YouTuber fakes vacation to Bali with Ikea photoshoot to make statement about social media

She says experiment was a reminder not to trust everything you see on the internet

A YouTuber has reminded her followers not to believe everything they see on social media by pretending to go to Bali using Ikea as a backdrop.

Recently, Natalia Taylor shared a series of photos to her Instagram, where she has more than 332,000 followers, in which she appeared to be vacationing at the Indonesian destination.

However, as Taylor later revealed on YouTube, she was “actually at Ikea”.

“I went on a luxury dream vacation to Bali,” Taylor begins the video titled: “I FAKED a vacation at Ikea”. “Only problem is I was actually at Ikea the entire time.”

Explaining that it has become easy for people to “fake it” on social media, Taylor said that she wanted to see if her own followers would fall for the stunt.

To carry out the experiment, Taylor got dressed up and went to the Swedish furniture store with her photographer friend, where she posed in various room displays.

According to the influencer, she asked her friend to intentionally leave some of the Ikea tags in the pictures because she wanted to “leave some Easter eggs in there for any of my followers who are a little too smart for this challenge”.

After capturing the shots, Taylor began posting the content to Instagram - where she started with her Instagram Stories to make it “believable”.

“I literally took pictures and videos from the internet for this,” Taylor explained. “I looked up #Bali and I found it and used it,” adding: “Now I know that’s not right, but the point of this video is to show how easy it is to trick people into thinking you’re someone you’re not.”

Taylor then shared a series of photos to Instagram with the caption: “The queen has arrived #Bali”.

In response to the photos, Taylor’s followers had mostly positive reactions, with many welcoming her to Bali and offering travel advice.

“I’ve been to Bali! It’s amazing! Where are you staying?” one follower asked the YouTuber.

Another said: “She really out here living her best life.”

However, others noticed the Ikea details and accused Taylor of faking the trip.

“I know this is an Ikea!!” one person wrote. “I see the price tag. I’ve seen this exact furniture there.”

But despite the occasional questioning comments, Taylor said overall the experiment was a success.

“I’m not really in Indonesia, I’m in Ikea and no one even knew,” she said in the video. “I got away with it. I officially fooled all of you into thinking I actually travelled to a different country altogether when really I just went down the road to my favourite Swedish furniture store.”

Taylor concluded the video explaining that the lesson of the video is “don’t trust everything you see on the internet”.

“Sometimes people want to lie about who they are as a person and it’s not hard to do apparently,” she said.