Harold in China, and TW Dresses Up a Child in a Beekeeping Suit For Content
Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US (26 May 2025), and day to remember veterans. Yes, veterans, a target audience that the Harkles claim to support and are quick to ingratiate themselves with when an event leads to some free PR for themselves. Harold popped over to Shanghai, as the ‘mystery guest’ for TripCom Group’s Envision 2025 Global Conference, where he gave the usual Travalyst word salad speech, and got a free dinner in exchange for posing for photos with lots of people.
Did he actually need to travel over 6,000 miles to deliver a keynote speech that really didn’t say very much? Was Harold that desperate for some PR, and who footed the bill for the jaunt? It appears some free PR was more important than doing something for the veterans that Harold claims to ‘love’.
What does Travalyst do? It seems to exist merely for the companies that are ‘partners’ to claim to be associated with Harold, and for some PR to claim they are responsible companies who promote ecological options for travel. As for Harold, he has more time to toy with Travalyst since he stepped back from Sentebale.
To put things into context, this was not a Travalyst event but a conference for the staff of one of the partner companies.
Meanwhile, TW creates some staged content for social media, using a child dressed in a beekeeping suit that is too big for, and where it’s clear there had been several takes with lots of footsteps in the mud, and perhaps there weren’t even any bees.
No one actually knows who the child is, but if it is the girl, then she appears to have shrunk compared to recent images. The hat is too big and touches the face (meaning if there were bees and they landed on the mesh, then the child could get stung), and the gloves are too big and flap around. The child also is dragged to the left as it tries to walk to the right, away from danger, but perhaps the only danger was TW who was using the child to create content?
Perhaps it was a way to try and advertise and sell the wellies the child had on, and TW would try and make money from more affiliate links? The child was given a ‘well done’ pat on the back for walking towards the beehives, but is clearly scared as it extends their gloved hand to the adult who only seems to care about the video content.
Some say it was irresponsible to let a small child be so close to bees without adequate protection, so where was the child known as Archie? Perhaps he wasn’t available, or the footage is old and was filmed last year? Is TW so desperate for content? It looks that way as most videos are simply her wandering around barefoot in a garden messing around with flowers, showing old footage of a dead dog, or of her in a kitchen looking as if she’s cooking.
The following day (27 May 2025), TW posts a longer video and a caption to ‘address’ the criticisms, first of all to state the other person was her ‘daughter’ and that the child wore her gloves, hence why they were too big.
No sane person plays ‘dress up’ when it comes to protective gear around something as dangerous as bees, and to admit to that is irresponsible and dangerous. If the correct fitting protective clothing isn’t available, then they should not be near the bees. In the longer video, the other person is seen sheltering under a tree away from the bees. Clearly they were scared, and looked as if they had been dragged there just to film some content, or was it old Netflix footage that was left on the cutting room floor?
Does Netflix really believe that she is popular and that her cult fans will buy anything she puts her name to? While she has hidden the ‘likes’ on her Instagram account, the figures aren’t as high as her PR make them out to be, and out of the 3 million followers, only 20% are active accounts. If she truly had 3 million followers, shouldn’t the likes be at least 1 million for some posts? Instead, they hover between 30k-290k per post, and that’s after several weeks.
(Influencers can only apply for affiliate links to earn commission with a high follower count, and (likes) engagements that correspond to the follower figure.)
The anniversary one less than a week ago only got 289k likes.
The post with the backs of the heads of the children got 381k likes and that was 3 weeks ago.
The Lemonada video clip posted a month ago only got 38k likes.
The video of her barefoot with flowers only got 121k likes as people are bored of the same old content.
The James Taylor post didn’t get much action either with 187k likes.
The Mother’s Day post got more likes, but at 474k, that’s still less than 15% of her followers.
No one seemed interested in a desperate old video with only 70k likes.
Even the child known as Archie only gets 351k likes and it is one of her highest liked posts.
Another b&w photo with the backs of 3 people, and only 339k likes.
As ever, the podcasts were supposed to be platforms for TW to interview people and to hold discussions, yet in an interview to promote the podcast she has used it as an outlet to redefine some narratives in her ‘love story’ and to portray herself as a working mom with the struggles of running a business.
There can be no reasonable excuse as to why the products have not been restocked, as most of the ingredients can be found in the local supermarket, but as I said, the fancy looking packaging (possibly at Chinese prices) seems to the issue due to the new US tariffs. The latest narrative is that the items won’t be restocked as TW is assessing the brand … That doesn’t even make any sense, as the ‘brand’ has only been in existence for 7 weeks, but the pressure is on to explain why the As ever products haven’t been restocked considering they aren’t exactly difficult items to produce.
As ever, there were more changes to the original narrative and the Fast Company interview amends the story to state that some os the As ever products might be restocked (now that the Chinese tariffs have been eased perhaps?).