“Ulta Beauty, count your days. You have just lost so many customers.”

How far would you be willing to go to get something you love for free when it normally costs thousands upon thousands of dollars? “Let’s unbox everything we got at Ulta Beauty World today. You will not believe how much stuff we got. All of these bags are literally packed full.”

“I knew this.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself how y’all handled this. Ulta Beauty World for 2026 was the worst thing I’ve ever tried to participate in.”

There are only a few rare moments in life when you have the opportunity to seize a slice of your dream life before it’s too late and your golden ticket slips through your fingers. “Pull the lever!” When the stakes are high, the competition is fierce, and the rewards are bountiful, emotions can get twisted and boundaries can get pushed to their absolute limits.

“So, I’m not going to lie. Like, I’m really trying not to cry. And I know that’s so silly, bro, but like I really wanted that freaking ticket, bro.”

But what if it was all too good to be true? After all the sacrifices you made to reach your goal, the finish line turned out to be a lie, and you discovered you never even had a chance to begin with.

“It was rigged. It was rigged. If you tried to get tickets to Ulta Beauty World, stop here. I have a story to tell you about why you didn’t get tickets.”

Suddenly, the passion you used to secure your spot turns into outrage. The competition becomes your allies. The gatekeepers become the villains, and it’s up to you to hold them accountable. Oh, and yeah, we’re talking about makeup. Hi, sisters.

Picture this. You’re watching your favorite beauty influencer vlogging their experience at the latest and greatest beauty convention, Ulta Beauty World 2025, and your mind is blown by the amount of free products they’re walking away with. Not just a tote bag with, you know, like a sunscreen or a branded water bottle and a little visor, but enough luxury makeup to fill an entire large BÉIS duffel bag. You know the one I’m talking about.

And next year, that could all be yours. All you have to do is buy a measly little $150 ticket, a small investment to unlock the PR giveaway culture usually reserved for famous influencers. Lucky for you, next year’s event is already announced. All you have to do now is make sure you’re more prepared than anyone else when it comes to ticket sales opening.

So you spend months watching tutorials on browser refresh rates. You join Facebook groups dedicated to ticket buying strategy. You haggle with your boss to get the day off work so that you can wake up early and log on. You’re familiar with the rush from securing sought-after concert tickets, but this feels even more intense because if you get it right, you’ll actually have the opportunity to make money off the products you don’t want to keep.

So the day finally arrives. Your iPhone alarm jump-scares you out of bed, and adrenaline surges through your body. You open your laptop and maybe the two or three others that you borrowed from your friends, all pulled up to the ticketing website, programmed to refresh every half second. This is serious, people, okay? Your credit card’s out on standby. Your Wi-Fi is running at top speed.

And right when the clock strikes 10:00 AM, the link appears in front of you like a magical creature in an open meadow. Surely you’re the first person in the world to see it. So you click fast, and your screens freeze. Yeah. Your breath shortens. Your eyes dilate. Months of preparation have led to this moment.

Suddenly, the screen reveals a blinking digital circle letting you know that you’re in line. So okay, you take a breath. You FaceTime your bestie, who’s doing the same thing, but their screen actually lets them through, which makes you simultaneously jealous and hopeful. You wait patiently for the progress bar to move you along, convinced every minute that you’re next.

Except hours upon hours pass as you hold on to faith. But when you open Instagram for a distraction, you see the dreaded announcement that the event is sold out. Oh no. You were just one of three million people doing the exact same thing. And the influencers that you admired? Well, they were given your spot.

Welcome to the chaos.

Oh, hi. Hello. It’s Swoop. And welcome to the dark waters of the Susp-ool, the place where everything and everyone is sus — maybe even us. Come on in; the water’s fine. Welcome back, Susperians. It’s so good to see you again. Grab your sleeping bags and solar lamps because we’re about to camp out overnight at the edge of the Susp-ool just to see if we can catch even an ounce of truth by the morning.

“Come check out my tent. I ordered a bunch of crap off SkyMall. I got my TV, my Xbox, a DVD player, an awesome bed right there. DJ Roomba’s in the mix.”

