A travel influencer has been forced to apologise to her TikTok fans after uploading a 'disrespectful' video while attending an Indonesian market which sold monkey and dog meat.
Mikaela Testa is currently visiting Indonesia and asked her driver to take her to the best market that sold different types of animal meat.
The 22-year-old from Australia claimed she was taken to a “top secret” market that sold “every type of meat” listing some examples as monkey, crocodile, rabbit and dog.
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She grabbed some items and even taste-tested rat and crocodile meat with her manager before branding the experience "traumatising" after she left.
In the now-deleted clip, she said: "They actually had dog meat – they had monkey, they had everything. I wasn’t allowed to film much because I might be someone from an organisation trying to shut them down. They were very sceptical of me.”
She was also heard talking about a “distinct smell”, turned up her nose and even gagged at smelling one of the items.
But since posting the clip, Mikaela received many comments claiming she was "disrespectful" of the region, pushing her to delete the video from her platform.
One person said: “You knew what the place was and went there saying it traumatised you. Disrespected the food as well. The country isn’t as developed as others. Be respectful.”
Another said: “Okay I changed my mind. Because why even upload the video especially after she found out about the dog meat and that it was an illegal meat trade.”
A third commented: “Going there just to film a video to profit off of, and buying the illegal meat just to toss it out, is WORSE than someone going there to eat.”
A fourth said: “Everyone saying she ‘didn’t eat it’ so what was the literal point of going to the location just to throw the meat away? She knew what meat they sold.”
The response caused Mikaela to upload two apology videos, where she explained her role as a daily vlogger and the fact she likes learning about other cultures.
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She said: “I understand my audience may be very sensitive and not used to seeing things like this, and I understand while travelling I can become insensitive to that because I am so used to seeing stuff like this.
“I definitely wasn’t thinking straight and I shouldn’t have posted the video at all.”
She added that she knew the market would have monkey meat and, while she didn’t agree with it, she wouldn’t want to disrespect it at all.
However, she insisted that she would have never visited if she knew there was dog meat.
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