In Mexico, victim blaming over murdered TikTok influencer

Outrage gives way to narco-boyfriend theories.

- By Cassandra Garrison and Emily Green

No sooner had 23-year-old beauty influencer Valeria Marquez been murdered on a TikTok livestream than the Mexican rumour mill started. Comments poured in on social media blaming her for her own death: She was involved in shady business, her ex-boyfriend was a narco, she had it coming, they said.

By Friday, the media and politicians were already moving on. Marquez seems destined to become one in a long line of Mexican women whose murder briefly shocks the conscience only to recede into the background until the next gruesome crime happens.

"It sort of reflects a level of saturation, a level of societal acceptance of these sorts of killings," said Gema Kloppe-Santamaria, a sociologist at University College Cork in Ireland who studies gender-based violence in Mexico.

"There's a lot of re-victimisation that I think allows people to say, 'Let's move on. This is something that won't happen to us. It doesn't happen to good girls. It doesn't happen to decent Mexican women."

Marquez, who had nearly 200,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, was known for her videos about beauty and makeup. On Tuesday, she clutched a stuffed toy and livestreamed from the beauty salon where she worked in the state of Jalisco, when a male voice in the background asked "Hey, Vale?"

"Yes," Marquez replied, just before muting the sound on the livestream.