If you’re new here, welcome to my second channel. On my main channel, Swoop, I do full-length deep dives. And over here, we dip. We skinny dip into the dark waters of the Susp-ool where everything is unhinged. So welcome to the chaos of my mind. If you’re into mind-bending, dark, and twisted tales, subscribe to this channel. Bring a towel, tell your friends, and go ahead and ask the like button to wait for you in line for a big event and tell them that you’ll show up with coffee and then just don’t show up at all.

Thank you to everyone who’s been hyping these videos. I love that feature. If you haven’t, you can like, you can swipe up on the comments and press “hype” to hype the video. It really helps spread the community out there and spread the word.

Also, I just have to say: I released my full feature-length Epstein documentary on my main channel. It is by far one of the most intense documentary pieces that I and my team have done. It is not triggering. I know we’re not going into the triggering details of things that happened. Rather, we are unwinding and uncovering and going very deep, investigating the people in the web of co-conspirators who helped with this entire massive situation and peeling back some of the conspiracy layers to it.

“This company is being bled like a stuffed pig, Mac, and I got a paper trail to prove it. Check this out. Take a look at this.”

Just listen, people. I have been in the research for this for months and months and months and months. And as I’ve been trying to untangle this mess of all these rich and powerful people involved in this big web of lies, one thing that I know for certain is that the government is treating this like a joke. And if the government’s going to treat it like a joke, then I’m going to treat these people like a damn joke because we know it’s deadly serious what’s going on here.

But they seem to think it’s a game. Like, what do you mean the Epstein files are on my desk? We’re going to release them. What do you mean we’re going to invite influencers over and give them a bunch of transparency binders? What do you mean Kash Patel, a podcaster, is now running the FBI? What do you mean he says, “Oh, there’s no co-conspirators, and we’re going to close the investigation”? What do you mean the entire campaign was that we’re going to release the files, and now it’s just a Democrat hoax? Why is nobody talking about it? What do you mean Pam Bondi and the DOJ? We must protect the DOJ.

If they’re going to treat it like such a joke, then we’re going to come with the same energy. Okay, let’s start with the first one. We’re going to start off with this guy.

That documentary was suppressed on my main channel in a way that I’ve honestly never seen happen before. And so if you haven’t seen it and you’d like to watch it, help it out. That would just mean so, so, so much to me. I worked so very hard on that, as did my team. We’re doing a lot of new editing styles over on my main channel. I did a lot of different location shots and stuff. Built some new sets for it. So if you want to check that out and give it a watch, give it a like, leave a comment on it — that will be in the pinned comment as well. And thank you to everyone who has watched it and who did share it and helped spread the word about it and all the amazing feedback on it and your support. I appreciate you so much.

You, of course, can also join our Patreon community for exclusive access to four more videos per month. That’s four more exclusive, uncensored, unfiltered videos per month. Plus, you’ll get access to the entire back catalog of videos that are only available on Patreon. We’ve got the Patreon-only podcast, extended episodes, all of that uncensored stuff that I can’t post here. I also post trailers for the main Swoop documentaries ahead of time, so you guys get the sneak preview for all of that. That’s all happening on Patreon, linked below.

Okay, so experience. Real quick before we dip in, can we talk about summer being here for a second? Why is summer always sold to us like it’s going to be this relaxing, carefree main character montage, and then in reality it’s just chaos with sunshine? Like apparently I’m supposed to travel and see friends, be outside, stay productive, and somehow also keep my life together. And then I come home, open the fridge, and it’s just betrayal.

Which is exactly why I love, love, love Factor and why I’m so thankful they’re sponsoring today’s video. Factor delivers chef-crafted, dietitian-approved ready-to-eat meals straight to your door so you can actually eat well this summer without spending all your time in the kitchen. I’ve been using Factor like every month for over two years now. They are incredible.

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And the options, honey, absolutely delicious. Again, in like the last two-plus years that I’ve been eating Factor, I’ve legit never had a bad meal. They’ve got these newly launched salads like elote corn and miso edamame, which feel very “I have my life put together.” Plus, they’ve got globally inspired meals like honey sambal barramundi and chicken coconto quinoa. Doesn’t that just sound fancy? Okay, yes, she is fancy this summer.

I seriously get so excited when my box shows up and I unbox it, and I know each meal is going to be so amazing. Like the other night, I had the most delicious roasted garlic chicken with gravy, chive yukon mash, and green beans. Another night, I had a mouthwatering parmesan Italian sausage lasagnette with red peppers and garlicky green beans, and honey, it was so, so, so good.

