19-Year-Old Fakes Living A Luxury Lifestyle And Surprises Everyone With How Easy It Is

Byron Denton is a 19-year-old London-based vlogger who recently decided to do an interesting social experiment – in late January he was living a luxurious lifestyle as a rich Instagram influencer. But here’s the interesting part – all of his riches were fake. The vlogger simply wanted to see how easy it was to pretend to be rich – and got very surprised after seeing his Instagram account blow up with thousands of likes and new followers.

Image credits: tbhbyron

In an interview with Insider, the vlogger said he was inspired by Youtuber George Mason, who had once faked going on a vacation for a whole week. Byron said he saw a lot of people faking holidays and decided to take a different approach.

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“I’d always wondered if the reason people are so obsessed with celebrities was due to the fact they can afford to live a life not everyone can,” speculated Byron.

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Judging from the results, the vlogger wasn’t that far from the truth – in mere 7 seconds, this fake photo of Byron sitting in a private jet got 1,000 likes.

Image credits: tbhbyron

When he finally released a video exposing himself, the author said he did this to try and compare whether wearing designer items would actually encourage people to like his photos or not. Needless to say, it did. Byron remembered a time when a photo of his outfit he took in December got 2,234 likes – that was nothing compared to the new ones.

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“Me wearing a designer top or designer shoes, the likes I got on those photos even though it’s still an outfit of a day though, just of me wearing a certain outfit, just doesn’t contain any designer, to then be pulling 12,000 likes, so that’s like 10,000 more people clicking the like button of me wearing designer, just because I’m wearing designer,” said Byron.

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You have to agree that the photos Byron edited look pretty convincing – after all, many people believed them and only five people messaged him to ask about his new influencer lifestyle. He even surprised his family members with his newfound wealth!

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“I had a lot of messages from my friends asking how I was affording all the designer stuff and a lot of comments from my followers asking if I’d won the lottery or something,” said the vlogger.

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Even after he released the video, the number of likes and followers kept rising – something that surprised Byron.

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Looks like the old ‘fake it ’till you make it’ saying is more true now than ever

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Some influencers even manage to promote things that don’t exist – like that time influencer Taylor Evans pretended her Miami vacation was sponsored.

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Byron pulled off his whole experiment with the help of some clever photo editing using apps like FaceTune, PicsArt, and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Each fake photo only took him about 45 minutes.

Image credits: byron

First, he had his picture taken in front of a Louis Vuitton store.

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Then he created a few ‘boomerangs’ – that way his followers know he really been there.

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And finally, upload the picture and watch the likes flow. Congratulations – you are now an influencer!

Image credits: byron

“[The experiment has] made me question everyone’s moves on social media. Do a lot of the high-profile bloggers these days actually make their way to the top by being honest or do they fake some of it?” wondered the vlogger.

See how Byron pulled it all of in the video below!

Image credits: byron