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Zoella Advent Calendar Issues - Daily Mail article

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Zoella Advent Calendar Issues - Daily Mail article

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Blogger Zoella, 27, is selling a '12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar' for £50

The gift is stocked with branded items like a candle, notebook and pens

Customers have slammed the product calling it 'tat' and poor value for money

The calendar has an average one-and-a-half star rating on the Boots website

Beauty blogger Zoella has won millions of fans with her YouTube channel, beauty range and bestselling book.

But not everyone is pleased with her latest business venture.

The social media star, 27, originally from Lacock, Wiltshire, has faced criticism over her £50 advent calendar.

The gift, called the Zoella 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar, contains candles, notebooks and pens but has been branded a 'pile of tat' by disappointed shoppers.

Among those who have complained are parents who bought the advent calendar for Zoella's young fans, with some claiming it is poor value for money.

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The product, which is being sold at Boots, has received an average one-and-a-half star rating on the retailer's website.

One disappointed customer posted: 'DO NOT BUY This project is a joke to the consumer! Every single gift is an insult for the price of the present; it wouldn't have been so bad If at least one product would be classed as a gift.

'Zoella obviously doesn't care about anything than the money this product tries to bring in.'

Another posted: 'It's just 12 doors of cheap rubbish.'

A third said: 'This product is the biggest waste of money totally not worth £50 and it's only got 12 doors, don't know how she can sleep at night knowing that this is on the shelves!'

'Bought for my daughter and honestly think that of the £50 price tag, £49.67 of this is for the packaging,' another one star reviewer wrote.

YouTuber Jack Maate also reviewed the calendar and was scathing about contents such as confetti and a cookie cutter, saying: 'She's taking the p***.'

The advent calendar, which promises to 'brighten and accessorise your home and life', offers buyers a bauble, confetti, purse, candle 130g, two cookie cutters, a jotter pad, key ring, pen, a 30ml room spray, stickers and votive.

On top of the £50 price tag, customers are paying up to £5.50 for standard delivery.

The festive product is the latest idea from entrepreneur Zoella, real name is Zoe Sugg, who lives in a Brighton mansion with her boyfriend, fellow YouTube star Alfie Deyes.

Miss Sugg launched a fashion and beauty vlog in 2009 and now has more than 11 million subscribers, while her debut novel Girl Online is the fastest selling in history.

A spokesperson for Zoella Lifestyle said: 'Zoe is incredibly proud of the Christmas collection and excited to see it in store. However, the pricing and in store promotional strategy of the collection, including the calendar, is at the control of third parties and is not set by Zoe.'

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Zoella's £50 advent calendar is branded 'absolute tat' by customers

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Blogger Zoella, 27, is selling a '12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar' for £50 The gift is stocked with branded items like a candle, notebook and pens Customers have slammed the product calling it 'tat' and poor value for money The calendar has an average one-and-a-half star rating on the Boots website Beauty blogger Zoella has won millions of fans with her YouTube channel, beauty range and bestselling book.

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YouTuber and blogger Zoella has apologised for a number of old tweets about gay people and "chavs".

The posts, from 2009-12, which have now been deleted, have been called out for "fat shaming" and being homophobic.

"Fat chav", "skank" and "tramp" are some of the phrases she posted on her Twitter account, which now has 11 million followers.

Zoella apologised on Wednesday, adding she "would never say those things now".

The statement, posted on Twitter said: "I've seen a few of my old tweets from 7/8 years ago floating around (which I have now deleted) using words like 'chav', 'skank' and other words I wouldn't use now as part of my language.

"Obviously that is not who I am today and I'd like to think I'm a little older and wiser! I'm not perfect and I've never claimed to be, I'm only human!"

The vlogger, whose real name is Zoe Sugg, claims several of the statements were taken out of context as they were commenting on TV shows like the X Factor and I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

Two tweets, saying: "I find it funny when gay men spit... it's like they're trying to be a bit macho," and "How many straight men do you know, who whip out a compact mirror to do their hair before an abseil," have been criticised by Twitter users for being homophobic.

Others, saying "Who do these parents insist on beefing up their obese children, just give them water and some veg and tell them that's all they're getting," and phrases "fat chav" and "close up of a fatty eating a big mac" have also been seen as fat-shaming.

Ashleigh Hamman tweeted: "Absolutely disgusting Zoella calling people fat. Especially when she claims to get upset when people would call her 'skinny' in the past. How hypocritical can you get."

Zoella, who lives in Brighton, has built up a strong social media following in recent years thanks to her lifestyle and beauty vlogs.

Zoella has already come under fire this week for her 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar. The product has seen its price slashed from £50 to £25 by retailer Boots, after it was criticised for being bad value for money by customers.