Factor also has over seventy add-ons like green juices and peanut butter energy bites to help with those snack cravings. Like seriously, Factor is everything. It has been for me, and I think that it will be for you too.

So, dear Susperians, if you’re ready to actually enjoy your summer and eat well without all the stress, head to factor75.com or click the link below and use code swoop2fdg to get fifty percent off your first Factor box plus free breakfast for one year. That’s code swoop2fdg. That’s S-W-O-O-P-T-O-F-D-G at factor75.com to get fifty percent off plus free breakfast for one year. Swoop2fdg at factor75.com. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. And treat yourself, honey. You deserve it.

Okay, strap on that swimsuit, grab your nose plugs, and let’s dip into the Susp-ool.

“This is everything I received today from Ulta Beauty World.”

“Ulta Beauty World was the biggest scam of 2026 so far. I literally had three devices in the queue at ten o’clock on the dot.”

Hello, friends, and welcome to the Susp-ool aisle of Ulta Beauty. You know, the one where the marked-down hand sanitizers and the blush palettes shattered to dust go to die. Yeah, that’s where we’re hanging out today as we dissect the latest controversy contouring Ulta down into the Susp-ool.

“This isn’t as bad as you think it is.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Yours.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I kind of take it back.”

Since its humble beginnings as a suburban Chicago retail salon in the nineties, Ulta Beauty has grown into one of the biggest retailers in the modern cosmetics space, growing from a beloved store all the way up to its own “world” — a world very much populated by an angry mob fighting each other for a chance at thousands of dollars’ worth of free cosmetics. And trust me, honey, in this economy, I get it.

While many retail chains are suffering from customers moving their shopping online, the beauty and hair chain store Ulta is a rare success story, adding as many as forty new stores this summer with a hands-on approach that’s resonating with shoppers.

Now, since going public in 2008, Ulta has strategically locked in on the online beauty space that’s exploded over the past two decades or so. Through digital personalization, celebrity brand partnerships, and their competitive loyalty programs, Ulta has made itself the American IT-girl of makeup retailers. Like, every brand wants shelf space there, and every consumer wants to basically enter hypnosis over their revolving stock of the latest and greatest new products.

At the top of their game last year, Ulta made their biggest commitment to the influencer world yet, launching an entire convention called Ulta Beauty World in San Antonio, Texas. They do it big in Texas, I hear.

“You guys, this has to be the craziest thing in the whole world. Like, the booths are crazy. Like, they went all out for this.”

And, as designed, it went super viral. Like, VidCon was quaking, okay? And if Sephora has ever done one of these. And obviously Ipsy Gen Beauty. Did y’all know I used to be the host for Ipsy Gen Beauty? Yeah, I was the official host for Gen Beauty for a few years. I started in Canada and did Canada a couple times, Los Angeles — I can’t even remember all the places. New York. But yeah, I have background in these spaces. Okay, that was a thing that I did, and it was a wild ride. So, back to this.

The inaugural 2025 Ulta Beauty World hosted 1,500 ticketed guests and influencers in a dream-come-true utopia where they wandered the convention hall floor packed with over two hundred brand booths giving away free products like Halloween candy, basically, before leaving with massive Ulta swag bags filled to the absolute brim with even more beauty loot.

And I say that with love because literally — again, I hosted things like this before — but that was a huge reason why Ulta Beauty World went so viral online. Everyone who left with piles of free cosmetics — some of it you don’t even like or care about, but it’s there, it’s free, you’re taking it, right? — they would show off their bounties online. People watching were like, “I gotta have me some of that.”

“Truthfully, I don’t think you guys are ready for this. This is the most insane swag bag I’ve ever, ever seen, received literally anywhere.”

“Let’s unbox everything we got at Ulta Beauty World today. You will not believe how much stuff we got. All of these bags are literally packed full. I knew that the goodie bags were going to be good, but I did not think they were going to be this good. Just wait until the end until you see everything laid out.”

“There were so many different brands, and each and every brand had their own setup that was literally crazy. They gave everyone at Ulta Beauty World a passport, and then you go around to each brand, and they stamp the passport, and then they give you a bunch of products. Some of the brands even had like soda shops set up and coffee shops, claw machines to win their product.”

“I’ll show you exactly why I brought an empty suitcase to Ulta Beauty World. Are you ready? This is everything I received today from Ulta Beauty World. When I tell you all 1,500 attendees received all of this — like, they were leaving with suitcases and bags filled with all of this. This is insanity.”

Like, yeah. When even Mikayla overconsumption — I still don’t know how to pronounce her name — when Mikayla is calling the amount of free products insane, you know it’s on a whole other level. “So, um, I blacked out.”

After the inaugural Ulta Beauty World successfully ignited an online frenzy and the largest microplastic distribution of the century, the next 2026 convention was already in the works, with dates set almost a year in advance. And this one was set up to be even bigger and better. According to their website, there were going to be two hundred plus brand partners, swag bags valued at over $2,000.

After watching their favorite influencers hit the jackpot with free product — again, I say free; nothing’s really free, but you know what I’m saying — fans literally sat on the edge of their beauty stools waiting for ticket sales to go live this past January with the fervor of a thousand Black Fridays.

Okay, you thought Walmart was unhinged during Black Friday? This was a whole other level, okay? Just cuter, with better highlighters and contours.

But when the time finally came for everyone to buy their tickets, they found themselves in a fresh kind of hell, competing over a mere 3,000 tickets, and the whole situation quickly spiraled into a Susp-ool disaster, arguably even more viral than the convention itself. “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

I can’t overstate — or understate, whichever word applies — I can’t overstate just how massive the hype was, and the competition was just as intense. Like, creators were posting guides with hundreds of thousands of views, guys, on how to lock in your tickets, girl.

“Do you want to increase your chances of getting into Ulta Beauty World 2026 in Orlando? Stop scrolling because early access is everything. First, make sure that you are signed up for Ulta Beauty emails. Make sure you’re following Ulta Beauty on TikTok, on the ‘gram, and make sure that you’re getting the email notifications. Third, when the tickets drop, make sure that you are logged in, okay? Hesitation equals you not going.”

There were Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of members discussing their strategies. “So, I did a quick little search on Facebook: Ulta Beauty World 2026, and all these groups come up. One of them even has 103,000 members. And apparently there’s only going to be 3,000 tickets available. Not only that, but I see this one group that is ‘Ticket Holders.’ Tell me how there’s five members in there already. Who’s got these tickets?”

Hold on. Okay, no shade. No shade. But if part of me is just like — if you’re competing with the rest of the world for only 3,000 tickets, why would you share your game plan with the competition? I’m just saying. Why are you sharing your strategy? Or are they sharing faulty strategies? I don’t know how diabolical this gets. Y’all, this story is serious, and then it’s also very unserious in the grand scheme of everything that’s happening. Have we seen the world? Have we been seeing what’s going on with the Voting Rights Act? We saw that. Yeah, don’t worry, we’re going to get into all of that on Patreon, of course, and some other stuff. But anyways, that’s not for today. We’re just having a little giggle here.

And there was a lot of hype — really, a lot of hype — around those exclusive swag bags valued at more than $2,000. “If you’re trying to get tickets once they officially go on sale next week, you will definitely need to act quickly because the convention center tells me there’s only space for about 3,000 people. So, mark your calendars and set your alarms. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, January 21st, at 10:00 AM our time. They cost $160, and you can only get one per transaction and email address.”

So people all across the world woke up at the ass-crack of dawn to make sure they didn’t miss the 10:00 AM release time for the tickets. Okay, you think Taylor Swift has a frenzy for tickets? Honey, it ain’t nothing like this.

“Next thing I will be doing is setting multiple alarms. One the night before, one hour before, fifteen minutes before — hypothetically, if they do tell us what time the tickets will be dropping. If not, I will be drinking about five different Red Bulls to pull an all-nighter. I don’t care. The tickets are $160, and I’m getting thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff. Oh, baby, I’m going. If this is the last thing I do.”

So people were on FaceTime with their friends coordinating their attack plans. “Oh, they’re posted. They’re closed. Go.”

“I don’t see it.”

“I don’t see it.”

“It says ‘Get your tickets.’”

“Where?”

“Clock into work? Never heard of her. And I am going to be late tomorrow. I’m going to come here at 11:00.”

“Tickets just keep on hitting. No, because I want to get the Ulta — the Ulta Beauty World ticket.”

Some people actually even got like an honorary computer science degree to use the full force of their digital arsenal to secure their ticket. “Let’s find out what happened here.”

“This is my experience getting my Ulta Beauty World Expo ticket. I had a whole strategy going into this, but it did not go how I expected at all. I got onto the site on all of my devices two hours early.”

Do you see the number of devices here? Do you see the dedication that is going on here? Tablet, tablet, laptop, phone. This is wild.

“I had split screen on my MacBook. So, I had my Safari tab open on the left and my Google Chrome tab open on the right.”

I literally would never have even thought about doing split-screen or split-tab situations and having them auto-refresh. I guess this is what you learn in those Facebook communities. They’re like, “No, what do you mean you don’t know split levels? What are we talking about here?” This is wild.

“Two phones and a tablet. And I also had auto-refresh going on two screens. I set the auto-refresh to an interval of one second starting at 9:50 and started manually refreshing all the other tabs. I knew it was time to lock in, so I turned off all the lights and made sure the house was completely quiet so that I could focus.”

She said, “You will give me zen and nothing less. I will meditate. I have prepared my entire life for this moment.”

“At some point during this video, you can literally see the color start to drain from my face. I have never been so nervous about securing a ticket in my life. I can feel the stress happening right now. I could literally feel the tension. I am on the edge of my seat right now. And I don’t do that.”

Y’all, I got to tell you, this is not a thing that I do, right? I’m already the girl who’s like, “Tickets are going on sale. If I happen to catch it, then I’m going to log in at some point. I’m going to get the tickets that are there. If there aren’t any tickets there, then that’s on me, right? And I’ll just be like a salty little b*tch, but it’ll all be on me.”

I maybe — one time that I can remember — I’ve been there and hit refresh for something, but I’m just the type of person like — I did a flash sale this last holiday season for a gift that I wanted to get for somebody, and it was like one of the first flash sales I’d done in a minute, and I had some anxiety logging in and starting the whole thing, but I had like twenty-four hours to finish the purchase. That was the amount of anxiety that I was willing to take on. This is next level.

“The hype for Ulta Beauty World on TikTok alone was absolutely insane. At this point, I was counting down the seconds on the clock, taking many deep breaths, and reaffirming to myself that I’m getting these tickets. I think you can see the point where tickets went on sale because I lost all color in my lips, and my face was so pale. It was at this very moment when the link to join the queue became available, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I rushed to join the queue on all of my devices and waited to see which one got in first.”

“The Safari tab on my MacBook ended up being the only tab that actually moved through the entire queue.”

But that was the only one she got. So it’s like you really feel like you have to have this many devices, and if you don’t have this many devices, it’s like good luck.

“I still waited ten minutes in this queue to even reach another screen. The queue on all of my other devices stayed at one bubble this entire time. Keep in mind, tickets dropped at 9:59, so it was a few seconds before 10:00 when they actually went live.”

Oh, you know someone was salty about that. You already know. Someone was like, “You said the tickets were going at 10:00 AM and you did it early. And I’m pissed.” You know someone’s pissed about that.

“The queue started at 9:59, and I still had to wait until around 10:10 until I reached the registration screen. But when I finally did, it said that registration was not available. I refreshed a few times, and it still said the same thing. So, in a panic, I picked up my phone and went searching for an answer. I went straight to the Ulta Beauty World community page on the Ulta app. Everyone is losing their minds because nobody can figure out how to get past this registration page.”

I can literally see — look at this face. This is the face of someone whose stomach just fell all the way out of her body. Right. Call the doctor. Where’s the stomach? We don’t know. It’s gone. It is gone. And it’s just — you’re having an out-of-body experience. We’ve reached peak crisis levels here. How do we get past this registration page?

“I went to the Instagram comments, and people there were also very confused and weren’t able to check out. Something in my gut was telling me, ‘You just need to sit on this page and wait.’ I started refreshing over and over and over again. And you can literally see the moment in my face when tickets popped up on my screen.”

Oh, she’s locked in now.

