Outrage After Women Mock Influencer for Taking Photos at Baseball Game
A video of two women mocking an influencer taking photos of herself at a baseball game has caused a social media storm.
Content creator Jackie La Bonita shared a TikTok video on April 22 that showed her posing for photos while seemingly watching the Houston Astros play a baseball game at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
@jackielabonita Please be nice #meangirls #meangirlvibes ♬ The Loser – Verzache
However, two women seated behind her in the audience laugh and mock La Bonita for taking pictures of herself.
‘Watch My Confidence Disappear’
In the clip, which has amassed over 36 million views on TikTok, La Bonita says: “Watch my confidence disappear after these random girls make fun of me for taking pics.”
The video shows the two women pulling faces at the influencer, openly making fun of her for taking photos, and calling her “lame.”
“Realizing they were talking about me. Feeling super self-conscious. I wanted to cry,” La Bonita writes.
At one point in the clip, one of the women gives La Bonita the middle finger and appears to start filming her on their own phone.
La Bonita is seen becoming visibly upset by the pair’s behavior towards her. La Bonita tries to continue taking photos at the baseball game but is clearly unsettled by the two women.
‘Unacceptable’
The video quickly went viral and social media users were left furious by the two women’s behavior towards La Bonita for taking photos in the clip — with even rapper Cardi B condemning the pair.
In less than two days, social media users controversially tracked down the pair who mocked Bonita in the clip and demanded that they be held accountable for their behavior.
Following the widespread backlash, one of the alleged women in the video reportedly posted an apology for “bullying” La Bonita and called her actions “unacceptable.”
“I understand that my actions may have caused you [La Bonita] to feel scared, disrespected, and hurt, and I want to acknowledge that what I did was wrong,” she writes.
However, in her apology, the alleged woman also says that she was frustrated by the fact that she could be seen in the background of La Bonita’s photos at the baseball game.
“During the incident with Jackie La Bonita, I was caught off guard by the cameraman taking a picture of me, and I felt violated and disrespected,” she continues.
“While this does not excuse my subsequent behavior towards Jackie and others, I do want to acknowledge that I was feeling vulnerable and reactive in the moment.”
Cameras are Everywhere
While the overwhelming majority of viewers criticized the two women for humiliating La Bonita, the viral video fuelled a wider debate on the expectations of doing a photoshoot in public places.
Some social media users understood the pair’s frustration at being featured in a video that would be posted on social media without their consent.
However, others pointed out that the woman could have kindly asked the influencer to edit or leave them out of the photos.
One Twitter user pointed out how the ubiquity of cameras today meant that it was virtually impossible to expect privacy.
The user writes: “I think it’s alarming that people film in public spaces so frequently now that there’s a chance you’ll be in the background of someone’s viral video and other people will go viral analyzing your behavior.”
Image credits: Header photo sourced via TikTok/@jackielabonita.
