White teen model dragged heavily for allegedly 'posing' as a Black woman

A 19-year-old named Emma Hallberg caught the attention of social media users from all over the world when she suddenly revealed herself as "white" when all along, she had been posting photos of herself looking "black".

Emma Hallberg, a 19-year-old Instagram model and "influencer" with more than 193,000 followers from Sweden, previously identified herself as "white" to Buzzfeed News. However, after recently flooding her Instagram page with selfies and makeup looks, her fans were accustomed to seeing her looking extremely tanned, even assuming that she was black or of mixed heritage.

After finding out that she was white, her followers started revealing how they felt about this revelation. In fact, conversations on Twitter started to arise about whether or not she was intentionally presenting herself to be of color even though she really isn't.

To add fuel to the fire, Instagram users also accused Hallberg of not correcting accounts who would celebrate her being black, some of them even resharing her selfies. Instead, she started to delete the photos in which she looked black, after the heavy criticism that she received because of it.

However, the influencer denied that she ever used self-tanning sprays, even clarifying that she never claimed or even tried to be black.

“I do not see myself as anything else than white. I get a deep tan naturally from the sun.”

In fact, she even clarified that she's had the same tan for years, it's just that she didn't post as much as she does now because she doesn't have the large number of followers that she has now.

"The only difference is that I didn't post as many pictures that summer compared to this summer because I didn't have as many followers than as I do now."

People are not buying her defense, and they even introduced a new term called "blackfishing", which is a term used to describe how blackness is viewed as a commodity.

In the end, Hallberg has shared that the accusations have confused and distressed her, especially since she claims her natural features are upsetting people.

“I do not have any specific intentions other than [to] show my passion for makeup and fashion.”