“I locked in so hard I can’t even remember what happened after I saw the option to add the Ulta Beauty World roller bag to my cart, and I just started running.”

She just went blank. It’s like the tickets are available — bam. Do not talk to me. Do not mess with me. Don’t you mess with me, Susan. Okay, getting these tickets.

“I get to the next page, select my Ulta Beauty World Expo tickets, and start checking out. At this point, it’s around 10:20, and I’m just genuinely so surprised that the tickets were still available. I had autofill ready to go. So all I had to do is click where I had to put my name, and it filled out all the information for me.”

I would just like to — here’s where I’m at with this. Could you imagine if the top of the top of the chain government officials had this type of dedication to getting sht done? Can you imagine if they all just had to get little screens and they’ve all got their little refresh rates going on and they are locked in on f**ing healthcare? Could you imagine? We might actually have more than just concepts of a plan. I just — this is just wild to me. Can we get people in high positions of power to be this dedicated and focused on a cause? A good cause?

“The only thing I had to really key in was my emergency contact information. And then it asked for a member ID, but I just skipped right past that because Ulta said you didn’t need a rewards account. I finally got to the payment page, and I felt ready to go on that as well. So all I had to do was Touch ID on my MacBook, and I got the tickets. It flashed on my screen: ‘Congratulations, you are now registered.’ But at this point I was still confused on whether or not I got the ticket because it didn’t immediately send me a confirmation email, but I checked my bank account and it took the money. So I got my ticket.”

Girl, you better make sure those tickets come to the email before you say something like that, because we have covered stories where the bank account cleared and the product was not.

“Confirmation email came a little while later, and it showed my Ulta Beauty World ticket as well as my Ulta Beauty World roller bag.”

She got it. “$165 for the tickets, $50 for the roller bag.”

Wow. I need a break. I feel very tense right now. That was very stressful just to watch. Wild.

From the sh*tstorm of the ticket rush, a select few lucky winners rose from the ashes victorious, while the remaining 99.99999 percent left in the queue were devastated, and their collective outrage uncovered a darker truth lurking just below the Susp-ool.

“Don’t get mad when I say this, but TikTok is really the reason why a lot of people didn’t get tickets to the Ulta Beauty World Expo. I get everything is content, but everything don’t have to be content. This is an event that should have been gatekept.”

Okay. So how many people are in the queue? “Thousands. Thousands of people.”

“No f***ing way that many people are in the queue.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of people waiting.”

“That’s a shame. Okay, that’s fine. I mean, that’s — oh, sh*t.”

The tickets to Ulta Beauty World 2026 sold out seemingly instantaneously, leaving — no exaggeration — millions of people’s hopes and dreams of free products shattered like a Morphe palette thrown down the stairs. Here’s a quick montage.

“I’m not going to lie. Like, I’m really trying not to cry. And I know that’s so silly, bro, but like I really wanted that freaking ticket, bro.”

“I don’t care if this makes me sound like a hater. If you got tickets for Ulta Beauty World, I hope you get nothing else.”

“I didn’t get a ticket to Ulta Beauty World, so I’m going to treat myself to a trip to Sephora instead.”

“I’m really sad about not going to Ulta Beauty World, about not getting tickets. I was really looking forward to it. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to it until I don’t have the option to go.”

“Who else didn’t get an Ulta Beauty World ticket? I literally was stuck with that one bubble for a whole f***ing hour. How does that make any sense?”

“Ulta Beauty, count your days. You have just lost so many customers because of this Ulta Beauty World. I have been on your website for hours. The second it hit 10:00 AM my time, which is whenever the tickets dropped, the link popped up. I clicked it. I was in there within an eighth of a second — like literally an eighth of a second, which is what my timer showed — and the line — and it sold out, and I’m still in line. This is absolutely ridiculous. And I will no longer purchase another beauty product from your store. Thank you.”

Now, of course, after a very sad montage, there was a flip side, aka the winners of the Hunger Games — I mean, tickets — were publicly celebrating their win, which I imagine just made it even worse for the people who didn’t, right?

“I got an Ulta Beauty World ticket. Oh my god. Submit.”

“Don’t get mad at me, but I was one of the lucky few that got Ulta Beauty World tickets.”

