The German journalist and YouTuber Marvin Wildhage (27) is known for his sophisticated projects, where he uncovers the false promises of influencers. With a fake esoteric shop, he has now pulled off another stunt.
What kind of action was that? In a two-part video series published on July 17 and 19, 2023, on YouTube, Marvin criticizes the esoteric industry. In particular, he dislikes the fact that a lot of money is made with false promises of healing.
To illustrate how the business with esotericism works, he quickly launched the online shop “Zodiac Essentials”. For this, he created an Instagram account with purchased followers and contacted influencers to promote his products.
To enable his target audience to recognize the trap, Marvin hid numerous Easter eggs in his communication with them. For example, the photo of the supposed contact person showed the YouTuber, enhanced with an app, in a summer dress, and on an attached card, one could see the hint “Marvin was here” with a trained eye.
“Greedy and unscrupulous, those who advertise it”
This is how the experiment went: Marvin features three influencers in his videos. The first, fitness influencer Vanessa Mariposa, had already fallen for a supposed anti-aging cream and his film project A-Hole in 2020 and 2021.
However, the 30-year-old did not fall for it a third time. She even made the YouTuber’s stunt public on her Instagram account. Nevertheless, he was able to win over two more influencers:
- Yasmin “Yasminfeee” Schmidt has over 344,000 followers on TikTok, where she advertised the healing stones and tarot cards of “Zodiac Essentials”.
- Tanja Makarić, who has been criticized for advertising gambling and cosmetic surgeries, promoted the supposed healing stones to her 650,000 followers on Instagram.
Marvin shows how the influencers rave about the supposed effects of the stones. Makarić seems particularly taken with the rose quartz, which is said to be the stone of lovers. However, the YouTuber clarifies that it is not actually rose quartz; she has confused the stones.
Yasminfee claims that the stones support the nervous system and even “redirect” electromagnetic pollution in the apartment. Marvin judges: “She lies for money.”
Especially unpleasant: The YouTuber even attached a script to his emails in which he writes that they themselves do not believe in the effect, but it just sells well. He summarizes: “A greedy, unscrupulous influencer, those who advertise it.”
You can watch the first part of the video series here:
Influencer says: “That was wrong”
How did the influencers react? After the deception was uncovered, Tanja Makarić commented on Instagram. She congratulated Marvin on his successful stunt but insisted that she actually believed in the power of healing stones.
In a video, she later explained that it was wrong to claim that a stone cures depression. In such cases, it is always right to see a doctor. Moreover, it was never her intention to exploit sick or weak people (via Watson).
YouTuber Seltix also likes to put his influencer colleagues to the test. In an experiment, he wanted to find out how much money can really be made with the paid platform OnlyFans. You can read how that went here:
