A group of social media influencers sent to Coachella courtesy of fashion app “Dote,” #DoteGirlsTakeCoachella, are now coming forward claiming segregation within their living quarters.
According to Buzzfeed, a few of the Youtube personalities who documented their trip and post-trip reviews, claim that all of the influencers of color were segregated into one room. Two of the guests expressed to the online publication that they felt “slightly separated” from their white peers.
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The controversy first made its way around the Youtube-sphere after media personality Daniella Perkins, 18, uploaded a post- “Dotechella” review to her channel, titling it “The Truth About Coachella Ft. Mental Breakdown” immediately following the trip in April. In between sobs, Perkins told viewers that the alleged segregation made her “so uncomfortable,” and that she felt “excluded.”
“I just felt like I was back in school … and feeling so different and out of place and like I don’t belong,” she said in different footage she recorded after the trip explaining her “mental breakdown.”
Perkins told Buzzfeed that her reasoning behind the review was to spread awareness to viewers, and to be honest with her brand representation.
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“I made the video because I wanted to share my experience. I always want to be honest,” she said. “I’ve worked with so many companies before and I’ve never had this experience.”
In a statement of their own, Dote denied to BuzzFeed that it intentionally assigned women of color to a separate wing of the house.
“To address the rumors about a recent Dote trip, the claim that one side of the house was designated to women of color is simply untrue. Young women of all backgrounds were assigned to rooms throughout the house and everyone had beds to sleep in,” a representative for the brand said.
It was also suggested that the girls may have moved their beds around, creating the race-based separation. However, the girls their girls insist their beds were marked with their names, and were never moved. were clearly marked with their names when they arrived, and no one moved beds.
“If you watched [all the girls’] Instagram stories, it shows the exact beds and nothing was moved around,” Perkins said.