had it not
• 4:36
  been for her direct involvement, for her blessing and her
• 4:39
  encouragement, I never would have done the interview in the
• 4:42
  1st place. And if at any point in time she
• 4:44
  changed her mind, I would have pulled the plug on the entire
• 4:47
  thing. Look, I think there could be
• 4:49
  some truth and what be better is saying, but I think the reality
• 4:53
  is that we have watched him. Like I said, make these videos
• 4:57
  tearing down creators, celebrities, politicians under
• 5:01
  the guise of like analyzing their PR strategies, saying he
• 5:05
  has this like, extensive marketing background when in
• 5:08
  reality, his analysis are very often like the most basic
• 5:13
  marketing principles. And he has very little knowledge
• 5:17
  of a lot of the people that he talks about, at least in the
• 5:19
  early days. Like I would watch some of his
• 5:21
  Kardashian videos. And I'm like, this person has
• 5:23
  never seen the Kardashians if this is what he is claiming.
• 5:27
  So, yeah, I think he does do these videos for Cloud.
• 5:30
  I do think he makes this content for Cloud.
• 5:32
  And, like, OK, sure. You know, that's part of the
• 5:35
  Internet. That's part of what social media
• 5:36
  is for. But I'm just not about him being
• 5:39
  on this, like, moral high ground of trying to, like, hold all
• 5:42
  these people accountable when at the end of the day, it's like,
• 5:44
  yeah, you probably did just want to use this moment to raise your
• 5:47
  profile, in my opinion. OK.
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  Now, James has responded to Kayla's videos in Instagram
• 5:55
  Stories. He wrote.
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  I watched Kayla's videos last night and I'm grateful that she
• 5:59
  did not feed into the lies that she was told by Zach.
• 6:02
  Zach as in the person that was interviewed by Be Better, while
• 6:05
  also expressing how I upset her. I said it in my original video
• 6:09
  and I'll say it again, Kayla, I'm sorry that I was ever
• 6:11
  involved with this compulsive liar, and I'm even more sorry
• 6:14
  that my involvement hurt you. He then shared screenshots
• 6:17
  proving that Evan had reached out to him multiple times and
• 6:20
  that he was basically trying to like and the whole situation.
• 6:24
  He said he offered to share these texts with her privately
• 6:27
  before putting them up publicly. And then he finished by saying
• 6:31
  I'm happy that Kayla got justice for what Evan put her through.
• 6:34
  And like she said, she deserves to celebrate.
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  I genuinely wish her the best and pray that she continues to
• 6:39
  win with her abuser staying behind bars.
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  OK. You know, I think this whole
• 6:45
  situation hopefully is just going to go to bed for Kayla's
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  sake. I think she just needs the
• 6:49
  Internet to stop talking about this.
• 6:52
  All these high profile people to stop covering it.
• 6:55
  I think it just needs to be case closed for her so she can
• 6:58
  actually start to like move on. But yes, hopefully this is over
• 7:02
  for Kayla's sake. OK, the next story that I have
• 7:05
  for you guys is celebrity makeup artist Mary Phillips has quoted
• 7:09
  a bride $100,000 for her wedding glam.
• 7:13
  And the Internet is divided. So earlier this month, a creator
• 7:17
  took to TikTok to share that celebrity makeup artist Mary
• 7:20
  Phillips had quoted her friend $25,000 as a day rate for doing
• 7:25
  her makeup. And then all of these add-ons
• 7:26
  which essentially brought it to $100,000 to do her friend's
• 7:30
  bridal makeup. She framed this video as like, I
• 7:34
  feel so bad for 20/25/2026 brides Wedding vendors are out
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  of control. OK so her initial video got 1.5
• 7:42
  million views but it is really blowing up now because a
• 7:47
  professional makeup artist has made their own video talking
• 7:49
  about this and defending Mary Phillips and that has really
• 7:52
  exploded. It's become very heated.
