Instagram Influencers Who Flew To Dubai During The Pandemic Are Sick Of People Disrespecting Them

With the UK still in national lockdown, a whole bunch of influencers continue to fly around the world to places like Dubai in order to continue the very important, “essential” work they do; tagging brands in photos of themselves sunbathing while sipping cocktails in hotel infinity pools.

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Naturally, the presence of so many influencers in Dubai has sparked a bit of a backlash online, with people calling them irresponsible and selfish and guilty of spreading the message that it’s OK to travel during a pandemic.

Well London-based influencer Henry Wade recently spoke to Input Mag about all the hate he’s been receiving, and he thinks the criticism has been totally unfair! After all, having a great time in Dubai is no different than any other 9 – 5 out there:

I think people are quite silly in that they don’t see your side of the story, no matter what you say.

Just because I’ve built a business on doing what I do and creating content, people think that’s not a business, when actually, it is.

Some people just don’t realize that and think the norm is 9 to 5. People are quite uneducated to not realize this is a business, and you can make money out of it. It’s not just taking selfies on Instagram.

Wade, 27, who is a ‘twinfluencer’ (their words) alongside identical twin brother William, caught a lot of flak for sharing an Instagram photo of him and his bro in Dubai and captioning it “make sense of humour your default emotion”.

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A post shared by Henry Wade (@henryjwade)

Inspiring stuff. Lost a loved one to COVID recently? Just been furloughed by your job? Struggling with mental health and financial difficulties while locked indoors all day? No worries – just laugh it off! Make sense of humour your default emotion!

Wade also says it’s very unfair that only influencers are getting bashed for travelling to Dubai, and not, um… John from Sheffield?

There’s a lot of mums, say, or for example, ‘John from Sheffield’ who’s here for a golfing trip with his golfing buddies and has left his kids at home.

They’re not talked about. Me and my brother keep ourselves to ourselves. We’ve got work to do, and we focus on what we need to do to benefit ourselves and don’t really drink too much.

Yeah, that’s probably because John from Sheffield doesn’t have 60,000+ impressionable followers on Instagram who will believe anything you say about COVID and will think nothing of jetting off during the pandemic because they see a bunch of influencers doing the same thing.

The real victim in all this though is definitely Wade and his anxiety:

My anxiety was getting up, and I thought I needed to see things from a different perspective, have a bit of fun at the end of the year and get back in January and hit the ground running.

Won’t somebody think of the influencers?! Clearly the real working men and women for who allowances must be made during the coronavirus era. What if Henry and his brother bring COVID back into the UK, you ask? Well, that’s just a small price to pay for all the fantastic work they do.