This YouTuber Posted Tropical Photos From ‘Bali.’ She Was Actually Just in an IKEA

Vacations are costly when you add up transportation, accommodation, food, and tour fees. It’s bound to burn a hole in your wallet. To make up for the #fomo and keep up with the Jonses, some resort to all kinds of extreme measures. On Instagram, for example, many have been caught faking luxury vacations using stock images.

Vlogger Natalia Taylor illustrated just how easy it is to fool netizens by pranking her more than 300,000 Instagram followers.

On February 7, the United States-based YouTuber posted a series of photos supposedly taken in a fancy Airbnb in Bali, Indonesia. “The queen has arrived #bali,” her caption reads.

But, as it turns out, she was never actually in Bali and only took the photos at her local IKEA. Taylor revealed this in a YouTube video where she confesses that she had a quick photoshoot in one of the store’s tropical model rooms. It now has more than 1 million views.

Despite the visible IKEA price tags in her shots, Taylor had people fooled.

“She really out here living her best life,” one user on Instagram commented. “Our Bali Princess,” said another.

According to Taylor, the point of the prank was to call out influencers who fake their lives for clout.

“So many influencers nowadays have actually been caught in the act of pretending to be at a destination when they really weren’t, and it’s just either Photoshop or it’s not even them,” she said.

She isn’t the first person to do this.

In 2018, vlogger Natalies Outlet faked a vacation in Japan, which she revealed in a video that now has over 3 million views. Last year, BuzzFeed channel As/Is did the same with a fake trip to London. That video has garnered over 5 million views.

Find Lia on Twitter and Instagram.