Swedish Instagrammer Cancels Herself After ‘Shallow’ Caption About Rice Farmer in Bali
By Ryan General
A Swedish Influencer generated so much backlash over a post in which she compared her life to that of a Bali rice farmer that she ended up deleting her Instagram account.
Last week, Natalie Schlate uploaded an image of herself on Instagram, wearing a white bikini and looking out at a rice field in Canggu, Indonesia. In the distance, a farmer can be seen hard at work under the sun.
“Thinking about how different my life is from the man picking in the rice field every morning,” she wrote as the caption.
Netizens called her out for her choice of words, with many criticizing her for being “insensitive” and “shallow.”
“He works for a living is a start,” one commenter wrote.
“The rice farmer is probably more content with their life though and not status chasing like the rest of us,” another pointed out.
“Narcissism, idiocy, and apathy combined,” commented another.
One user wrote what they believed her original caption was actually trying to say: “Just thinking about how I’m so popular and rich and this guy is a rice farmer.”
Schlater initially responded to the backlash by posting her defense to her 12,000 Instagram followers:
“I seem to have been extremely misunderstood in what I meant previously. I am very aware of my privileges and how grateful I am for all that I have in my life and was recognizing how hard working and unbelievably kind the Indonesian people are and never meant to come off disrespectful. That being said I am so sorry if I hurt anyone’s feelings which was never ever my intention. Please be kinder to one another and spread kindness and not hate.”
It appears her apology was unable to pacify her critics as Schlater eventually just decided to quit Instagram.
In an interview with Bored Panda, Schlater further explained that her caption meant that “the man has worked so hard his whole life for so little and [she] wanted to acknowledge how we really take the things we have for granted.”
She added that she would have ”worded it differently” if she “could go back in time.”
Featured image via Instagram/natalie_schlater
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