Some fans said the re-emergence of Zoella's old tweets was a response to criticism of the Advent Calendar.

But not everyone has criticised Zoella, who has her own beauty range and a series of novels, with followers saying she should not be judged for things she said a long time ago.

Her work on anxiety and mental health has been mentioned as an example of how Sugg has matured and developed a positive persona on social media.

Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

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YouTuber and blogger Zoella has apologised for a number of old tweets about gay people and "chavs". The posts, from 2009-12, which have now been deleted, have been called out for "fat shaming" and being homophobic. "Fat chav", "skank" and "tramp" are some of the phrases she posted on her Twitter account, which now has 11 million followers.

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CONSIDERED internet royalty, blogger Zoella has her own waxwork in Madame Tussauds, books, a lifestyle range and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Her site reportedly earns £50,000 a month and she has recently been named the most powerful beauty vlogger by Forbes Magazine.

So who is Zoella? What's her background?

Zoella is the YouTube username of 27-year-old Zoe Sugg.

She was born on March 28, 1990, to parents Tracey and Graham Sugg and raised in Lacock, Wiltshire.

Her younger brother Joe Sugg is also a vlogger and internet personality in his own right known on YouTube as ThatcherJoe where he "makes a fool of himself for your entertainment".

She now lives in Brighton with her boyfriend and fellow online vlogger Alfie Deyes who runs PointlessBlog.

They share a pet pug called Nala.

Zoella's best friend is Louise Pentland who also has a beauty channel called Sprinkleofglitter. The two often make appearances on each others' YouTube Channels.

When did Zoella start on YouTube?

Zoella first started uploading videos to YouTube in 2009.

Each video lasts between 10 to 20 minutes and sees the pretty brunette talk to camera about everything from lipstick to anxiety, pets and beyond.

She recently delighted fans with a haul video from an epic Primark shopping spree of items like a fluffy throw, high heels, skinny jeans, a jewellery box, candles and cushions.

Zoella is like the sister you never had but always wanted.

Zoella is a girl of many talents.

Her debut novel Girl Online was released in November 2014. A sequel, Girl Online: On Tour was released in 2015 and a third entitled Girl Online: Going Solo was released in November 2016.

Zoella featured on the chorus of 2014 single Do They Know It's Christmas as party of the Band Aid 30 supergroup, raising money for the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.

The single debuted at number 1 on the UK Official Singles Chart.

That same year she launched a range of beauty products under the name Zoella Beauty and has since unveiled a range of lifestyle products for the winter.

What are her social media profiles?

On Twitter Zoella goes by the username @zoella where she has over 6million followers.

Zoella's Instagram account presently boasts more than 9.3million followers.
On YouTube she can also be found posting under Zoella, where she has 14 million subscribers.

Is Zoella pregnant?

Recently, Zoella fans went into meltdown over speculation that she's expecting a baby with Alfie.

Zoella, 27, from Brighton wrote on Twitter: "Me & Alfie talking about water birth: Me: Do you know why they need a sieve? Alfie: To catch the baby."

It appears the lighthearted tweet was intended as a joke, as the sieve is actually used to catch excrement and other "debris" during birth.

Do Alfie Deyes and Zoella live together?

Vlogger Zoe Sugg and her long-term boyfriend Alfie Deyes announced that they had moved into a new Brighton home on their daily vlog channels.

Fans of the social media power couple were concerned that a break up was on the cards after they reduced the number of daily vlogs they were posting.

But the YouTuber pair reassured followers that they were actually busy organising the move.

Why has Zoella hit the headlines in recent months?

Zoella has been forced to respond to criticism over the past few months.

In October, guests slammed an event she attended as a 'rip off' after spending more than £200 to queue for hours.

The vlogger has also had to respond to the criticism about her £50 advent calendar.

She claimed that the price was set by Boots and was "completely out of (her) decision making".

And that's not all, some social media users have unearthed Zoella's old tweets that mock gay men and "fat chavs".

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Everything you need to know about Zoella - the most powerful beauty Youtuber

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CONSIDERED internet royalty, blogger Zoella has her own waxwork in Madame Tussauds, books, a lifestyle range and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Her site reportedly earns £50,000 a month and she has recently been named the most powerful beauty vlogger by Forbes Magazine. Zoella is the YouTube username of 27-year-old Zoe Sugg.

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Shop the Zoella range online at Superdrug. Find the latest offers and read Zoella reviews. Free standard Order and Collect.

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Tweets by Zoella

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The Not So Perfect Life - Independent Article

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The Not So Perfect Life - Independent Article

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It may seem like the dream job, but according to YouTube sensation and multi-millionaire Zoella, life in the social media spotlight isn't always easy.