No one wants anyone to rub their sh*t in, okay? It’s just like — okay, I get it. You won. You’re going to get the makeup. Just hush. I don’t want to hear about it. Okay. I don’t want to hear about it.

“I was one of the 3,000 people that got an Ulta Beauty World ticket. Let’s talk about what I’m going to do with it. So, I don’t know how. I think it was just luck. I wasn’t even really planning on going. Then I heard 3 million people were in the queue and only 3,000 got tickets. So, it was for sure luck. I don’t know how I did it.”

You don’t — we don’t know for sure.

“Congratulations! into a — screaming — what the heck.”

Now, just to illustrate the extent of these odds, one winner literally felt so lucky she decided to buy a lottery ticket to press her luck. I mean, listen, in this economy, do what you gotta do, babe. Okay, babe. I support it.

“There were 3 million people in the queue to buy the Ulta Beauty World tickets. There were 3,000 tickets total, and me and Isabelle both got one. So, come with us to buy a lottery ticket. This is also my first lottery ticket ever.”

Even though the winners got through the online queue quickly, others were left waiting on a loading screen for hours, clueless that it was already too late — until Ulta’s official Instagram account posted this sold-out announcement and confirmed in a comment that there were allegedly three million people waiting. Assuming that’s counting all of the devices signed on — and maybe there could be like two to three per person — at least a percentage of that, that’s still at least a million people who did not get tickets. But there were only allegedly 3,000 slots available.

And I feel like that’s one of the rubs, right? It’s like — you’ve got the cut, it’s fresh, but then they literally didn’t just pour salt. This wasn’t like a Salt Bae situation — remember that throwback? This wasn’t a Salt Bae situation with a little sprinkle, a little dabbling of salt in the wound. This was like a whole f***ing ton truck, a whole cargo ship, if you will, dumping salt all over the wound. You can no longer see the wound anymore. Just covered. It is obliterated by the salt of people realizing: you had me waiting here. You had me in my time waiting here for these damn tickets knowing that they were sold out probably within minutes. Probably within minutes. But you got people waiting for hours and hours and hours and hours, and then you post on Instagram that it’s sold out.

Can you imagine? That is — listen, I see a couple of different sides to this story. So we’re going to share a couple of different perspectives. But I feel like that’s on some corporate bullsh*t, because you’re just wasting people’s precious time, and that’s got to be real frustrating for people.

So here’s the comment that they left. Quote: “Thank you all for the love and the rush. While we know not everyone was able to secure one, over 3 million people joined the queue for 3,000 tickets. We hope to welcome you next year and thank you for being part of our community.”

This is just the dump truck. They salted everywhere. Just rub it in. Rubbing it in.

Now, those who didn’t get tickets were extremely upset with Ulta, not only because they didn’t get in, but because it seemed like the whole thing was a setup from the beginning.

“Ulta Beauty World was the biggest scam of 2026 so far. I literally had three devices in the queue at 10:00 on the dot. I refreshed at 9:59, and then I refreshed again at 10:00. I saw that I was ten seconds in on the phone that I’m filming on. I got just over halfway through the queue. This phone, I got two dots in, and it never moved. My computer, same thing. I literally have — I can’t show them, but I have my cards out ready. I made sure Apple Pay was out and ready, and I didn’t get anywhere near close to getting a ticket. And they’re not getting good PR right now.”

Now, I would like to offer a little perspective here, because yes, I think that is very, very disappointing, and I totally understand that. I think it’s also — for better or for worse — important to point out that this is working exactly as it was designed to. This is a very corporate thing, right? Ulta created a massive craze with their 2025 event, and the demand skyrocketed.

Like realistically, companies aren’t going to be willing to give away more than a certain amount of this free product. Meaning all the two hundred vendors who have product that they’re going to give — they’re not going to give away huge amounts of their product that may potentially — specifically if it’s like a smaller business — could potentially put a little bit of a dent in their bottom line. Okay, we know that businesses often aren’t doing something like that. And also, they want to drive this frenzy. This is a very late-stage capitalism thing to do while the world is burning. I don’t love it at all, but also, this is, I think, how it was designed.

But all of that to say, surely there was a better queue and standing-in-line system that could have been executed to save people their precious time and help manage their expectations, because holy hell, I can’t imagine waiting hours and hours just to be turned away.