• 7:55
  A lot of people are like, makeup is never worth that much.
• 7:58
  Makeup washes off. It's disgusting that somebody
• 8:00
  would quote a rate that is more than what a lot of people in a
• 8:03
  lot of countries make per year doing like very difficult,
• 8:08
  meaningful work, like being a nurse, the teacher, you know,
• 8:12
  those types of fields. And I was kind of in this camp
• 8:15
  at 1st until I listened to more opinions and started to look at
• 8:20
  Mary Phillips as a creative as opposed to like a quote UN quote
• 8:25
  bridal makeup artist slash like wedding vendor.
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  Because I think one of the biggest points that is being
• 8:31
  misunderstood here is that the wedding industry, it is out of
• 8:35
  control. It is like I was supposed to be
• 8:37
  a 2020 bride. Well, I was a 2020 bride, but I
• 8:39
  was supposed to have like, you know, an actual wedding in 2020.
• 8:42
  Obviously COVID happened. So I was planning a wedding pre
• 8:46
  2020, pre COVID. And then we had to cancel that.
• 8:48
  And after we were looking at, OK, what could we do now?
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  The prices had literally increased by like 30%.
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  And it was like, what the hell? Well, OK, like we're obviously
• 8:56
  not going to do this. So we did a twenty person COVID
• 8:59
  wedding at a restaurant. I've been on either side of it,
• 9:02
  planning a wedding pre everything exploding and then,
• 9:05
  you know, post looking at it and being like, that's not feasible.
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  So I feel, I do, I feel very bad for anybody who is trying to
• 9:12
  plan a wedding now because it is astronomical.
• 9:14
  It is shocking how much weddings cost now.
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  But Mary Phillips is not a bridal makeup artist.
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  Like, she is in the top 1% of creatives in her field, so her
• 9:27
  rates reflect not just the craft and her artistry, but also her
• 9:32
  profile. So what Mary Phillips charges
• 9:35
  should have no bearing on what bridal makeup artists are
• 9:38
  charging because it's basically comparing apples and oranges.
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  And it should not be in the same conversation of like, wedding
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  vendors are out of control because she's not a wedding
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  vendor. If you wanted Calvin Harris to
• 9:52
  DJ at your wedding, would you expect his rate to be similar to
• 9:56
  like the local wedding DJ in your region?
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  No. Is that because Calvin Harris is
• 10:03
  the best DJ on the planet? Also no.
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  It's because he's famous. Would people on TikTok be pissed
• 10:10
  if Calvin Harris quoted a couple like I don't know, $1,000,000 to
• 10:15
  DJ at their wedding? Probably also know people would
• 10:19
  be like that Makes sense it's Calvin Harris.
• 10:21
  People would actually be coming for the couple for expecting
• 10:25
  that Calvin Harris would even entertain D Jing at their random
• 10:30
  wedding. In the beauty world, Mary
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  Phillips is Calvin Harris. OK like she's very famous.
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  She is very sought after. Mary Phillips is not just a
• 10:39
  celebrity makeup artist. She is the 1% of makeup artist
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  who are doing like all of the A list celebrity IT girls makeup.
• 10:48
  She is doing Hailey Bieber for the Met Gala.
• 10:50
  She is doing Kendall Jenner for the Vanity Fair's Oscar party.
• 10:53
  Like she is doing everyone who is setting trends for young
• 10:58
  women right now. She is doing their makeup.
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  She is in the 1% and I was talking to my friend Crystal
• 11:04
  Andrews who runs Z Feed about this and she used this metaphor,
• 11:07
  which I really liked. She said when it comes to
• 11:10
  creative work, especially for those who are in the top 1%,
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  there are two buckets that work opportunities can fall into.
• 11:17
  The first, there's the opportunities that raise their
• 11:20
  profile and build their reputation.
