Influencer Danae Mercer, 36, has revealed the horrific trolling she has received over the past few months – including calling her a “bad mum”, critiquing her looks, and even saying she uses her baby as an “accessory”.
The Instagram star has built up a following of 2.3 million followers (@danaemercer), where she shares honest posts about motherhood, after welcoming her first child Aurora in December 2022, as well as body image and the struggles that women face.
But in her latest post, Danae, from California, US, but now living in Florence, revealed the shocking abuse she has been subject to.
Sharing examples of the comments, she claims to have received DMs and messages including: “Her belly button makes me heave.”
“Showing her arse and wanting validation for having stretch marks and dimples like the rest of us mostly have… Can imagine now she’s a mum she’s even more irritating and unbearable.”
“She looks like someone who has never held a baby before.”
“She’s the oldest 36yo woman I have ever seen.” [sic]
“Jesus wept this woman is so annoying, she is the most unnatural mother I’ve ever seen, she’s so awkward. Why is she always poking and tapping the baby?! Her poor daughter’s looking like ‘please F off, you’ve very annoying’. No wonder she has no real friends.”
“I can’t even stand seeing her face anymore.”
Other horrific comments described her as “saggy”, “disgusting”, and accused her of using her baby as an “accessory”.
Danae shared a video about it, saying she had “felt so ashamed” from the backlash.
She said: “I need to get vulnerable for a second: in the last five months, I’ve experienced the worst online bullying of my career.
“It has attacked everything: my skills as a mother, my intelligence, my marriage, my husband, my body, my smile, my hair, even my deceased mom.
“It’s made me shrink small.
“I’ve been posting less. When I do post, it’s often impersonal.
“There’s been a wall. I’ve felt the disconnect, and it ends today.
“Because I’ve realised that what’s happening is the bullies have started to win.
“And that’s not the world I want my little daughter to grow up in.
“One where online hate has the power to silence and shame and shrink.
“One where mean girls control the conversations.”
Danae said the abuse had prompted her to stop sharing as much on her socials – but that she wouldn’t let the trolls win.
She said: I want my little girl to know that we are better than that.
“We are better than our darkest urges, our anger, our rage.
“That even when we hurt — and we will hurt, we are human and we will hurt — we don’t need to destroy.
“That we can choose instead to be kind.
“That we must be kind.
“Because technology has made it so easy to be cruel.”
Danae added: “I want my daughter to know that empowered women empower women.
“Kindness is powerful.
“The world can be cruel, but we don’t have to be.”
