OpenAI 首次网红品牌之旅为何引发争议

品牌之旅是网红的一种成人礼。这是合法性的象征，意味着赞助商愿意邀请他们参加全额支付的度假旅行，通常还包括奢华的免费赠品和活动。旅行也可能引发未受邀请的网红的不满，招致公众批评，并展示出某种轻浮感。

通常，这是快时尚公司：/2023/6/30/23779058/shein-influencer-trip-backlash-ads-forced-labor，或者美妆品牌：https://www.thecut.com/2023/05/why-black-women-creators-are-accusing-tarte-of-mistreatment.html，邀请网红前往，目的是通过社交媒体发布大量赞助内容。这一次，则是一家主要的人工智能公司。

上周末，一些网红开始发布有关 OpenAI “有史以来的首次品牌之旅”的内容，这次旅行似乎在纽约市外的一个自然度假地进行（对好奇的人来说，看起来是 Instagram 热门景点 Wildflower Farms：https://auberge.com/wildflower-farms/）。这次旅行被宣传为“夏日俱乐部”，网红们发布了来自他们小屋的照片和视频，展示品牌周边产品和印有字母标记的睡衣，并含糊提及安排的行程。许多内容创作者似乎专注于职业和商业领域，发布有关职场文化或 CEO 相关内容。TikTok 拥有 145,000 粉丝的 Grace McCarrick 从她的套房进行了视频博客：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669031978213117198，记录她在夜间放泡澡的过程。另一位网红 Nat Lucy（57,000 粉丝）拍摄了自己：https://www.tiktok.com/@nat.lucyy/video/7668872242515758350，在小屋外发现鹿的情景。场面大乱。

“一些人真的会为了一个免费的漂亮酒店房间出卖自己的灵魂和地球，”一位TikTok用户在McCarrick的视频下评论道。“哇！漂亮的绿色景观！他们应该在这里建一个数据中心！”这是Lucy帖子下的一条评论。大多数视频的关注度相对较低：McCarrick的视频点赞不到300次，Lucy的视频观看量不到15,000次。与其他引人注目的品牌旅行相比，这种互动微乎其微——但针对这次旅行的反应视频却使其成为某种程度上的丑闻（一对：https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbjfNrbhmRV/ 视频：https://www.tiktok.com/@crutches_and_spice/video/7669219473315974413 的剪辑总观看量已超过50万次）。

许多关于这些网红视频的评论都提到了AI热潮对环境的影响：/cs/features/937356/ai-data-center-gpu-environmental-impact，以及美国各地数据中心有争议的建设：/ai-artificial-intelligence/902546/data-centers-ai-energy-power-grids-controversy，还有公司在工作场所整合AI可能导致的岗位替代或失业问题。一些人还质疑，为何参与此次旅行的内容创作者中大多是年轻女性，好像OpenAI通过她们更易接触的媒体在针对特定人群（尽管根据社交媒体上发布的照片和视频，途中也有男性：https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbgrhizj-lh/?img_index=1：https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbg8k8vPKcG/）。根据Pew：https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/the-gender-gap-in-ai/，即使男性和女性在AI使用上的差距几乎消失，女性往往对AI持更负面态度，并且表示AI会对自己产生负面影响的可能性是男性的两倍。一些观众质疑，女性网红是否在某种程度上被用来为一个受到审查的行业洗白声誉。

麦卡里克（McCarrick）自称是一名创作者，她向数百万在线观众以及像 Spotify、Amazon、Uber 和 DoorDash 这样的团队讲解“我们在工作中需要的软技能”，此后她制作了多个视频：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669573209519328526：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669484144493153550，回应评论者指责她为了奢华旅行而本质上放弃了道德。在 LinkedIn 上，她写道：https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gracemccarrick_i-went-on-openais-first-ever-brand-trip-ugcPost-7489918650238525440-7Z6z/ 她“真的不知道人们对 AI 会这么反感”，而她视频的负面反馈让她看到了“网上肆虐的惊人 AI 精神错乱”——她指的是人们对 AI 的愤怒，而不是通常意义上因使用 AI 而导致的偏执或妄想症。她写道，现实世界中的人们“不会像断头鸡一样到处乱跑、尖叫着讨论用水、野生动物以及（令人好奇的）法西斯主义”。

《The Verge》联系的影响者没有人回应置评请求。OpenAI 表示，创作者营销是他们接触用户的一部分，活动的目的是教育性的。

OpenAI 发言人埃迪·坎贝尔-厄班（Edie Campbell-Urban）在电子邮件中表示：“创作者是我们社区的重要组成部分，也是人们今天获取信息和了解我们产品的途径。随着 AI 越来越普及，我们欢迎健康的讨论，并且重视那些选择与我们互动、参加我们的活动、提出尖锐问题并与大家一同学习的创作者。我们将继续重视他们，就像我们重视传统媒体和其他营销合作伙伴一样。”

AI 公司以直白的方式使用影响者营销，例如支付创作者制作关于他们产品的内容。但他们也尝试了人们对传统消费品牌期望的那种影响者营销：Anthropic 在时尚地点举办了更多低调的影响者晚宴：https://x.com/TaylorLorenz/status/2047767026056221098，邀请生活方式类影响者参加，并且有传闻称在西海岸会有第二次 OpenAI 之旅。

随着行业受到的反对声浪增大，人工智能公司已经调整了它们与公众的沟通方式：“你的工作很快就会被淘汰”显然不是让人们信任这些公司或支持其使命的正确表达方式。相反，像OpenAI和Anthropic这样的人工智能公司试图加入一些人性化元素，无论是通过线下快闪咖啡店、风格化的周边商品发布（/ai-artificial-intelligence/973098/reddit-ai-search-seo-marketing-brands-spam），还是通过广告活动（https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVbGX7zJHi8），这些方式都尝试将人们对人工智能的担忧转化为支持人工智能的鼓舞人心内容。

The brand trip is a right of passage for influencers. It’s a mark of legitimacy that a sponsor wants to invite them on an all-expenses-paid vacation, often with luxurious freebies and activities. Trips can also spur hard feelings from uninvited influencers, trigger criticism from the public, and project a certain frivolousness.