• 11:22
  So like if you're a photographer that might be shooting the cover
• 11:25
  of Vogue. If you're a makeup artist that
• 11:27
  could be doing an A list celebrities makeup for the Met
• 11:30
  Gala. If you're Calvin Harris, that
• 11:31
  might be headlining like Tomorrowland or something.
• 11:34
  I don't really know. I don't what D's want to do.
• 11:36
  Okay, these opportunities don't necessarily pay well and
• 11:39
  sometimes they don't pay at all. But the payment is the profile,
• 11:44
  the reputation building, right? So no, Giga Hadid is not paying
• 11:48
  Mary Phillips $100,000 to do her makeup for the Met Gala.
• 11:53
  But that's because doing Gigi's makeup for the Met Gala gives
• 11:58
  Mary those opportunities that fall into bucket 2, the second
• 12:02
  bucket. Bucket 2 is the commercial
• 12:05
  opportunities. And the work in the first bucket
• 12:08
  dictates how much you can charge in the second bucket.
• 12:11
  So in this bucket, it would be like working on a brand's
• 12:14
  advertising campaign. So Mary Phillips doing the
• 12:17
  makeup for an ad campaign on all the models for some like big
• 12:21
  brand, right? And brands want to work with
• 12:24
  these creatives who have a really big and exciting and
• 12:27
  creative and cool and artistic bucket one because that elevates
• 12:31
  their profile in their industry, right, is having a commercial or
• 12:35
  a campaign shot by some really high profile editorial
• 12:40
  photographer who constantly does all this cool shit for like
• 12:43
  Vogue or whatever like that elevates the brands profile, but
• 12:46
  the brands have to pay for that, right?
• 12:48
  And so the creatives who do a lot in bucket one and have these
• 12:52
  big opportunities, they can charge a lot for bucket 2.
• 12:56
  So if the job that you are pitching to the creative does
• 13:00
  not fall into the profile building bucket, which would be
• 13:04
  doing a random person's makeup for their wedding, then it must
• 13:08
  fall into bucket 2 for these people because the only benefit
• 13:13
  of doing that work would be the money.
• 13:15
  Is Mary Phillips rate $100,000 for a commercial campaign?
• 13:20
  Probably not. Like why would she quote a
• 13:22
  random bride $100,000? Because she doesn't want to do
• 13:26
  it, but she'll do it for $100,000.
• 13:28
  Because if you think about it as well, a brand who has lots of
• 13:33
  money for a campaign or a commercial or whatever, they
• 13:36
  could keep coming back to Mary Phillips, her doing your wedding
• 13:39
  makeup for the same rate. First of all, she doesn't want
• 13:42
  to do it. But even if she did, she has to
• 13:44
  charge you more because it's not a repeat client.
• 13:46
  In theory, you're not going to be getting married multiple
• 13:49
  times. In theory you might, but in
• 13:51
  theory, So she has to make that worth her time and worth her
• 13:54
  while. Do I think she should have just
• 13:57
  said, you know, I don't really do this type of work.
• 14:00
  You know, I, I'm not taking new clients.
• 14:02
  I don't do these types of jobs. I don't know, maybe I kind of
• 14:06
  come from the world, which is why I was in this mentality to
• 14:08
  start with. Like I come from the world of,
• 14:11
  you know, beauty YouTube, where the Youtubers back in the day
• 14:14
  would put like very visibly on their social medias on their
• 14:17
  pages. Like, I do not take clients.
• 14:20
  Do not message me to do your makeup just because you're like
• 14:22
  a fan of the channel. Like I'm not going to do it
• 14:24
  basically. So I kind of thought initially
• 14:26
  like, why would she not just say that?
• 14:27
  But Mary Phillips is a working makeup artist still.
• 14:30
  So I think that is why it is still that professionalism to
• 14:33
  like respond to an inquiry. But like, who is realistically
• 14:38
  going to Mary Phillips for their bridal makeup?
• 14:40
  Like it is Hailey Bieber. It is not me.
