SheerLuxe’s New Dystopan AI editor Reem is Less About Tech and More About How Out-of-Touch Businesses Are

With a disastrous campaign from Bumble and a product launch disaster from Youthforia, the latest backlash from SheerLuxes' foray into AI proves that people have had enough of capitalist fantasies.

AI editor Reem with editor-in-chief Charlotte Collins

SheerLuxe is a British online magazine focused on lifestyle, beauty, and fashion. And they are popular. That much is true. They have 468k followers on Instagram and 544.8k on TikTok, and they have received 9.2 million likes on the same platform. Their comments are full of people fangirling over the women who work there, their clothes and their lives.

Their latest addition to the team is Reem, an AI ‘fashion and lifestyle editor powered by the SL team’.To put it simply, SheerLuxe has made an AI-generated image of a hyperrealistic woman pretending she’s an editor on their team. They’ve seemingly stuck her image on the wall with the rest of their staff, pretended she has a desk where she works and naturally, she has an Instagram account.

It’s like SheerLuxe and Katy Perry's latest song is written in the same font,

Layla_yasmin writes, ‘Whoever made this is *SO* socially unaware Jesus..’. Others are commenting on the sheer fucking absurdity of it all. K___m___d85 writes ‘I do not get this. Is she superimposed on the couch? Or is this an actual robot? Wtf?’ in response to a picture of Reem’s desk, reniadeb writes ‘If she doesn't do any work then what is she doing at her desk?’

But beyond the bad graphics, and the nonsensicalness of it all, the world is turning into a dystopian landscape and people have had enough.

Instagram commenters have criticised them for not highlighting their real staff, hannah.rose.bee writes ‘Why don’t you put a spotlight on your human employees instead? I would rather get to know them - a valid point considering how difficult it is to build a career. Personal brands are everything, so highlighting who they already have could help their employees.

Additionally not hiring real writers/journalists at a time when the industry is struggling is a bit odd - to say the least. Especially when at least 8000 journalist jobs have been cut in the UK and North America last year alone. In Germany, a tabloid cut 20% of its jobs in order to prepare for a ‘digital only future’. The Mirror here in the UK has said that it will make cuts of around 450 jobs and hire influencers instead. 

Along the same lines, some questioned why they went with AI instead of working with real influencers. Instagram user loretta_j9 comments ‘This is very strange. Creating an AI influencer!? When you work with real influencers/content creators.’ to which layla_yasmin replies ‘@lorretta_j9 they don’t own those tho 👀’. It’s important to note that, like most creative jobs, influencer roles are also under threat from AI.

Some criticised them for creating a women of colour rather than actually hiring a women of colour. Dahlstrmanna writes ‘How nice of you to put the AI amongst other people of colour from your staff to show how inclusive you are, but still choosing to create an AI instead of hiring a real person. Very nice, great job everybody’. Priscilla on TikTok says, ‘I am all for innovation but this feels more dystopian to me’.

A report from 2022 highlights how women of colour are more marginalised in newsrooms across the UK than in countries such as the USA and South Africa. Additionally, the report states that women of colour are “experiencing extraordinary levels of exclusion and remain invisible within news organisations and the news industry, as leaders and as protagonists in news stories.”

Other criticisms were about the beauty standards they are upholding and actively perpetuating. Hope_lauren_eder comments on IG, ‘I’m confused she looks perfect … so what are we now striving for girls to look like something that doesn’t exist in reality - @sheerluxe your better than this’.

In a world where studies in the US have found that thinner women are more likely to earn more than overweight women, weight loss drugs such as Ozempic are predicted to be used by 70 million people worldwide by 2028 and cosmetic procedures like neuromodulator injections (aka botox) and dermal fillers (aka fillers) have seen an almost 50% increase from 2019-2022 - do we now need more beauty pressure from a near perfect looking AI?

The latest 'employee' of SheerLuxe, AI bot Reem.

SheerLuxe: Repeat Offender 

When I first heard this I thought ‘Am I surprised?’

When SheerLuxe first appeared on my FYP I instantly rolled my eyes. I’m not sure if it was the depressing office environment in all of their videos which you could easily miss if you’re only paying attention to their copy-and-paste ‘style’ and all the performed fun that they were having. There was a distinct lack of diversity, a big whiff of privilege and well… beige. So much beige.

M on TikTok puts it more succinctly than me when they comment ‘tbf sheerluxe employs such a specific king of tory private school girl that may as well be ai at this point.’

