In an economy where the idea of a woman is often more commercially appealing than the actual presence of one, it is seemingly a natural development that the White Girl brand is now run by a group of men.
The story goes that viral Twitter account White Girl Problems was launched in March 2010 after a boozy conversation between “brothers Tanner and David Oliver Cohen and their friend Lara Schoenhals” (although some provide conflicting accounts about whether or not David was involved in the initial stages of the account’s launch). The account was retweeted by Emma Roberts, among other notable social media users, and featured in a number of “best of Twitter” lists.
The account was founded during a period of internet history that spawned a series of viral social media accounts, including “Feminist Ryan Gosling,” and “Shit My Dad Says” which were parlayed into a book, and television show and a book, respectively. WGP’s three actor-comedian types found the same success, earning several generous book deals (eventually published under the account’s fictitious persona, Babe Walker), and offers to option it as a TV show or movie. The film rights were eventually purchased by Lionsgate.
In an impressive branding achievement, WGP has pivoted its Twitter persona into a product that has little to do with Walker herself. In 2015, the team announced it would be partnering with Josh Ostrovsky (also known as the serial internet plagiarizer The Fat Jewish) to launch a rosé brand called White Girl Rosé. While the move makes some sense from a business perspective, the partnership is an odd one—why would anyone willingly team up with one of the most loathed (and lucrative) men on the internet, one who received massive press attention for stealing jokes from comedic Twitter accounts just like Walker’s?
As Ostrovsky was welcomed into the WGP creative team, Schoenhals seemed to leave it. In 2015, Schoenhals abruptly stopped appearing in interviews with the Cohens, and, at least in press, the story of the brand’s three founders was whittled down to two. “White Girl Problems” is now run by a group of three men.
That the persona behind White Girl Problems is a fictional woman allows the identity of who is actually running the account to be obscured—the timeline is seamless; any behind-the-scenes changes in the brand are undetectable. Several publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Total Sorority Move, Guest of a Guest and Thought Catalog featured interviews with “Walker” herself.
Still, the launch of the rosé brand has brought a spate of media attention for the now all-male team. An article in Pret-a-Reporter boasted that the guys would pick up your clean-up fee if you could prove you puked from the drink in an Uber. A video segment posted on Thursday on Business Insider featured Tanner and Ostrovsky giving tips on how to gain more followers on social media.
A June 2015 piece in Bloomberg celebrated the launch of the new brand by interviewing Ostrovsky and David:
To fulfill his desire to “make real things,” Ostrovsky is teaming up with another Internet star, David Oliver Cohen—aka Babe Walker of @WhiteGrlProblem on Twitter—to produce the northern-California bottled wine. Their first order rang up to 30,000 bottles of dry Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel blend.
“Ultimately with our two brands, [we’re planning to] come together and figure out a way to have a real product people could buy and enjoy the fun they are having on social media and bring it to their actual party,” says Cohen. “We want to be national by next summer, one year from now: 1 million bottles sold.”
In each piece, the Cohens, consistently referred to as the founders of White Girl Problems, refrain from mentioning Schoenhals, and the outlets refrain from asking about her. (Though in the Bloomberg article, neither Tanner nor Schoenhals is mentioned as having anything to do with the brand.)
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