Turns Out, Influencers Are Using Studio Sets To Make Them Look Like They're Flying On Private Planes And Here're 6 Examples

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the travel industry hard and wrecked a lot of people’s plans for this year. Now, our adventures mostly consist of heading to the exotic realm of The Kitchen or visiting the fabled lands of Netflix-on-the-Couch. Sometimes, we even head to the local park. [Gasp.] I know—daring, right?

However, some influencers and travel bloggers are far from happy that their revenue is drying up and that their ability to travel is restricted. So some of them are actually using studio sets to make it look like they’re jetting off to glorious adventures on private planes. One of these sets is in Los Angeles, California, and costs 64 dollars per hour to rent. Now, people are taking note and warning others that what they see in their social media feeds could all be fake.

Sergey Kostikov, founder of FD Studios, told Bored Panda more about the private jet studio for rent. Read on to see what he had to say.

Kostikov said that he had the private jet studio on his mind for a couple of years before they built it and opened it in December 2019. He revealed that the studio is quite popular and gets around 2 to 3 bookings each day.

"Since it's such a unique set, people don't even search for it, and they usually find out about this 'private jet' while visiting one of the other studios in the same building. We have 5 studios total there with artificial rain, LED tunnel, boxing ring, and large rustic garage," Kostikov shared.

He said that the price to rent out the studio is higher on Peerspace because of their fees. "Regularly this studio available for $34.99-$54.99 depending on the day and amount of hours needed."

Kostikov explained that they were closed during the pandemic to make sure their employees and clients were safe. However, once LA started to loosen regulations, the studio opened back up. The private jet studio got "super busy right away" and the founder of FD Studios believes that people evidently missed flying and being on an airplane.

"I plan to open similar private jet studios in NYC and Chicago, probably next year," he gave Bored Panda a sneak peek into his plans. "Before 2020 ends, I'm planning to open the first underwater photo studio in the US where photographers can stay dry while models or artists are underwater."

The influencer industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and people have had to adapt. Fashion and travel influencers in particular aren’t doing as strongly as before. Meanwhile, fitness, gardening, cooking, and other categories have taken off and influencers are doing very well with them as the public’s priorities change.

Bored Panda previously spoke about the changes the pandemic has brought upon the influencer industry with Brooke Erin Duffy who is an associate professor at Cornell University.

Most of the influencers she’s interviewed think of their careers as profoundly unstable. That’s because they believe they’re at the whims of advertisers, audiences, and social media platforms’ algorithms.

Duffy said that the pandemic has exacerbated issues within the industry and caused some influencers to branch out and develop “different vestiges of their brand persona.” Especially on TikTok.

This could help explain why some influencers decide to fake their travel photos, in order to keep their followers’ attention. However, this is also risky because once found out, the influencers could lose a large portion of their fans (and, more importantly, revenue).

In Duffy’s opinion, the pandemic has sparked two interrelated responses in the influencer industry, neither of which is entirely new.

“The first involves ringing the death knell on influencers because of brands' dwindling advertising budgets; the second stems from the belief that aspirational imagery and markers of privilege are less and less relevant in a moment of widespread social and economic upheaval,” she said.

“The latter response, crucially, seems to be especially gendered. Indeed, while women influencers have long faced backlash for being what audiences deem inauthentic, excessively self-promotional, or ‘fake,’ the critical blowback seems to have intensified in the wake of the pandemic.”