The Blogger Drama at White Moose Café Has Escalated

To catch you up, Darby emailed the saucy White Moose Café (and Lodge), an eatery and hotel known for its huge social media following and aggressive dealings with everyone and anyone. They’ve banned vegans. They also quickly published Darby’s cold call email asking for a free room on Valentine’s Day in exchange for a review, along with a sharp-tongued criticism of bloggers and their ilk. The original post blacked out Darby’s name, but in the video above she states that changing the brightness on the image exposes her identity easily.

Darby initially hit back with a video, in which she mentions several times that people over 30 don’t seem to understand the social media economy. In this follow up video (after a week of battling with the remorseless hotel) she denies accusations of ageism; it’s just that the comments she’s been getting have mostly been “coming of people above the age of thirty. If I had to absolutely pinpoint, I’d say fifty years old?”

The owners of the White Moose Café, conversely, are rolling in this situation with joy, and have printed t-shirts and tweeted they’ll be sending Darby a bill for all her exposure:

In Darby’s follow up video, she does seem genuinely distressed by the situation. She has received considerable abuse and says her anxiety levels have ratcheted up. To the people who have trolled her, Darby says, “I wish nothing but the best for you,” which is very generous. She also promises this is the last video about the whole brouhaha.

But there is still this one made by the owners of the White Moose Café.

It’s unclear if this is also a response to harassment and trolling from Darby’s followers, but it’s definitely very different in tone to Darby’s plea to leave this all behind. Everyone deals with conflict differently.