It’s a week before his 27th birthday, and Joel Mcloughlin has just got back from Berlin. However, far from the typical weekend of trance music and hedonism, he’s been busy having fancy dinners and hobnobbing; he’s also tried out a new fragrance and experimented with graffiti classes. If you hadn’t already guessed, Mcloughlin is internet-famous.
Better known by his social media handle, Gallucks, Mcloughlin was part of the early cohort of fashion bloggers who arrived on the scene with little more than a tripod and a point of view. Those humble beginnings contrast starkly with where he is now – or where he was yesterday, to be more specific – but between the two poles is eight years of graft, as he’s keen to point out.
“It was just a hobby,” Mcloughlin says about his blog, which contains travel guides for Croatia and Zurich, notes on festival looks, and forthright commentary on the blogging industry, particularly around authenticity – or the lack thereof. “I did this for four years before I got any return in terms of money, or trips, or free things.”
Though Mcloughlin can safely say he has made it, having sustained himself as a content creator full-time for four years now, the early days of publishing photos of his style were balanced first with studies and then an internship – which he landed after a designer saw a blog post he’d written about her. It was only when Instagram began to boom that the scales tipped in favour of success.
“My blog was doing good – I had a lot of readers and a community from it,” Mcloughlin explains. “But I think blogs are very niche; only if you already knew about a person’s blog would you go and read about it.”
Instagram, with its algorithms geared towards discovery, resolved that issue, and got Mcloughlin’s outfits out there. And with public follower counts, brands started paying attention: “When I hit 50,000 Instagram followers, people started to take me more seriously,” he says.
Since the first whispers of commercial interest from brands, Mcloughlin reckons he’s worked with “hundreds” of companies on campaigns, channeling his aesthetic through their clothes in sponsored Instagram posts, YouTube videos and blogs.
Despite his Instagram being filled with swanky designers such as Dior and Margiela, it’s the high-street brands he seems most passionate about. “It’s where I shopped growing up,” he says of collaborators such as Topman, River Island and Asos. “It’s so weird to think I’m now working with all these high-street fashion brands – it’s kind of surreal. I never thought I’d be doing this … I didn’t think it was a job!” The love he has for these retailers says something about what drives Mcloughlin and why he’s successful – they’re accessible shops, and he interprets their pieces with genuine love.
That passion was career fuel before the cash started rolling in. He’s managed these days, but to start with he handled both fashion and business. That meant building those all-important relationships with brands, presenting work, putting together media kits; the sort of stuff creatives typically dream of offloading.
Even today, international trips are bookended by days of editing videos (a painstaking task, as anyone who’s done it will tell you) and photos, analysing engagement stats, and chatting with his community of fans. On YouTube, where he peppers videos of shopping hauls with comments on mental health and relationships, the community are most appreciative – especially his LGBTQ+ followers. “I get a lot of comments froms [LGBTQ+] people saying: ‘You really helped me.’ It reminds me that I’m actually doing a good thing, because when you’re just posting outfits online it can be a bit like: ‘What am I doing?’” He bursts into a self-aware laugh, then continues: “But when you get those really nice messages about boosting someone’s confidence or helping them understand sexuality, it’s really nice.”
Timing, patience and talent have kept Mcloughlin’s head above a crowded influencer industry. He’s made friendships around the world – travelling to Italy, South Korea and California, to name but a few destinations – and inspired thousands. But, even though he’s more than established by this point, in a relatively new industry, futures aren’t guaranteed. Not that he dwells on that: “I never tend to worry because I try not to think about it,” he says with another laugh, albeit a more nervous one. “I ask a lot of people [in the blogging industry], and the main answer is: ‘I’ll do this for as long as I possibly can.’” As the double taps keep coming in droves for Mcloughlin, “as long as I possibly can” could be a while longer yet.
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