Eileen Kelly is a 20-year-old Instagram model, which is a job title we all need to come to terms with. You can make a lot of money on Instagram if you have as many followers as Kelly does. It's often a combination of being very beautiful and presenting a lifestyle for people to aspire to–kind of like running your own personal magazine, but with videos. Kelly posts under the handle Killerandasweetthing, and she has a strong understanding of her brand:
https://www.instagram.com/p/97t40Lxjz2/On Thursday, The New York Post shared an interview with Kelly, and they definitely picked the most salacious angle they possibly could. The article is titled,"I fuel fantasies of men who want sex with young girls, and I’m fine with it," which probably got more than a few clicks. Many people were pretty disgusted by the way The Post talked about the Instagram generation:
https://twitter.com/kasia__kay/status/688455036049862656The Post, however, goes out of its way to make Kelly seem like she pouring gasoline on the flames of pedophilia with her lingerie photos.
https://www.instagram.com/p/9hvq4Yxj-9/?taken-by=killerandasweetthanghttps://www.instagram.com/p/_hneYixj40/?taken-by=killerandasweetthangThey even quote an adolescent psychologist named Michelle Borba, who explained how adult women on social media are affecting the photo choices of teenage girls:
The photos are becoming more perfectly cropped, more concerned about appearances as opposed to what [the girls are] doing with [their] friends...As authenticity starts to go down, we find that the girl becomes more concerned about how many likes [she’s] getting and what people think about [her] as opposed to what kind of person [she is].
As someone who controls her own image, Kelly of course also has a blog. That's where she posted a response to The Post and specifically the author of the article, Dana Schuster:
I recently did an interview with the New York Post. Being approached by the Post as a 20 year old blogger in New York, I jumped at the opportunity to have a space to talk about my blog and who I am as a person... Ultimately I am the one at fault for trusting, even when I asked Dana what her take was with this article, that she would be honest. And for a moment when it launched and I read how awful and cringeworthy it was, I took offense and was upset...
The truth is, is that Dana is a middle aged woman who is writing click bait articles about someone she should be setting an example for. And by hurting me, she’s essentially trying to hurt every young woman out there on the internet...
This article was hyper sexist. Yes I take photos of my body. Yes! Some of those photos are provocative. You think I don’t know that? But like I said, posting photos of myself because I’m confident with my body and promote self love and body positivity has zero correlation to my sex life...
So NO, I do not promote pedophilia, my Instagram is NOT about arousing gross, old men. It’s about self love, being a 20 year old!! Being young and having fun. And showing people that hey this is me, mistakes and all. Take it or leave it.
You can read the full response here, but the gist is that Kelly is going to keep doing her, and creepy guys be creepy no matter what.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BAGUIz4xj8a/?taken-by=killerandasweetthang