MR: How did your Instagram following come about? SB: I don’t know to be honest. I had Instagram for a long time. I had maybe 10k followers. When I moved to LA, I guess it started growing from modeling and then it grew more from DJing. I was modeling with people like Alexis Ren and Sahara Ray. This was back when influencers tagged you and you could get like 5k followers from that tag. Playboy and Guess would post me. Now when someone posts you, you don’t go up as much. I just hung out with cool people and we all posted for each other. MR: You’re very popular on social media. What are some of the weirdest DMs you’ve gotten? SB: Oh my God, I get DMs from foreign countries from people asking me how much will I sell my underwear for. Some people will write to me asking to send me money. I’m like, “For what?” It’s insane. I get people who write crazy-ass gnarly poems that are so deep and fucked up and they don’t even make sense. Sometimes I’ll get really nice messages from girls that say things like, “You inspire me,” or something about how I’ve helped their body image. I get a minimum of 50 DMs per day. It’s awesome. I didn’t realize that just by posting photos of myself, I give people confidence. I never thought it was a big deal. One time, an overweight guy DMed me and said, “The fact that you are so comfortable in your body, makes me comfortable in mine.” This all comes from the fact that I have no boobs and people think it’s amazing that I am a swimsuit model with no boobs. MR: Body image is something everyone struggles with. People can be so mean and judgmental… SB: When I was in 7th grade, the girls in my grade had a book called The Slam Book and they wrote shit in there that was really mean. They used to write, “Sam Black is as flat as my back. She’s really hot but she has no boobs…She could be in Playboy if she had boobs.” Well, I’ve been in Playboy three times. MR: Do you have advice for young people regarding body image? SB: YES! Don’t judge yourself based on what other people look like. I never thought I would be a model, let alone a swimsuit model. You can’t compare yourself to the standard or to other people. You have to just go out and do it, whatever it is that you want, even if you don’t fit in the current parameters or beauty standards. If I had compared myself to other people, I never would have tried. I also have a bunch of tattoos. A few years ago, no models had tattoos. If you do your own thing and do it well, people will follow. ■
You have to just go out and do it, whatever it is that you want, even if you don’t fit in the current parameters or beauty standards.
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