Singapore content creator Tina Amir has ignited a fierce conversation about race in the influencer industry after revealing she was dropped from a paid campaign — because of her ethnicity.
Amir, who posts as Tinadestruit on TikTok and has worked with brands including Shein, Swisse and Similac, said a Korean skincare brand reached out through its PR agency for a paid campaign, then pulled back when her race didn't fit the target profile. The agency, she said, offered a caveat that stung even more: "Oh, but we can fight for you because you're a fair [skinned] Malay." When Amir declined to respond to that framing, the agency came back the next day asking if she would still do the campaign — for free.
"So long story short, because I don't have a Chinese name, they wanted me to work for free," Amir said in her video. She declined to name the brand or agency, citing the risk of being sued, while adding that "the company does have a bad rep."
The video struck a nerve. Fellow creator Preeti Nair, known as Preetipls, shared her own experience of being dropped from cosmetics brands' PR lists despite their public preaching of inclusive marketing. Nair called the practice "just a bad idea," especially when brands build product lines on diversity messaging while quietly filtering creators by race behind the scenes.
Race is a live wire in Singapore and Malaysia, multi-ethnic societies where the topic is managed with unusual delicacy in public life. Amir's account — a Malay creator told, in effect, that her lighter skin was her only marketable asset — flipped that delicacy into open anger. Netizens urged her to name the company; she refused. The agency has not publicly responded. For the influencer economy, the episode is an uncomfortable case study in how "target profiles" can function as polite code for discrimination — and how quickly creators are now willing to say so out loud.
The incident has exposed fault lines in an industry that runs on unspoken rules. Singapore's influencer marketing sector has grown into a serious business, with brands routinely spending five- and six-figure sums on creator campaigns. Yet casting decisions remain opaque, and "brand fit" — the industry's favourite euphemism — can mask criteria that would be unacceptable in any formal hiring process. Creators, most of them freelancers without union protection, have historically swallowed such slights rather than risk being blacklisted.
Amir's refusal to stay quiet marks a shift. Preeti Nair, one of Singapore's most prominent creators, lending her own experience to the conversation gave it mainstream credibility; when established names speak, brands listen. The episode also complicates the diversity marketing that beauty and skincare brands have embraced globally. Campaigns built on "inclusivity" ring hollow when the casting spreadsheet quietly filters by ethnicity — and creators are increasingly willing to show the receipts.
The unnamed brand and agency have stayed silent. In the meantime, Amir's video has become a reference point in regional conversations about race and representation in the creator economy — and a warning to agencies that the old excuses no longer survive contact with TikTok.