• 14:42
  Like, it's not like a random girl.
• 14:45
  And it's kind of insane to reach out to her and be like, I
• 14:47
  reached out to this well known makeup artist.
• 14:48
  It's not a well known makeup artist.
• 14:50
  Like she is in the one fucking percent.
• 14:52
  OK. So the conflation of Mary
• 14:55
  Phillips being like a wedding vendor and the conversation
• 14:58
  being around like how expensive weddings are makes no sense.
• 15:02
  Sense. That completely diminishes Mary
• 15:04
  Phillips career. It's completely inaccurate.
• 15:07
  Like she is not a bridal makeup artist.
• 15:09
  She is not a wedding vendor. And it has nothing to do like
• 15:13
  what Mary Phillips charges for her wedding makeup to do.
• 15:16
  A random person's wedding makeup should have no bearing on what
• 15:19
  any other bridal makeup artist is charging because she is in
• 15:23
  the 1% of makeup artists in the world.
• 15:26
  She is the Calvin Harris of makeup artists.
• 15:28
  OK. And I think because makeup is
• 15:30
  like a behind the scenes thing, whereas, you know, being like a
• 15:33
  DJ or whatever, like an entertainer, like having asking
• 15:36
  Beyoncé to perform at your wedding, like nobody would do
• 15:39
  that. But I just, I think there's less
• 15:41
  understanding of the creative work behind the scenes.
• 15:44
  So yeah, she's like a quote UN quote well known makeup artist.
• 15:47
  But no, she is like in the 1%. And I guess unless you follow
• 15:49
  that industry, you might not know that I actually saw, this
• 15:52
  is crazy. I actually saw somebody on
• 15:54
  TikTok be like, she only has 300,000 followers.
• 15:56
  I can't believe that she would charge this Mary Phillips
• 15:59
  follower count actually has nothing to do with what she's
• 16:02
  charging and why she charges that.
• 16:04
  In fact, a lot of people who work behind the scenes in
• 16:07
  creative fields who are act like at the top of their game have
• 16:11
  like very little social presence at all and you have no idea who
• 16:14
  they are. OK, so her having 3000 followers
• 16:16
  literally means nothing. But yes, like she is not as
• 16:19
  quote UN quote famous as like Calvin Harris.
• 16:21
  I guess I'm the number one Calvin Harris fan in the world.
• 16:23
  I don't know why I keep saying him because, you know, her job
• 16:26
  is not like public facing in the same way that entertain would
• 16:29
  be. But that is the equivalent.
• 16:31
  OK Mary Phillips, Calvin Harris. OK.
• 16:34
  Anyways, the last three that I have for you guys is that Chapel
• 16:37
  Roan's comment section has blown up this indie perfume brand.
• 16:42
  And I feel like there is an interesting lesson here for us.
• 16:44
  Over the weekend, Chapel Roan posted an Instagram carousel.
• 16:48
  It's actually cool. She has like a different color
• 16:50
  hair. I don't know if she's wearing a
• 16:51
  wig, but I thought it looked good.
• 16:53
  It's like a little bit more blonde.
• 16:55
  And she wrote in the caption, Will the girl who I just met at
• 16:58
  the perfume store please comment the perfume you recommended, I
• 17:01
  wrote it down and just deleted it on accident.
• 17:04
  The word girl was in the brand's name and you said it smelled
• 17:07
  like lipstick. Thank you.
• 17:09
  There were two main brands named.
• 17:11
  The first was Good Girl by Caroline Herrera and the second
• 17:14
  was girl of the Year by Thin Wild Mercury.
• 17:17
  The founder of Thin Wild Mercury made a TikTok video saying that
• 17:21
  she started getting all of these orders over the weekend and she
• 17:23
  was like, this is so random, like obviously exciting, but
• 17:26
  like what's going on? And she was confused.
