Instagram influencer Daryl Aiden Yow has apologised for using stock photos to mislead his followers

By
Ethan Rakin
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A look at Daryl Aiden Yow’s Instagram page.
Instagram/darylaiden

Instagram influencer and photographer Daryl Aiden Yow has received a ton of backlash after photos that he had posted on his account were found to be stock images he had altered.

He issued an apology on Thursday (June 21) via his Instagram account, after being caught red-handed by local news website Mothership.

Though Yow did not always outwardly claim that the photos were his, many pointed out that he had made money through sponsorships and deceived his followers into assuming it was his work they were seeing.

The Internet, as expected, did not take too kindly to him when the truth emerged:

Others, including budget airline Scoot, poked fun of the way Yow photoshop-ed himself into stock images of countries he had never visited but pretended that he did:

Yow, who has over 100,000 followers still on his Instagram page, has since come out and apologised:

Hi everyone, I didn’t intend to release any statement regarding recent events, largely because I did not know how I could accurately express how sorry I am. But seeing how people are now making baseless and false allegations against those close to me—simply by mere association– I have decided to confront the facts instead of leaving them subject to speculation. I did not want to let any more people down. The outrage regarding how I have conducted myself is justified and I accept full responsibility for my actions and all consequences that arise from those actions. I was wrong to have claimed that stock images and other people’s work were my own. I was also wrong to have used false captions that misled my followers and those who viewed my images. Having marketed myself as a photographer, I fell far short of what was expected of me and disappointed those who believed—or wanted to believe— in me. For all of that, I apologise. Those close to me disagree with my actions and have asked, whenever they felt that something was not right about my images, that I stop my actions immediately. I did not take their advice seriously and would give reasons that I thought would assuage any concerns they had over those images—just enough so that we would move on to other issues. I let them down with my actions. I would also like to take the opportunity to clear the air. The end-products of my collaborations with my friends remained honest and fair. Whatever my shortcomings were, I did not bring them to my collaborations. That would not have been fair to those who collaborated with me, and they would not have allowed such practices to be carried out in any event. These people are hard-working professionals and I was hurt to see people make baseless allegations or insinuations against them or question their integrity. They should not be hounded for my errors. To that end, I hope that these baseless allegations or insinuations would stop. I know I have erred and hope that I will be given the time and space to grow and better myself. For those who have stood by me, I would like to thank you and hope that I will be able to earn such kindness in the future.

A post shared by Daryl Aiden Yow (@darylaiden) on

He has also been slowly removing some posts from his Instagram page in what must be an effort to save himself from further criticism, but visitors continue to express their disgust by leaving comments on the remaining photos.