He’s not really my friend, more my boyfriends, and we talk at social gatherings or when he comes over to hangout with my boyfriend. I like him and his music, but, and I’ll be really blunt now, he’s not really popular. The kind of guy who (I thought?) did it for the love of the game, and who will often post videos of him doing his sets to an audience of like 7 people in full lighting.
I have a reasonably big social media presence. My job is modelling and I use it for work mostly but I have in the past promoted some of my close friends club gigs or something.
He”s started sharing his videos with me asking for me to repost them or put them on my story, and normally I’d tell him "oh I totally would if I’d come but I wasn’t there" or something like that. A kind no. The other day he talked to my boyfriend about it and bf has told me that I’m kind of being an ass not helping him out since he lets us go for free, and I like his sets and he’s a "struggling artist".
Am I being an asshole? I’m afraid the way this guy shoots his videos will hurt my "brand", and I use this account to literally help make my living.
Edits bc of typos
NTA. Your account is your job, not a favor bank. Promoting someone because of guilt isn’t required
Your “manager”’or “agent” or “agency” does now not allow you to promote others without a fee…
He knows this, but also knows that my agency is really small and my manager is nice and lets me promote friends for token fees, but what goes without saying is that this is better enhances my image and the awkward part is me having to tell him that his techno damages my image…
NTA. But just tell him no. I’m direct like that, lol. But also, if you can, tell him what he can do better on his vids for you to promote him. But if he does improve, will you promote him? Or it will still be a no no matter what?
Or is it truly incompatible to your brand what he videos? You can tell him that.
Is he really going to hurt your brand financially (i.e. followers) if you do promote him?
>I’m afraid way this guy shoots his videos will hurt my “brand”
You say you do like his music, so would you be willing to promote him if his videos were better?
NTA, but maybe you could have a talk with him about the topic of building brands online, and how he could professionalize his promo videos, both for posting it on his own accounts and when trying to get people to promote it. Maybe he could shoot something separate from his gigs that looks good and just highlights his music, he does not need an audience in it (and showing something with a very small audience hurts more than it helps), and promote his gigs with that.
This is a better initial situation to work with than if he shot his videos highly professionally with super lighting, but you hated his music and were then asked to put your name behind it.
This is what I thought too? Why show the tiny audience. His shoots are very professional with cameras I’m surprised he can afford but he opts for drone shots and wide angles, so I never asked him because I assumed hes doing it on purpose
Your account is one of your sources of income. It’s not open for any and everything. Because somehow your boyfriend does acknowledge that it is a legitimate business tool and that it could be beneficial for his friends business but doesn’t want to acknowledge that it might hurt your business.
You get to be the ahole here.
NtA.
NTA. You’re not obliged to do anything for anyone
NTA. Is it possible to give him tips on how to build a following perhaps?
NTA. you don’t owe him anything in return because he lets you guys go for free. that’s also your work account so… yeah definitely not.
Could you post on your personal socials as opposed to one you use for work?
NTA. You can give him the option of paying for promotion then. Why should he have free access to your platform that YOU built???
YTA. You enjoy his music and get into his gigs for free so what’s the problem? Surely you are allowed to enjoy music despite having some social media followers? Next time you go along just tag him and share a video of you dancing. Techno isn’t to everyone’s taste but there’s no genre of anything that everyone likes.