Speakers support each other.
When Milana Vayntrub, the actress behind AT&T's popular advertising character Lily, faced severe online sexual harassment, Progressive's Flo stepped in to help. Vayntrub revealed in an interview with The New York Times that her advertising colleague Stephanie Courtney, who has played insurance broker Flo for over 15 years, called her to support her during a sudden spike in negative trolling.
Vayntrub originally auditioned for the role of Lily when she was 26 years old. “I dressed the way I imagined a friendly girl would,” Vayntrub told the outlet a decade later. She got the role and played Lily, a friendly and helpful AT&T store clerk, for about three years until the ad campaign ended in 2017. However, when the pandemic hit in 2020, she debuted her return as Lily in new national commercials based on her home, where she did her own hair and makeup and directed the commercials herself.
Progressive/Youtube; ATT/Youtube
But while her original appearance as Lily received a mostly neutral to positive response, Vayntrub noticed an abrupt change when her commercials returned. According to the NYT, “In the summer of 2020, seemingly overnight, a small but vocal corner of the Internet turned its attention to Vayntrub and began referring to her by a new name: Mommy Milkers, a reference to her breasts.” People have the comments sections of AT&T's social media posts spammed with offensive statements and emojis of glasses of milk… Her personal photos were shared widely among strangers. Spam websites promised access to pornographic videos of her that didn’t exist.”
“Our real world was so small that the Internet felt like everything,” Vayntrub said.
At the time, AT&T released a statement condemning the harassment, and the @ATT account responded to offensive comments on social media: “We do not tolerate sexual harassment of employees in the workplace or on our social channels.” The company also has Vayntrub contacted a team at Instagram to discuss other options for dealing with the harassment. But what really helped Vayntrub feel supported was when Courtney, the face behind another national brand figure, reached out to her on the phone while everything was happening.
According to the medium, “Courtney was sensitive; Vayntrub had been “essentially chosen at random to receive a blitzkrieg of violent and sexual taunts from legions of strangers for doing a job essentially identical to her own.” Vayntrub recalled that Courtney was a good listener. ” Talking to Courntey made Vayntrub feel “like there were people on my team,” she said.
Finally, Vayntrub appealed to the trolls on Instagram and asked them to stop. However, she wasn't happy when there were articles on the subject saying she was “begging” and making her look like a victim, “like begging a lover not to go out.” on me in the pouring rain,” she said.
Ultimately, Vayntrub said the benefits of being “one hundred percent” recognized nationwide as an AT&T character still outweigh the negatives.
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