Photo: Instagram
The YouTube star shocked her fans.
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on Apr 29, 2019
Nobody's life is ever what it looks like on social media. From perfectly edited, filtered, nipped and tucked Instagram selfies, to Facebook posts of smiling toddlers who wouldn't EVER do something like throw a tantrum—social media isn't real, but it's where we go to display the life we wish that we really had. Someone who knows this better than most is digital content star, Gabbie Hanna. After developing an impressive following online, the singer and web personality may have finally gone too far when it comes to getting attention online. When you hear about her latest prank, you'll understand why...Who is Gabbie Hanna?
1. YouTube Stardom
While Vine (RIP) maybe be gone (at least for now, I still hold out hope!) the performers who made it their playground haven't gone anywhere. Gabbie Hanna started out on the app with her wildly popular The Gabbie Show, but she was also savvy enough to start a YouTube channel of the same name right around the same time. It paid off big time, and the YouTuber is now reportedly worth more than $2 million! Gabbie snaps up followers the way I snap up bite-size Snickers. She gots 6.5 million of 'em on YouTube and she's still managing to make the necessary waves in order to make sure that her audience keeps growing. Take, for example, the giant prank she pulled on all her fans not so long ago...She captioned the photo below: "so i pretended to go to coachella for you a youtube video, which was substantially more believable than me actually GOING to coachella i worked SUUUPER hard on this one and had a TON of fun with it, link in bio! TYSM TO @kellansworld FOR THE WITCHCRAFT PHOTOSHOP!! never could have pulled this off without his skills, seriously an amazing artist, ty ty ty"
2. The Big Con
Hanna, a genius and my potential bestie soulmate, has been talking a lot about the Coachella festival. She gushed about the event saying that she was so psyched that she got to attend and that she was "so excited to play dress up and enjoy the culture & live music." She even shouted out a bestie, thanking her for finally making her go. But there was a twist: in spite of the captions and the photos....she never went!
And that was the entire point! Gabbie didn't want people to think she experienced something she hadn't, she wanted to let people in on the joke and share with them how she managed to pull off such a killer prank. This included using a friend's apartment as the supposed AirBnB where she stayed and creating a fake wristband like the type they give out to ticket buyers at the festival.
3. Who Helped
Hanna couldn't have done any of this alone, and she makes that perfectly clear. She was more than a little excited to let people in on the behind scenes of it all. The key to the photos took two separate artists. The first was photographer Vitaly S Kibenko who did his best to capture shots where the background could be easily manipulated for their desired effect. Gabbie also tapped artist and photographer Kellan Hendry, an Instagram legend known for his outlandish pics, to transform the backgrounds using photoshop and magic to truly get across the Coachella vibes. She even released a video called "I Faked Going To Coachella" to explain more about the who, what, where, and why of the stunt.
4. Why She Did It
When asked why she did it, the YouTuber, who is also a recording artist, had an interesting take: "If you've paid close attention to me throughout the past couple or few years, you know that I am not Coachella's biggest advocate. Now here's the thing, I don't have anything against Coachella per se. In fact, as an artist, it would be an absolute dream to be on the lineup at Coachella. But to me, a socially awkward, socially anxious introverted hermit—the idea of going into the desert for three days in very, very hot heat and then very, very cold nights in the dust and the dirt without access to healthy food or reasonably priced alcohol or showers that is not walking distance away from your hotel or even an Uber to get [to] your hotel. I don't know. All of it just seems like a lot of work for me, personally. I'm a homebody, or as other people like to call it, lazy. But yea, it's just not for me."
5. She's Not The First
While Gabbie's project was a cool one, this isn't the first time someone has tackled such a Coachella fakeout, something she was quick to point out. She mentioned other people in the world of digital content who beat her to the punch, people like Carolyn Stritch and Natalies Outlet. According to Gabbie there are "a lot of people that go to Coachella who do not enjoy the experience" and are only there in the first place to boost their cache in the world of celebrity, digital or otherwise. "I can pull this off because I know people who go to Coachella weekend one and bring twice as many outfits and double up on their outfit each day so that they can pretend like they're at Coachella weekend two, but they're not. They're at home. Social media is a lie. So what I'm doing isn't that far from reality anyway."
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's an experienced generalist with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, pop culture, and true crime. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.