My initial instincts were confirmed when our lord and saviour when it comes to all things UK job market, Lauren Spearman called them out on her TikTok account. Spearman posted a video calling out Sheerluxe's video of them announcing new two job role openings. In order to apply for both jobs you needed to do an unpaid task (which required original ideas), despite one of them being entry-level, and naturally SheerLuxe didn’t include the salary. 

One user Lydia then stitched that video and told their experience of their application for a role six years ago. Spoiler: it was not good. Lydia explains during the interview that she felt judged, and after sending four tasks she didn’t hear back from them for a month. Eventually, they got rejected and the role was put up again.

Lydia then followed up on that video with another video telling us that more people got in contact with her about SheerLuxe. One person told Lydia that SheerLuxe fired her on the last day of their three-month probation and gave no indication that they were unhappy with her performance - and they’ve allegedly done this to others. A retail worker also got into contact with Lydia claiming the team was rude and dismissive when they filmed at their store.

In a series of events that I found out about through Metro, SheerLuxe were also accused of tokenizing staff member Nana Acheampong with one commenter saying, ‘The recent feed is giving the same energy my school gave me when they put in a brochure 10 times to show they were “diverse”.

When you put all the pieces together, an AI bot editor just makes ✨sense✨when it comes to SheerLuxe.

If the world exists outside of corporate, but those in corporate fail to know this, does it really exist?

To single out SheerLuxe wouldn’t be totally fair because this lack of social awareness, basic empathy or ability to do a quick TikTok search to find out what we commoners are doing has been happening a lot recently. Other brands have not been able to read the room recently too.

Let’s start with Bumble, a dating app created by women for women, who recently fumbled a massive campaign. Gen Z and millennials are using dating apps less, so naturally Bumble thought shame as a marketing technique would work. Their billboards read “YOU KNOW FULL WELL A VOW OF CELIBACY IS NOT THE ANSWER” and “THOU SHALT NOT GIVE UP ON DATING AND BECOME A NUN”. 

And users on TikTok were not having it. One user, Momo wrote, “Wow using biblical terminology to force women to go on one nights stands with other men? Buyeeeeee bumble.” Madison wrote “Imagine being a "women friendly" dating app and then telling women what to do with their bodies” and Stephanie wrote, “The last part >>> like why are you advertising sex, advertise a functioning relationship. How out of touch”.

What Bumble failed to take into account is the current climate for women. The UN has said that gender disparities are going worsening. A key example of where Bumble has a huge market is in the USA, where abortion rights were overturned. Men are more likely to want children than women. More women are choosing to stay single and women are talking openly about being abstinent (like icon Julia Fox).   

Secondly, we have Youthforia, a cosmetic company that went viral on TikTok because of its lack of inclusivity. Influencer Golloria George took to TikTok to call out the company for their darkest shade having no pigment and being identical to face paint. And if you look at the components of the foundation, there is no undertone - Sarah Color Anaklis and Beauty on TikTok explains the colour theory behind why this, and echoes the anger that so may share.

The beauty industry is notoriously uninclusive, with many darker and deeper skin tones being excluded. Youthforia went a step further than just excluding anyone with darker skin tones, they actively rebranded black face paint and created a product to make them look inclusive but it’s giving ‘we literally don’t care because we’re racist’.

Some have suggested that Youthforia wants the negative attention because all publicity is good publicity, right? Plus Jessica Ruane commented on my LinkedIn post about this,  suggesting something that I (perhaps naively) never thought of, they want the negative attention because it translates to more sales.

I think that rage baiting has become a legitimate undercover marketing strategy for D2C companies. Especially in the beauty industry. Pissing people off to go viral keeps happening because IT WORKS. 

Thousands of beauty influencers bought that pitch-black Youthforia foundation just to swatch it in a video and call it out for being racist. The brand sold A TON of products. 

It’s not a mistake. It’s become an actual marketing strategy. (Shit even Apple just did it with that crushing campaign that upset the masses) But they’ll never actually tell you that 🤫

Last, but not least, Kim Kardashian. For those who aren’t chronically online (what’s life like?), you might not have heard that North West performed as Young Simba during The Lion King's 30th Anniversary in Hollywood. (North West is the child of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West).

And you may be thinking, Kim Kardashian is a person and not a business, and to that I say, are you sure? And even if you are, the reactions of the mainstream media aka larger corporations are telling.

TikToker and Podcaster Clio point out that a lot of the media coverage was in praise of North West. Rolling Stone magazine claims “North West shines in concert for 30th anniversary of ‘The Lion King’. Cosmopolitan claims “North West just gave the most iconic performance during her theatre debut”. 

