Local businesses didn't work with her at the beginning and she has stated as much herself. She has often talked about when she first started out blogging how she bought and paid for everything herself and she built up a following because people liked her style and personality on social media. Then when she had built up a following, she was able to make money from it. She was not an 'it' girl around Cork. Her early stuff was great but I've said it before and I'll say it again, her recent stuff has been brutal. Flogging tat left right and centre, she has lost what drew people to her in the first place.
Again, we must have very different recollections of events because off the top of my head I recall her doing collaborations with Amity, Caris Closet, The East Village, Soho, and the Voodoo Rooms all within a few short months of starting her blog.
I previously posted on the thread that I served her fairly regularly in a bar I used to work in and she got preferential treatment there too before she ever started blogging. Her and her friends never had to queue to get in and were always sorted with a table even if we were extremely busy.
She was also one of the very first bloggers to collaborate with a salon, her blog was barely a few months old when she started working with Alan Keville for Hair.
I’m a bit younger than her but I still knew who she was long before she started her blog.
She was well known around Cork and I don’t think that as many businesses would have been as eager to work with her if she wasn’t well known.
She certainly wasn’t a nobody like you’re trying to imply.