Diana Alexa: Instagram Copycat Baffles ‘Gypsea Lust’ Travel Photographer Lauren Bullen, Followers
The Young Turks is reporting on a now-private Instagram account said to have posted painstaking, almost exact copies of photos by well-known travel photographer Lauren Bullen, posted to her Gypsea Lust Instagram account.
In order to capture the Diana Alexa Instagram photographs, the woman and a male accomplice traveled around the world, presumably spending thousands of dollars.
Running through the images side-by-side, Lauren Bullen-Diana Alexa comparisons show photos that are close, with some featuring seemingly odd, random differences.
“The ones that are not almost exact actually drive me crazy,” Cenk Uygur with TYT said, when comparing the Lauren Bullen Instagram account photos with those of Diana Alexa.
Francis Maxwell pointed out Alexa’s seeming boyfriend and considered the conversations that must have occurred between the two while planning and organizing the trips around the globe to make exact copies of another photographer’s photographs.
“Honey, we’re going to go and travel the world and take these exact pictures,” Maxwell pondered a possible conversation.
The TYT host asked what Alexa’s male companion had to gain from such an endeavor.
The Diana Alexa-Lauren Bullen story was said to have culminated with the two women contacting each other and Alexa offering an apology to Bullen, after the copycat “unblocked” the photographer on Instagram.
Upon first discovering the Diana Alexa Instagram account, Lauren Bullen was said to have assumed that Alexa had manipulated the images. Bullen stated that she was “shocked” when she discovered that they were real.
“They honestly did an incredible job copying our imagery,” Bullen stated. “But stealing someone’s art — that’s never OK.”
Not only did Diana Alexa copy the location, framing, and composition of Lauren Bullen’s photographs, she went to the trouble of purchasing clothes that closely match as well.
Locations to which Alexa traveled to accomplish her goal included the Sahara Desert and Greek islands. Diana Alexa’s Instagram account was reported to have attracted about 3,600 followers before her posts were deleted and the account was made private.
Lauren Bullen stated that she has “accepted” Diana Alexa’s apology and that the two have spoken about how the entire situation could have been “handled differently.”
“She is NOT a stalker and this labeling needs to stop,” Bullen said to critics of Alexa. “So do the hate messages.”
Bullen went on to state that Alexa is “no threat” to her or others. She also warned users that any current Diana Alexa Instagram accounts are “fake.”
Cenk Uygur described Diana Alexa’s actions as “Instagram stalking… days later or weeks later,” seemingly struggling to find other words.
“I want you to think about how expensive these vacations are,” Kim Horcher with TYT stated, to agreement from Uygur and Francis Maxwell.
Horcher asked how much money Diana Alexa has spent copying Lauren Bullen’s travels.
Cenk Uygur stated a belief that Alexa has “way too much” time and money while noting “I want to be her.”
The TYT host then laughed considering himself posing in a bathing suit beside pools and on beaches in exotic locations around the world.
“This is Talented Mr. Ripley stuff,” Kim Horcher stated, comparing the scope of Alexa and her companion’s travels with the 1999 film starring Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, as reported by IMDb.
Lauren Bullen’s “Gypsea Lust” Instagram account has 740,000 followers, said to allow the blogger and her boyfriend to roam the globe “permanently.”
New York Magazine describes Bullen’s Instagram account as being a “deliberately styled escapist fantasy designed to evoke envy.” The publication also notes that many destinations featured by Gypsea Lust are “inaccessible” and “unaffordable.”
While the two women have reconciled over the copycat photographs, Diana’s Alexa’s original intent, beyond anything other than perhaps traveling the world and taking photographs, remains elusive.
[Featured Image by ferrantraite/iStock]