It’s safe to say many on TikTok thought North West’s performance was bad for this calibre of an event and that she was only able to do it because of her parents. AKA nepotism.

And yet outlets criticised them. The Daily Mail writes, “North West's Lion King performance DEFENDED by fans after trolls said that the youngster 'can't sing' and only got the role because her parents are Kanye West and Kim Kardashian”. UNILAD says, “North West Lion King performance slammed online with trolls criticizing her 'nepo baby' advantage”. The byline to Rolling Stone is interesting: ‘North West gets mixed social media reactions‘.

Whilst North West is just ten years old, and this isn’t her fault - it’s incredibly symbolic of the state of the world. Child actors and singers have intense training for a moment like this. This child got it through her parents. Despite being clearly unprepared.

As Sarah Sansoni on TikTok points out, “We all just need a little bit of hope, don’t we? Especially for our kids. I just don’t want to taint our arts.” Sansoni also talks about how before it was interesting and hopeful watching people come from nothing and make something but now “ it’s like everything just feels bought and paid for. It feels fake.”

The reaction of people is understandable. It’s almost impossible to land a job without connections, especially in the creative industries. Before nepo kids might have had a leg up but now they don’t even need to try.

The use of ‘social media’ in this context from mainstream media outlets is interesting - it is meant to trivialise and delegitimise of people’s feelings towards this. But make no mistake, social media reflects the views of the people. After all it’s taken down Bumble’s campaign, made Youthforia go viral for all the wrong reasons and have told SheerLuxe exactly what they think.

So why don't brands know what the public is feeling?

Do brands even care?

Conversations around abstinence and inclusive beauty products were things I saw on TikTok before the Bumble campaign and the release of the Youthforia foundation. Which begs the question, how did brands miss this? A quick TikTok search would have told both companies what they needed to know.

SheerLuxe too have ignored discussions all over the internet about the unstable career market, AI taking over writing jobs (remember the writer's strike?) and diversity in the beauty, fashion and lifestyle industries. People have even discussed it in regards to them in their TikTok comment section (which they regularly delete btw). 

Bumble seems to be doing the most. They issued a statement. They removed the ads and instead offered their billboard spaces to groups supporting women and marginalised communities. They will also make donations to domestic violence organisations. 

Youthforia issued a statement which said they were going to create an internal position to asses their current and future products to meet the needs of their audience. Naturally, it was met with unimpressed comments. alak0lo said it best commenting on the IG post ‘We love non-apology” apology” ’.

Kim Kardashian continues to be queen capitalist, exploiting those around her whilst gaslighting us all about it and running environmentally unethical companies (as bad as Temu, Missguided  and Fashion Nova - Jude Bellingham what are you doing modelling for Skims?!?!)

And in a full circle moment, SheerLuxes' response is also giving we don’t care. And then some. Their statement states that they didn’t explain her properly - which is condescending. They explain that Reem cannot write articles - babes, we know. They claim that Reem was created from an AI imagery partnership in the Middle East and no jobs were compromised - could they not have at least hired a freelancer on rotation for the amount they spent creating Reem?

But my favourite bit: “We'll keep innovating, but we are listening and in future will explain such newness better to our readers.” It’s giving ‘you’re just dumb but dw, we’re gonna explain it to you next time because we know better than you’ 💩

A Need for Intentional Consumption

SheerLuxe’s attempt at innovation has backfired. The situation has revealed a huge disconnect between the corporate world and us humans, or as they call us - the consumers.

SheerLuxe has fallen into a trap that even technology can’t solve. We live in a time of unprecedented change: global warming, genocide is now live-streamed, and a shit show of an economy where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  The tide is turning. People are challenging the narrative, the rhetoric and power dynamics. And they’ve ignored it. Just as Bumble and Youthforia did. (Except you could argue that SheerLuxe is guilty of ignoring the people on so many different instances it’s kind of hard to keep track.)

Whilst SheerLuxe and other brands could do even a little more to not launch products and campaigns that backfire (may I suggest a search on Google or TikTok and hiring people from a diverse pool of people) - it’s not enough.

It’s up to us to stop worshipping at the altar of brands like SheerLuxe so they don’t have hundreds or thousands of willing sacrifices to work for them. Telling people that they must have a personal brand, only positing positive but authentic things about jobs and treating people better because they work at these companies has to stop.

It’s up to us to switch off from their beige consumerist propaganda masked as content.

Disengage. Boycott. Consume intentionally, mindfully and with our values.