Science Sam holding COVID knitted toy on left with Science Bae holding vile with green substance over STEM background with dollar signs on light green to blue vertical gradient Passionfruit Remix

Anastasia Mazeina/Shutterstock Chris84/Shutterstock science.sam/Instagram science.bae/Instagram (Licensed) remix by Caterina Cox

Science creators and brand partnerships: Can the two co-exist?

'People value my opinion as a scientist, and I’m very careful with how I wield that.'

 

Sabina Wex

Internet Culture

Posted on Dec 5, 2022   Updated on Jul 26, 2023, 5:47 pm CDT

Passionfruit

This story was originally published on Passionfruit.

Like all creators, those who focus on science make content for free on their various social media channels. But unlike creators in some other fields, multiple science creators and experts told Passionfruit monetizing their science content through brand partnerships brings up some hard questions.

At first appearance, Dr. Sarah Habibi and Dr. Samantha Yammine seem pretty similar. The two are both science creators in Canada with around the same number of followers. Habibi, better known to her cumulative 161,000 followers as @science.bae across both Instagram and TikTok, mainly posts about at-home activities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and her life as a working mom. Yammine, better known to her cumulative 141,000 followers as @science.sam across both Instagram and TikTok, mainly posts about science from the perspective of a researcher and biologist and is well-known for her explaining the science behind COVID. 


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*First Published: Dec 5, 2022, 3:18 pm CST