The 28-year-old vlogger recently revealed her life away from the cameras is not always what it seems as she opened up about her struggles with anxiety disorder in a new interview with Glamour Magazine.

Discussing the extent of her struggles with anxiety, which she has shared with fans before, Zoella - real name Zoe Sugg - revealed that she attends weekly therapy sessions and takes "digital detoxes."

Her honesty also extends to her YouTube channel where the vlogger filmed herself mid-panic attack to bring awareness to the issue.

But as one of the most famous and successful YouTube stars, a title she has held for the past nine years, Zoella has had to develop a thick skin to deal with the negativity that can come with a following of 17 million subscribers.

"There are definitely times where I've thought, 'Wow, I don't know if this is worth it,'" the YouTube star revealed to Glamour regarding her career, which reportedly makes her £50,000 a month.

She said: "In situations where eight years ago I might've completely crumbled, I see things differently now."

And the star seems to be thriving. In addition to a net worth of £2.5m and the release of her first book scheduled for October 2018, the star and her boyfriend, Alfie Deyes, who is equally famous, moved into a new home in Brighton recently.

Zoella has also managed to turn her internet fame into a brand - which includes clothing, homeware, books and a beauty brand.

However, Zoella said she would be "lying" if she said it wasn't difficult - and believes she is still far from completely unravelling the mental health issues she has been battling since she was 14.

Zoella's entire interview can be found in the newest issue of Glamour which hits newsstands this week.

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Millionaire YouTube star Zoella says she has weekly therapy sessions to deal with her anxiety

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It may seem like the dream job, but according to YouTube sensation and multi-millionaire Zoella, life in the social media spotlight isn't always easy. The 28-year-old vlogger recently revealed her life away from the cameras is not always what it seems as she opened up about her struggles with anxiety disorder in a new interview with Glamour Magazine.

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Business Contact: http://bitly.com/contactzoella Day in the life videos Bloopers Extras & general life-ness

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British vlogger Zoella has just reached the milestone of 10m subscribers to her main YouTube channel, but she has a long way to go to catch its most popular creator PewDiePie, who is about to pass 42m.

They're just two of the most prominent YouTube stars. In October 2015, online-video tracking firm Tubular Labs reported that there were more than 17,000 YouTube channels with more than 100,000 subscribers, and nearly 1,500 with more than 1m.

How have these YouTubers become so popular? It can seem baffling to people outside their main viewing demographic: smartphone-toting "millennials" who spend as much time (if not more) watching shortform video online as they do traditional TV shows.

Yet the top YouTube stars aren't just popular: they are genuinely influential figures for their young fans. A fact that entertainment industry magazine Variety has been confronting its readers with since 2014.

That year, it published a survey of 13-18 year-olds in the US conducted by Jeetendr Sehdev of the University of Southern California, asking them to rate the 10 most popular English-language YouTubers and 10 of the most popular traditional celebrities across a range of qualities representing "influence".

YouTubers took the top five places in the resulting chart, with Smosh, the Fine Bros, PewDiePie, KSI and Ryan Higa deemed more influential than Paul Walker, Jennifer Lawrence, Katy Perry and other celebrities.

When Sehdev ran the same survey again in 2015, YouTubers took the top six slots, ahead of stars including Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift.

When Variety asked teens to compare the influence of YouTubers with traditional celebrities, the YouTubers prevailed. Photograph: Variety

The surveys provided some useful evidence on why the online stars are so popular.

"YouTubers were judged to be more engaging, extraordinary and relatable than mainstream stars, who were rated as being smarter and more reliable. In terms of sex appeal, the two types of celebs finished just about even," explained Variety in 2014.

"Looking at survey comments and feedback, teens enjoy an intimate and authentic experience with YouTube celebrities, who aren't subject to image strategies carefully orchestrated by PR pros. Teens also say they appreciate YouTube stars' more candid sense of humour, lack of filter and risk-taking spirit, behaviours often curbed by Hollywood handlers."

That's one of the key things to understand about the popularity of YouTubers, if you're struggling to see it in their content - for their fans, the contrast with stars from the world of music, film and television has been a big factor in their rise.

Their very ordinariness - their relatability - is what makes them so appealing. The "girl or boy next door" who is "just like us" is not an unusual trope in the entertainment world but on YouTube, it's heightened.

Variety's 2015 study suggested that teenagers' emotional attachment to YouTube stars is "as much as seven times greater than that toward a traditional celebrity" for these reasons.

Many YouTube stars foster this sense of connection in the way they talk to their fans in videos, from the coming-out announcements of stars such as Connor Franta, Ingrid Nilsen and Shane Dawson to Zoella vlogging about her experience of anxiety attacks, or PewDiePie addressing speculation about his earnings.

