Influencers

Influencer Quarantined In Rwanda Catches Heat For Complaining About It On TikTok

This influencer flew to Rwanda during a pandemic and was upset her COVID-19 situation was handled appropriately by the country.

Charly Jordan — a travel influencer who has 3.3 million Instagram followers and 1.8 million TikTok followers — flew to Rwanda and tested positive for COVID-19 when she landed. Rwandan officials took the positive test seriously and made Jordan quarantine until they could do additional testing.

Well, Jordan didn’t like that.

She went to social media to share her experience with her followers and quickly got dragged for not taking a pandemic seriously. Her multiple videos are now private, however, the internet never forgets.

Twitter account @defnoodles grabbed the clips and reposted them. #blessed

https://twitter.com/defnoodles/status/1302602335659597824

https://twitter.com/defnoodles/status/1302602390944665601

https://twitter.com/defnoodles/status/1302612417298325504

In her first video, a teary-eyed Jordan explains that she had COVID-19 three and a half months ago and after being in quarantine and going through multiple tests, she flew to Rwanda and tested positive there. 

In her second video, Jordan is laying upside down on the couch telling her followers that she has been crying for three hours and is going through withdrawals because she doesn’t have access to marijuana for her depression and anxiety.

Rwanda is currently one of 30 countries allowing United States citizens to visit — that’s how bad we’ve screwed the COVID-19 pooch. And the Rwandan government is taking the pandemic very seriously. According to Jordan, officials in personal protective equipment (PPE) took her from her group and she was placed in a room by herself. In the video, she claims nobody spoke English or communicated what was going on to her.

In one part of the video, Jordan adds text to the screen that reads “The tests take 5x as long because it’s a developing country.”

Except… Rwanda is not. In fact, the country’s response to COVID-19 is much more advanced and thorough than the United States’ response. And people on social media made sure Jordan knew. TikTok user Zuba, who lives in Rwanda, disputed Jordan’s claims in a response video.

@zubamutesi

Enough of the white savior complex, enough of the privilege. And if taking selfies with gorillas is charity, keep it. #fyp #stopwhiteprivilege #enough

♬ original sound – Zuba

The first lie is that Rwandans don’t speak English. In the video, Zuba is speaking perfect English. Fact = checked.

The second giant lie Zuba unveiled is that test results in Rwanda take 24 hours to get back and it takes five times longer in the United States. Boom. Roasted.

Most importantly, Zuba calls out the problem with how white Americans view Africa by adding text that says “I am tired of people playing with the reputation of African countries.”

She concludes the video with:

“We don’t need this type of charity if it’s going to come at the cost of you badmouthing people who are literally protecting you and others because you’re now a danger.”

Jordan’s videos cause so much discussion that she put out a video clarifying things:

@charlyjordan

I’m sorry for how fast it is! But wanted to clear some things up in under a minute 🙂

♬ original sound – Charly Jordan

The good news is that Jordan didn’t have COVID-19 – the test turned out to be a false positive. However, the video doesn’t offer an apology to Rwandans. Maybe that will come later?

More influencers behaving badly:

Lindsay Patton