Usually it is fast fashion companies：/2023/6/30/23779058/shein-influencer-trip-backlash-ads-forced-labor or beauty brands：https://www.thecut.com/2023/05/why-black-women-creators-are-accusing-tarte-of-mistreatment.html flying out influencers with the goal of flooding social media with sponsored content. This time, it was a major AI company.

Over the weekend, several influencers began posting about OpenAI’s “first ever brand trip,” which appears to have taken place outside of New York City at a nature-filled retreat (for those curious, it looks to be the Instagram-bait Wildflower Farms：https://auberge.com/wildflower-farms/). The trip was marketed as “Summer Club,” and influencers posted photos and videos from their cabins, showing off branded merch and monogrammed pajamas and talking vaguely about the scheduled programming. Many of the content creators appear to be in the career and business niches, posting about workplace culture or about being CEOs. Grace McCarrick, who has 145,000 followers on TikTok, vlogged from her suite：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669031978213117198 as she ran a bath at night. Another influencer, Nat Lucy (57,000 followers), filmed herself：https://www.tiktok.com/@nat.lucyy/video/7668872242515758350 spotting a deer outside of her cabin. All hell broke loose.

“People will literally sell their soul and their planet down the river for a nice free hotel room,” one commenter on TikTok wrote under McCarrick’s video. “Wow! Beautiful greenery! They should put a data center there!” reads a comment on Lucy’s post. Most of the videos got relatively little traction: McCarrick’s video has just under 300 likes, and Lucy’s video has fewer than 15,000 views. It’s measly engagement compared to what other splashy brand trips can command — but videos reacting to the trip have made it something of a scandal (a pair：https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbjfNrbhmRV/ of clips：https://www.tiktok.com/@crutches_and_spice/video/7669219473315974413 alone has over half a million combined views).

Many of the comments on the influencers’ videos cite the environmental effects of the AI boom：/cs/features/937356/ai-data-center-gpu-environmental-impact, the contentious buildout of data centers：/ai-artificial-intelligence/902546/data-centers-ai-energy-power-grids-controversy across the US, and the potential for job replacement or job loss as a result of companies integrating AI in the workplace. Some also questioned why so many of the content creators who went on the trip appeared to be young women, as if OpenAI was targeting a specific demographic via media they were more connected to (though based on photos and videos posted to social media, there were men：https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbgrhizj-lh/?img_index=1 on the trip：https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbg8k8vPKcG/, too). According to Pew：https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/the-gender-gap-in-ai/, even as the AI usage gap between men and women has all but disappeared, women tend to view AI more negatively and are twice as likely to say AI will negatively impact them personally. Some audiences wondered whether female influencers were essentially being used to launder the reputation of an industry under scrutiny.

McCarrick, who describes herself as a creator who talks about “soft skills we need at work to millions online and to teams like Spotify, Amazon, Uber and DoorDash,” has since made multiple：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669573209519328526 videos：https://www.tiktok.com/@graceforpersonalityhires/video/7669484144493153550 responding to commenters accusing her of essentially abandoning her morals for a fancy trip. On LinkedIn she wrote：https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gracemccarrick_i-went-on-openais-first-ever-brand-trip-ugcPost-7489918650238525440-7Z6z/ that she “genuinely had no idea that people were this anti-AI,” and that the negative response to her videos exposed her to “the shocking AI psychosis running rampant online” — by which she means anger about AI, not the more common definition of being driven to paranoia or delusions of grandeur by using AI. People in the real world “do not run around like a chicken with their heads cut off, screaming about water usage and wildlife and (curiously) fascism,” she wrote.

None of the influencers The Verge reached out to responded to requests for comment. OpenAI said creator marketing is part of how they reach people and that the event was meant to be educational.

“Creators are an important part of our community and how people get information and learn about our products today,” OpenAI spokesperson Edie Campbell-Urban said in an email. “We welcome healthy debate as AI becomes more prevalent, and we value creators who choose to engage with us, attend our events, ask tough questions, and learn alongside everyone else. We’ll continue to value them, just as we do traditional media and other marketing partners.”

AI companies have used influencer marketing in straightforward ways, like paying creators to make content about their product offerings. But they’ve also dabbled in the kind of influencer marketing people expert from more traditional consumer brands: Anthropic has hosted more lowkey influencer dinners：https://x.com/TaylorLorenz/status/2047767026056221098 at trendy locations with lifestyle influencers, and there are rumblings of a second OpenAI trip on the West Coast.

As backlash to the industry has grown, AI companies have adjusted how they communicate with the public: “Your jobs will soon be obsolete” has clearly not been the right framing for why people should trust these companies or get on board with their mission. Instead, AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have tried to add a bit of human touch, whether that’s through in-person pop-up coffee shops, stylized merch drops：/ai-artificial-intelligence/973098/reddit-ai-search-seo-marketing-brands-spam, or ad campaigns：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVbGX7zJHi8 that take concerns people have about AI and try to turn them into pro-AI inspirational content.