Took me 6 months to realize that influencer apology was basically copy pasted from 3 others

I was following this travel blogger who got caught photoshopping herself into places she never visited. When she finally apologized, it felt super familiar. I did a side by side comparison with 2 other influencers who got caught lying about their trips. The structure was almost identical. Same 3 stages: acknowledge the hurt, say you're working on yourself, promise to do better. The wording on that middle part was nearly verbatim across all 3. Has anyone else noticed these apology templates floating around or is it just me?

4 comments

4 Comments

kellygrant1d ago

Wait, you actually lined them up side by side? Honestly I used to think these apologies were real and that people just messed up sometimes. But after seeing a few of them back to back they all sound the same now. It's wild how they all hit the exact same beats like someone emailed them a script. I guess when you're trying to save your brand you just copy what worked before. Makes you wonder if any of it is genuine anymore.

mark_chen621d ago

Notice how they never actually admit to doing the bad thing directly? Its always "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" instead of "I did x and it was wrong." Thats the dead giveaway for me. Do you think any of them would still post those apologies if there wasn't already proof of what they did floating around online?

alicer5320h ago

Three out of the last four apologies I saw on Twitter literally started with "I want to apologize for any pain I may have caused" and I swear I checked my phone to see if I accidentally copy-pasted the same tweet. It's like they all took the same PR class where the instructor was like "just don't actually admit anything and you'll be fine." I'd probably choke on my own words if I had to write a real apology too, but at least I'd have the guts to say "I messed up" instead of hiding behind corporate speak. The funny thing is I could totally see myself doing the same thing if I ever got famous, because who wants to admit they were wrong in front of millions of people? But yeah, until they start saying "I did x and here's why it was wrong" I'll keep my side-eye firmly fixed on them.

ward.anna20h ago

Oh man, I actually read somewhere that there's a whole PR firms selling these apology scripts to influencers now. @alicer53 is totally right about that "sorry if anyone was offended" thing being a dead giveaway. It's like they're all reading from the same script and just swapping out the names.