Beautycon LA
They screamed every time Tana Mongeau spoke.
Do you know who that is?
I don’t either.
The woman who runs Beautycon is a force of nature. I met Moj Mahdara at the Atom Factory, Troy Carter’s joint, it’s always the same people, investing in the new and different which you’d expect to be run by a new breed, but they’re not. I had a long conversation with Guy Oseary, he’s a backer, and the link to the organization was Eric Greenspan, the music attorney, who brokered the fit, Moj was looking for something to do after having two victories, after putting fifties and hundreds into multiple ventures, she’s the CEO.
I could not get a parking spot. Vehicles were parked willy-nilly, but driving Felice’s machine I was especially wary of illegitimate spaces. I ultimately found a spot in the far reaches and had to walk the better part of ten minutes to get to the hall.
Turns out there were 15,000 people there. Mostly girls, 16-34, and I thought they were there for the products, but Moj told me they were there for the community.
It was strangely desexualized. After JonBenet, our antenna are up for the underage made up like adults, but that was not this crowd, it seemed like they’d just graduated from Disneyland, this was the next stop on the theme park tour.
And Radio Disney was there.
Along with endless booths for cosmetics I’ve never of, and I get more magazines than anybody I know, I think I know the names.
Lime Crime?
That was the longest line in the joint. Over half an hour. To PAY! I figured they were giving something away, but it turns out Lime Crime has no brick and mortar presence, so the ability to reach out and touch the product had girls lining up with their wallets open. Maybe they took Apple Pay, there were some cash registers but multiple iPads, and the truth is everybody had a handset. The sheer number was staggering. When Jack & Jack took the stage and the assembled multitude lifted their devices over their heads for pictures you said to yourself… We live in a changed world. Everything we know is wrong.
Like the actresses in cosmetic ads. Moj told me her influencers were far more powerful. I crossed this with the CMO of L’Oreal, she said so too.
That’s what this affair is really about, getting up close and personal with influencers.
They line up for pictures. The influencers are young and made up and dressed up and you know none of them, but they’re all making good money. Or are they? I heard conflicting reports. That they were deep into six figures or all they had was their fame. I don’t know, you do your best to collect data but everybody’s selling and it’s hard to get to the truth, ain’t that America.
But you only get paid on YouTube, and so many of these girls are on Instagram and Snapchat. But you can do embedded sponsorships. There are agencies to broker this.
Confused yet?
Snapchat rules. It’s the Beatles of the generation, where they all live. Imagine a Fillmore East that accommodated EVERYBODY, then you’d get a semblance of the idea.
Although the difference is you can reach and out and touch the stars. They’re no different from you except they’ve broken through, and you want to too. That’s why you’re posting on Instagram, et al.
But the influencers are not like the musicians, they’re not young and dumb, they’re educated and articulate. It was amazing to see. Go to a music conference and you’ll learn nothing. The industry folk won’t tell you the truth and the musicians can barely eke out a sentence. But the aforementioned Tana Mongeau said it was all about Black Lives Matter, she was taking a stand, how refreshing! And each influencer could talk about haters and frequency of posting…they’re all students of the game.
As for Jack & Jack… The started on Vine, they’re out of Omaha, their manager told me they make seven figures, they employ household name producers, but they keep everything in-house. Too many have flopped with major labels. And when you do it yourself you make so much more money. J&J have sold over a million iTunes downloads, do the math, at 70%.
So something is happening here, and it ain’t exactly clear.
It was a sea of ethnicity, everybody could belong, so different from the baby boomer ethos where it’s about ascending to the top and keeping everybody else out.
And you try to discern the talent and you’re not quite sure what it is, you wonder if these influencers have a future, but you do know legions are lining up to replace them, and it’s all based on honesty and interaction.
And Beautycon is a business. Not only these profitable conventions, but monthly boxes of cosmetics, each one curated by an influencer whose picture is stashed inside. At the nexus of community and brands you find money. Yes, the smell of mazuma was palpable in the hall.
And I’m not saying musicians are second-class citizens, that these same girls don’t love them too. But I am saying that movies, TV and music are no longer the only world, and the barriers to entry are much lower online and the elements, the qualities of character that break you through, are different.
But everybody’s still into the bucks. I listened to Tyra Banks do her thing. She’s very personable, if not riveting, extremely interesting. She sometimes feels inadequate, the haters get to her, she relies on her mother to get her through. Hell, after forty five minutes I thought I knew her, and even though I’m old enough to know that’s untrue, that’s the game, personality and intimacy.
But she was hyping her branded cosmetics which depend upon multi-level marketing, which is a scam, it preys on people, it’s a pyramid scheme. And I find that offensive.
But Toni Ko started NYX as a teenager and sold it to L’Oreal for $500 million. So, you can win playing legitimately.
It’s a whole new world out there baby.
And it’s exciting.
But overwhelming.
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