• 17:28
  And then she saw that her brand was getting tagged all over
• 17:31
  Instagram And she was like, what the hell opened Instagram and
• 17:33
  she saw it was Chapel rounds comment section.
• 17:36
  And when you look at the perfume, you'll see that one of
• 17:39
  the top notes is lipstick. Like the first top note is
• 17:42
  lipstick. So it's probably her brand.
• 17:44
  But I wanted to talk about how this really just exemplifies one
• 17:48
  of the major things that I talk about with brands and reaching
• 17:51
  Gen. Z through partnership
• 17:52
  specifically, which is like you need to find ways to gauge how
• 17:56
  culty a creator and influencer, A podcaster, a media brand, even
• 18:02
  a company like a consumer brand is before investing.
• 18:06
  I believe cultyness is actually a metric that should be measured
• 18:10
  in advertising and marketing. And it is in some ways like
• 18:13
  it's, it's not called cultyness, but I really think they need to
• 18:16
  like implement how culty is this person, is this brand, is this
• 18:20
  influencer. And here's the ways to measure
• 18:23
  this. So I think one of the best ways
• 18:25
  to measure cultyness is, and I tell brands this is to go to
• 18:29
  comment sections and do audits, go to comment sections and see,
• 18:33
  are people commenting? What are they commenting?
• 18:35
  Are they commenting in ways that make you think that they know
• 18:39
  the creator, that they follow the creator, that they feel
• 18:42
  invested in the creator or the podcast or the media brand or
• 18:44
  the consumer? Or are they commenting about the
• 18:48
  opinion, the content itself? Search them upon Reddit.
• 18:52
  Have fans started subreddits about them?
• 18:55
  Whether it's for a product, like I said, or if it's about like a
• 18:58
  creator, a podcast and media brand, Are people talking about
• 19:01
  them? Are they being recommended in
• 19:03
  forums where people are asking for different recommendations
• 19:06
  and suggestions? If they have a YouTube channel,
• 19:09
  go into that. Are people commenting about the
• 19:11
  creator, about the podcast, about the media brand, about the
• 19:14
  product itself and not necessarily always about the
• 19:17
  content, right? Because you can tell from what
• 19:20
  the comments say if people are actually like engaged with this
• 19:24
  person, this brand, or if they're just commenting about
• 19:28
  the content that they're seeing because this video got served to
• 19:31
  them on a for you page or got served to them on a
• 19:33
  recommendation page on YouTube or whatever.
• 19:35
  Are these genuine fans? Does this brand, this podcast,
• 19:39
  this creator have genuine fans? Are they building a culty
• 19:42
  audience? And I think this is case in
• 19:44
  point because the power of this comments section, you know,
• 19:49
  there were lots of people suggesting other perfumes, but
• 19:53
  this one really broke through because of how culty this brand
• 19:57
  is. They don't even have 100,000
• 19:59
  followers, but they're culty. And people were so excited to
• 20:02
  see that. Oh my God, it could have been
• 20:04
  this brand. And I do think it was like a lot
• 20:06
  of the things pointed to it. But you know, I still think
• 20:08
  people were like so excited to see, Oh my God, this brand, this
• 20:12
  like indie brands that. I know is probably getting the
• 20:15
  shout out on this huge celebrities page and they were
• 20:18
  so excited to comment that and to share that because Chapel
• 20:22
  didn't mention the perfume name, she didn't mention the brand,
• 20:24
  but this brand has genuine fans, culty fans.
• 20:28
  They've built this culty audience's culty consumer base.
• 20:31
  Yeah, I thought that was a nice one to end on.
• 20:32
  I thought it was very cool. Anyways, guys, that's it for
• 20:35
  Mini Scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
• 20:37
  I love you guys. Please rate, review and
• 20:39
  subscribe. We're trying to get to 10,000
• 20:41
  YouTube subscribers and 1000 five star ratings.
• 20:45
  I love you and I will talk to you tomorrow.
• 20:47
  Bye.