This is a bit different than my normal blog. A month ago my Instagram was hacked from an extremely convincing email sent to me about breaking instagram rules. It looked extremely legit and I had just finished hearing about tattoo shops that had been fined over copyright laws, so I was quick to reply back and log in through a link. You can imagine the egg on my face when this happened!
This was for distortion of course, to make me pay these people money on the ‘promise’ they would return my account which I found out from emails a few minutes afterwards. At this point I did everything to try and get my account back, but in attempting this made them deleted the account. The two-factor authentication had somehow been turned off (I got an email about it shortly afterwards) and there was no way to recover the account. I had tried everything but unless you have the blue tick - you can’t get ahold of real people at Meta, with only one option that I never got a response back from.
And, with the Wellington tattoo convention just around the corner - after waiting for the three-four days recommended when Meta ‘would’ get back to me - I couldn’t wait any longer and started my account from scratch.
I was devastated. My Instagram was not only my main portfolio, but my main point of contact for new clients, and the place where I could get in contact with all my older clients. I have completely lost contact with most of my previous clients from years back and may never be able to reconnect with them again. This is heart breaking. You spend hours, sometimes days creating and tattooing designs on those people that will be on them potentially forever, and by one mistake they have vanished out of your life for good. Many of them open up to you, tell you their story, share thoughts and ideas, their goals in life, we create a connection together. Tattooing for me has always been much more than just giving someone some nice ink. It starts and ends with the people.
I can’t even start to go into how much losing those connections have hurt, and I am so sad that this has happened.
Moving to Queenstown, I took a chance. I knew I would be starting all over again but I was confident in my abilities and being supported by my followers, friends and family I was only a little nervous. Moving back to my home town and living on the land my family had been on for over 100 years was a huge goal for me. I had to go out and learn a lot of different jobs, making sure I could be flexible in my careers and jobs to be able to come back and support not only myself but my family. I wanted to realise my dream by the age of 30, but I wasn’t able to do so until this year (36).
So, with this instagram removal, I am -actually- starting from scratch again. I built everything on this dream of mine, and now that the main place I was getting my work from has completely disappeared, I am determined to get back to where I was. I try not to think about how much it might affect me in the short run and look ahead to the positive future that will happen. I know I can’t sit here with pity in my heart. Nothing good will come from me feeling sorry for myself, so I’m trying to give this a positive spin and take this as a sign, as an opportunity by starting with a clean slate.
If you have read this far - holy crap thank you! I am so grateful for all the help and support I have had over the years from my amazing clients, my followers, my silent followers who say nothing until I see them in person and suddenly get told how much they liked my reels! My friends who put up with my silly self, and my family who have been so supportive - even if my mum started out hating tattoos haha.
If you are able to help me out - tell a few people about my Instagram or blog, perhaps making a story just as a shoutout, - I would be forever grateful. I will be looking into making an email list for anyone who is interested. This is where I will be showing off all my new flash designs FIRST - before Instagram or at the shop, travel announcements, booking announcements, flash days (you get to know as soon as I do!), conventions, tattoo ideas and tips, and potential tattoo plans for the future. I will send out an email and post about it on my Instagram when I have the newsletter up and running. This also helps as another communication point if this ever (god forbid it never does) happen again. Can’t be too careful!
Thank you so much for all your help, love and support! IF you aren’t already please follow my new Instagram account LeeGutzTattoos
Also IF you want a look into my farm life, Check out my personal account over at LeeLikesPlants!
