An influencer was given a harsh dose of reality when Melbourne restaurant Patsy’s bluntly refused to collaborate with her. She then tried to shame the owners – but it spectacularly backfired

A wannabe influencer has been bombarded with ‘rude’ messages after her attempt to ‘expose’ a restaurant for rejecting her unsolicited marketing approach backfired.

Melbourne’s Jamieson May, who describes himself as a “travel, lifestyle, fashion and food creator”, posted a nearly three-minute rant about Patsy’s vegetarian restaurant in the CBD last month.

‘Yesterday I received the most horrible message from a restaurant [after] I want to work with them and I need to make you aware of this so that you never work with them and know your standards,” Ms. May lamented to her 9,000 TikTok followers.

The aspiring influencer messaged Patsy’s on Instagram to ask if the restaurant’s owners would like to work with her to create marketing content.

But she was stunned by the restaurant’s blunt response.

She was shocked by the restaurant’s “blunt response.”

“You don’t seem to have any followers, maybe you should contact us if you have over 100,000,” the restaurant account wrote back.

Mrs May has just under 17,000 followers on Instagram.

‘I’m absolutely stunned. “I had no words,” she said.

‘It actually disgusted me that someone could say that to someone else.

“This is clearly someone who is not in marketing, he literally doesn’t understand anything.”

But her tirade backfired when she was inundated with criticism. She has now disabled the comments under the Instagram video.

“When I first released the restaurant on TikTok, it reached the wrong audience of non-creators and influencers who didn’t understand what was happening,” Ms May said..

‘People were sending extremely rude comments saying that I’m just an entitled influencer who only wants “free” stuff, and I’m complaining about all of this.’

Mrs May said she was ‘absolutely stunned’ by Patsy’s message

Patsy’s, owned by restaurateurs Mathew Guthrie and Clinton Trevisi, also defended its response, saying it was “clear” they did not want to work with Mrs May given her follower profile.

“Her followers are not really people we have in the room very often and probably not the market we want to connect with,” Mr. Guthrie said. news.com.au.

“I think she was just hoping to increase her visibility with these outraged posts.

“It’s already worked in a way, but I’m not sure how it can be monetized as marketing.”

Mrs May told Daily Mail Australia that she ‘never asked for a free service’ and that she had only objected to Patsy’s ‘customer service’.

“I stand up for small creators who may have great content but aren’t getting the recognition they deserve,” she said.

“Most people just mention me when they don’t fully understand how content creation works in the marketing world.

“All my audience and content creator friends agree with me on this.”