It's All Love
A couple months ago, I took photos of something/someone that I will keep anonymous. Let’s call this person, place, or thing ‘Cookies and Bagels’ (lol couldn’t think of anything and there are cookies and bagels sitting on the kitchen table right now so yeah).
After being with Cookies and Bagels, I created some photo content for my own personal use and posted it onto my Instagram. If I do say so myself, it was a pretty cool post at the time lol. Eventually, Cookies and Bagels ended up messaging me saying that they loved my work and they would like to post it and run it as an ad. I told them that I would be more than happy to allow them to share it as a regular post but not as an ad because it would make me uncomfortable if they were using my work as a way of driving sales without me being compensated. They said that they understood and would respect that.
A couple of hours later, as I’m scrolling through Instagram, I notice my work and figure ‘okay whatever they posted it, but it’s not an ad so it’s all good.’ A few hours after that, I see the word ‘sponsored’ on the post on Facebook and Instagram. I immediately messaged Cookies and Bagels asking them why my work is being run as an ad. They didn’t respond for hours after multiple messages. Then 48 hours pass and I still hadn’t received a message back. I messaged them many times telling them that it was unacceptable. At this point, I felt as if I was being manipulated and disrespected, especially because Cookies and Bagels is a fairly big entity. At this point, my work ended up getting around 70,000 views on Facebook and instagram.
Since I wasn’t getting any responses from the actually Cookies and Bagels account, I reached out to everybody I could, including the top dogs of Cookies and Bagels. I was just about ready to call on my nonexistent lawyers and file some sort of lawsuit on the fact that Cookies and Bagels had essentially stolen my intellectual property to be used as a way of driving sales without my consent. Eventually, I ended up getting the right person’s attention and we came to an agreement that they would pay me and use my work for a couple of weeks. They also stated that they would talk about renewing the ad once the two week period was up depending on its performance. So, we signed a contract, I secured the bag, and we talked about creating content together in the near future so that I could give them more original content without the headaches of going through this entire process. Then I never heard from Cookies and Bagels again. My work ended up gaining over 300,000 views on IG and Facebook.
The point in saying all of this is to say this: fight for what you believe to be right. When Cookies and Bagels had gone against my wishes, that made me mad more than anything. Like I said, Cookies and Bagels was a fairly big entity and, to me, it seemed as if they were trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m a ‘small’ creator that had cooked up something nice. While it was the fact that I wasn’t compensated for the use of my content that made me mad at first, it ultimately wasn’t about the money. There’s money everywhere. This was about having enough self respect and knowing my worth in a situation where most people would just let it happen. When it comes to photography and creating, this is something that I’ve spent countless hours on trying to chase perfection and achieve mastery with my craft. There’s no way I would let anyone try and push me around, regardless of who I’m talking to. I honestly don’t care if you’re the CEO or Average Joe. You get the respect that you earn. Know your worth Kings and Queens.
By the way, there’s no bad blood or whatever between Cookies and Bagels and me. I’m just sharing this story for the sake of letting y’all know that it’s good to fight for the shit you believe to be right regardless of who it is. It’s all love.
To Live and Prosper
- JSquared