Belle Delphine and her related content have generated a lot of curiosity and analysis from online users and the media. Various outlets including Business Insider, The Cut, Kotaku, and Polygon have described her as a “troll” and several examples of her online “publicity stunts” activity went viral. 

The Life of E-Girl And Elf Cat: Belle Delphine!

Who Is Belle Delphine?

Belle Delphine is an Internet personality, model, pornographic actress and YouTuber born in South Africa now living in the UK. She is best known for her modeling and cosplay on Instagram. Her posts on the aesthetically pleasing platform were often influenced by popular memes and trends on the internet.

In the summer of 2019, Belle Delphine set up a fake account on Pornhub and began selling her product “GamerGirl Bath Water” through her online store, earning her extensive online media coverage. Soon after, her Instagram account was deleted due to violations of community guidelines. The media have described Belle Delphine as a cross between an internet troll, a performer and an “e-girl”. Belle Delphine was also cited as an influence on the e-girl aesthetic commonly adopted by TikTok users, of which she is a part.

What made Belle Delphine famous?

Her aesthetic truly sets her apart which began with a cat eye tutorial. 

Belle has had an Instagram account since 2015 and in July 2016 she created a YouTube account where she uploaded a beauty tutorial video, showing how to do a cat’s eye.

In 2018, Belle began posting photos of herself on Instagram on a regular basis, which had a distinct and self-proclaimed “bizarre elf cat girl” aesthetic, and she used accessories such as pink wigs, hold-ups and cat ears. In September, she uploaded a second YouTube video showing her touring her pastel pink bedroom, while wearing fake suspenders and thigh stockings. Rolling Stone noted that her style in this second video is more in keeping with the one she adopted later during her rise to Instagram, which they describe as “a Disney princess alien porn actress.” 

Why did Belle Delphine’s bathwater stunt work?

On July 1, 2019, Belle launched her online store, along with a product called “GamerGirl Bath Water”. The product was marketed as leftover bath water and was priced at $30. Belle said the idea to sell her bath water came from recurring comments from fans on her photos that they wanted to drink her bath water. During the initial sale of the product, Belle added the note: “This water is not potable and should only be used for sentimental purposes.” The product was a commercial success as the first stock of bath water was sold in three days.

GamerGirl Bath Water has encountered controversy and media coverage. The response from general internet users also included scams around bathwater, as well as a parody and counterfeit products. 

• Two days after the bath water ran out, a website was set up in an attempt to capitalize on its success, by selling “GamerGirl Pee” for under $10,000. ; it has been confirmed that this new website and products are not associated with Belle. 

• A since-banned Twitter user, impersonated the Daily Mail as a means of fabricating a headline alleging that Delphine’s product caused a herpes outbreak. Later it was stating that “the herpes story was just a hoax. 

• Videos on YouTube have also emerged showing people drinking, cooking and vaping bath water. 

Patricia Hernandez from Polygon commented, “It might sound like a strange thing to do, but it’s very similar to the phenomenon of prostitutes selling intimate items, like panties. Hernandez also said, “What’s curious about Belle Delphine’s sideways bustle is that it seems like a mix of business and higher-level performance art.” In the video announcing the bath water, she calls it a publicity stunt. And if you look at her larger Instagram work, Delphine’s work is defined by her drive to get right to the point. The result is as strange as it is funny. 

In an interview with The Guardian in July 2019,  Delphine said: “I’m lucky. I can do crazy things and see the world react to them, and there is certainly fun in that, although it is a little scary sometimes. I get bigger reactions to my weird content, but I think it’s only possible because I also do daring content. 

How does Belle Delphine make money?

In March 2018, Belle launched her account on Patreon, where supporters can make a monthly donation and have access to sets of self-described “obscene” photos. Its content has more than 4,400 supporters on the website. Polygon notes that a subscriber spent $ 2,500 in exchange for a personal Skype conversation.

Once she adopted this new aesthetic online, her Instagram account grew from 850,000 subscribers in November 2018 to 4.2 million in July 2019. 

Her content also began to include notably and frequently ahegao facial expressions, which are exaggerated expressions, eyes rolled back, signifying an orgasm, often featured in hentai. 

Did Belle Delphine really die?

As she gained popularity on the platform, Belle began to attract controversy for her content. In January 2019, adult content creator Indigo White alleged that when she was underage Belle used nude photos of other sex workers and portrayed them as her own. A video from February 2019, which showed Belle dancing to a song about suicide while holding a gun, also sparked controversy. Shortly after her publication, false rumors of her death began to circulate online.

How did she create a Pornhub account?

In June 2019, she promised to create a Pornhub account if her post reached 1 million likes. Pornhub responded to the post, calling the post “the best news.” The post quickly gained over 1.8 million likes; In response, she kept her promise and created a Pornhub account, to which she posted 12 videos. 

Reactions to this were mixed, if not negative and many fans were disappointed that her videos were trolls that had deceptive titles and thumbnails. Pornhub Insights also released a statistical report detailing that her videos have become the most “hated in site history.” One of the videos, titled “PEWDIEPIE GOING TO THE BOTTOM of Belle Delphine”, was a one-minute clip that featured ” Belle with cat ears eating a picture of YouTuber PewDiePie, winking.” Later in 2019, Pornhub released its annual statistical report, which included Belle as the Most Wanted Celebrity in 2019; “Belle Delphine” was also the fourth most searched term in general during the year. 

In December 2020, Belle posted a series of pornographic videos on her OnlyFans account visible against payment for a subscription. There, she performs blowjobs, vaginal and anal penetrations with her partner or with a dildo. The videos taken from her sex tape were then quickly leaked on social networks and some popular pornographic sites.

Is she harmful to the future of young gamer girls?

Belle’s polarizing social media presence sparked a wave of debate online, with fans calling her everything from a master manipulator to a sexist stereotype, harmful to gamer girls. 

She has managed to harness an online subculture by creating content that exists somewhere between internet pranks and erotic photography. For many of her followers, Delphine is a personality not just a model. Her sexuality manifested in her content was presented in a satirical manner given its long list of stunts that play with fetish themes. 

In 2019, she tweeted an image with a caption saying she had been arrested. The image contained a “Metropolitan Police Service” watermark, although there was no external evidence of an arrest, and the Metropolitan Police said the statement could not be verified. 

She then posted another tweet, revealing that someone had stolen her pet hamster at a party and that her vandalism of that person’s car resulted in her arrest. Online publications and users have expressed concerns about the validity of Belle’s claims due to her previous trolls; some noted that Metropolitan Police ID photos do not contain watermarks. 

Business Insider ranks Belle 89th on its 2019 UK Tech 100 list. The aim of the list is to showcase the “hundred most interesting, innovative and influential people who shape the British tech scene ” – is this worrying? Share your thoughts down below!