Influencers are a reality of the world we live in now. People can make content, put it out on the internet and make a decent amount of money. I see nothing wrong with this; however, I do have an issue with it when the person who is getting attention is problematic in almost all aspects of her life.
Ashley (Ash) Trevino first started gaining online attention in 2023 for documenting her life as a “prison wife.” Now she is best known for her constant live-streaming and unfiltered personality. While this does not sound horrible at face value, the events that happen in her life and the confessions she makes are inexcusable.
As someone who used to see clips of her live streams and watched both horrified and entertained, it is time we need to stop giving people like her a platform and encouraged them to seek the help they obviously need.
It is clear all Trevino wants is attention, and that is exemplified in her absolutely outrageous behavior on her live streams. She is a 36-year-old mother of two and acts like a teenage party girl.
She routinely engages in highly inappropriate and sexual behavior that certainly goes against TikTok’s guidelines.
While on a live in December, Trevino flashed one of her breasts to thousands of her viewers. More recently, she was being highly sexual and possibly engaging in sexual acts with the camera pointed at her face the entire time.
This behavior was widely condemned by much of her community on TikTok and lead to widespread calls for her to be banned. However, this sexual behavior is not the only problematic behavior she engages in.
Trevino regularly refers to herself using a derogatory term used for people who only seek a romantic partner who is incarcerated. She has dated numerous prisoners and has even married three of them. Her current last name comes from her latest husband who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the fatal stabbing of a man outside a nightclub. Another boyfriend is currently serving a 45-year sentence for the fatal shooting of a gas station owner.
There are many instances of Trevino defending the actions of her boyfriends on live, including one who was convicted of double homicide in the killing of two teenage girls. In an August live, she is on the phone with a man and laughing about her viewers saying he is guilty. “Oh my god, they said, ‘Honestly RIP to those who lost their lives,’” Trevino read while laughing.
Trevino has gone as far as introducing her two young daughters, now 13 and 15, to these men and referring to them as the girls’ “daddy.” There are many posts on her Instagram of her daughters meeting these men in prison and of them posing and being held by their mom’s boyfriend.
For Trevino to mock the teenage victims, one of whom was the same age that her daughter is now, is abhorrent behavior and shows Trevino’s true colors.
Her daughters don’t even primarily live with their mom, and for good reason. Trevino admitted, on Live, that her daughters do not have beds at her house and that she could not afford them. This is the same woman who regularly shows off designer purchases such as bags and shoes, yet she claims she cannot afford to buy her teenage daughters bed frames or mattresses. Trevino’s struggles show how she needs to focus on personal life instead of partying with young 20-year-olds. She obviously needs help but cannot focus on that when she is constantly focused on her online presence.
Many people on TikTok also believe she engages in drug use. There have been times Trevino has ducked out of the camera and came back on sniffling excessively. Several of her former acquaintances have also claimed she uses drugs heavily. One woman she hung out with even showed pictures of what looks like drugs on a table in a house she stayed at with Trevino. While there is no way to prove the drug usage, there is evidence that it happens and that she blatantly uses.
Trevino is not someone who needs to receive as much attention and money as she does. Her behavior is highly problematic and only encourages her and others like her to keep doing what they are doing for money and attention.
Similar to reality television, constantly engaging and interacting with content like Trevino’s can have a negative impact on the viewers’ mental health as well. The dramatized world Trevino exists in can lead viewers to have a distorted view of reality and how social interactions operate. Her behavior can also begin to seem normal and cause viewers to want to act in the same way to gain a similar level of notoriety.
Trevino is just another person on the internet who was blinded by quick fame and a promise to go viral. People in these situations are a sad reflection of the world we exist in today: people will do anything for social media fame and money. Instead of blindly supporting people on social media who very obviously are struggling, encourage them to seek help and consume ethical content that makes you feel good.