There are technical aspects to this too. By necessity, vlogging started out as a format with a person talking into a webcam - and thus directly to the viewer - often close to the camera and filming in their bedroom.

It created a sense of intimacy, and one that many YouTube stars have tried to maintain even as they got better cameras and editing kit. But it even extends to how many of them address their audiences.

In December 2015, the Atlantic investigated the phenomenon that it dubbed "YouTube voice" - which relates to the linguistic characteristics shared by many top YouTube stars. It was parodied by the journalist Julie Beck, who wrote in the introduction to her article: "Hey guys! What's up? It's Julie. And today I want to talk about YouTube voice."

The piece outlines how overstressed and long vowels; extra vowels inserted into words - "terraping" instead of "trapping" for example - and aspiration (audible breaths) are common to many popular YouTubers.

To non-fans, these tics can be irritating. The linguist Mark Liberman described them as an "intellectual used-car-salesman voice" akin to "high-energy sales pitches" or even a "carnival barker".

But that's another point about the popularity of YouTube's stars: the way they divide fans from non-fans is a big part of their appeal too.

Music industry analyst Mark Mulligan explored exactly that idea in a blogpost in September 2015, explaining to labels why teenagers seemed to care more about YouTubers than musicians.

He suggested that teenagers struggle to "find music that they can own, that their mum and dad aren't going to sing along to too" - but have realised that their parents probably won't be quite as open to YouTubers.

"With no music subculture to cling to Generation Edge has instead gravitated to YouTube stars," wrote Mulligan.

Generation Edge is one of the many phrases bandied around to describe "people younger than us" in recent years. See also: Generation X, Gen C and the ubiquitous "millennials."

Mulligan wrote: "For those not in the target demographic, it can sometimes be difficult to grasp exactly what the creative value is of many YouTubers. But that generational inability to grasp the essence of YouTube talent is exactly the same dynamic that music always had when it was the spearhead for youth rebellion.

"A kid trying to explain to his mum why Stampy Does Minecraft is worth watching hours on end is simply a 21st century rerun of kids trying to convince their parents of the musical worth of Elvis, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and so on. That is the entire point of a youth culture - older generations aren't meant to get it," he added.

Is Stampy the new Elvis, Beatles or the Sex Pistols?

To summarise, then: to their fans, YouTube stars feel more authentic and relatable than many traditional celebrities, and that's something that is intrinsic to the videos they publish. The fact that this may annoy or baffle non-fans - parents in particular - is part of the appeal.

It may also be a pitfall in waiting, though, for any YouTubers whose fans perceive them to be drifting away from that authentic, relatable status.

Staying relatable when you're earning a high six- or even seven-figure annual income is one challenge, albeit hardly unfamiliar from the traditional entertainment world. But there are other trends that could change the relationship some YouTubers have with their audiences.

Many are working more with brands to sponsor their videos, for example. The risk is less that fans think they've sold out - many YouTubers are refreshingly upfront about their reasons for taking the cash - and more that some may end up making bad branded videos that turn their viewers off.

One of Variety's online influencers, the Fine Brothers, have been taking flak for another reason in early 2016: they attempted to trademark the word "react" and license out their reaction-video format to other creators.

Format licensing is standard practice in the television industry, but as the Fine Bros now know, it's capable of sparking a backlash in the YouTube community. It also risks being seen as another step away from their roots.

In 2016, the distinction between YouTubers and traditional celebrities is becoming increasingly blurred, not least because the former are no longer flying below the radar of the mainstream media. Some will struggle to stay connected to their fans in that spotlight, but not all.

The key thing to understand about YouTube stars is that the content of their videos - whether it's Let's Play game commentaries, makeup tutorials or personal vlogs - is only one half of their appeal.

The connection to their audiences is the other: they have grown up with the tools to forge and strengthen that connection, and many will use that as their anchor to keep their feet on the ground.

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British vlogger Zoella has just reached the milestone of 10m subscribers to her main YouTube channel, but she has a long way to go to catch its most popular creator PewDiePie, who is about to pass 42m. They're just two of the most prominent YouTube stars.

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Empowering content to watch, read, learn & shop. Good vibrations and breaking taboos. More self-pleasure, less BS!

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Rise of The Superstar Vloggers (Vlogging Documentary) - Real Stories

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Check out our new website for more incredible documentaries: HD and ad-free. https://goo.gl/LwMcmY Vloggers now sell out stadiums and have fanbases boy bands would kill for. Jim Chapman, himself a superstar vlogger with quarter of a billion views of his videos, takes us behind the scenes of the biggest vloggers on the planet.