If every attendee gets something, that means each brand has to bring roughly 3,000 units of a product or a sample. So when people say, “Oh, just add more tickets,” technically what you’re saying is have the brand produce more inventory for the event. And most beauty brands don’t even manufacture 5,000 units of one single SKU in a year, especially midsize or indie brands. And in case nobody knew, each brand is paying for space that they’re using at the event. Then the brand is also responsible to design and build out their activation or their booth.

Now, the fallen fans’ crusade of justice didn’t stop at filming themselves justifiably crashing out, if you will. No, these fans are icons. They’re legends, if you will. And they dug deep — as is your illegally required duty on TikTok.

“If you want to talk about stress, you want to talk about stress. Okay. I’ve stumbled onto a major company conspiracy, Mac. How about that for stress?”

So back to the Susp-ool Ulta Justice Crusaders. They uncovered that allegedly some people who got into registration were buying multiple tickets for multiple people, which was not appreciated at all. It was made very clear that the public would only have one ticket available per person. Yet there are people on this app who are touting that they got five tickets. And according to the Ulta Beauty World guidelines, it was explicitly against the rules, but somehow the site still allowed it.

One lady bought seven tickets using the same name and emails, not realizing they were non-transferable and that you have to have your ID. Why was she able to do that? I mean, listen, I am a stickler for the rules when it comes to going to certain places because I don’t want to be kicked out for not following the rules.

The most damning accusation from the public, however, was that the whole thing was rigged from the beginning, as people claimed that influencers got tickets ahead of time and took up a majority of the 3,000 available slots. And there’s nothing we love more than an entitled influencer around here.

“I’m going to have to like bring you down to earth for a sec. There is no way you’re getting tickets for that show, but I love your enthusiasm. Okay.”

The influencer outrage began when a group of influencers from Ulta’s collective partner program attended the brand trip together and started sharing the news that they were headed to Ulta Beauty World, which I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, these influencers are Ulta partners who are trusted with the brand and going to a brand event to help market the products for their businesses.

I don’t know the size of these Ulta influencers. I feel like some of them are also micro-influencers, at least hopefully. And so, I don’t want to shame these people for, you know, working hard in their content creation to get to a place. I would imagine that’s a very exciting step for their career or their goals or whatever.

“This is really like the start of our partnership together. We’re here in Park City, but we don’t know what’s next. And we decided that we need to get together this year. You know, I think you all knew of a little beauty event that happened last night. Welcome to Beauty World. The best event ever. You all have to come with us.”

But when that news got out, the un-ticketed crowd was furious, thinking that these influencers were taking up space at Ulta Beauty World that was marketed for the public, which is a very fair concern. If there were supposed to be a certain space for influencers, that should be separated from how many tickets are available for the public and what they’re marketing to the public. And if that wasn’t done, that’s a problem.

“It was rigged. It was rigged.”

But then things got weird. You know, shocking, I know. The internet being the internet and doing weird, possibly unhinged sh*t — people took the rumor that 2,400 tickets went to influencers and ran with it all the way to the Susp-ool. Okay. They brought their flotation devices, their nose plugs, the belly flops, the cannonballs — it’s all happening.

They started combing through everyone — everyone, mind you, everyone who was posting about their tickets — and began to clock what they believed was a pattern. A lot of the people — not all, but a lot of the people they believed who managed to get tickets also happened to be influencers, even if they weren’t officially affiliated with Ulta. The group’s suspicion quickly turned into backlash against creators for simply being lucky enough to get in.

And that’s where I feel like stuff like this can get real messy real fast. Like, I understand if there are certain influencers or something and they’re of a certain status and stature and they’re like big influencers or something — they should have their own separate stuff going on because that’s how the business works. But that shouldn’t take away from what is available to the public and people who aren’t influencers or creators.

And at the same time, I would imagine that there are also creators who just happen to get tickets, right? That’s the other thing. There are going to be people who just happen to get tickets. They were lucky enough. But if someone sees that they have, you know, like a thousand followers or two thousand followers or whatever and then labels them an influencer, I don’t think it’s fair to attack them without knowing the full story about it.

“Did I get Ulta Beauty World tickets because I’m an influencer? Let’s talk about it. So, it’s time to address the rumors. Who would have thought me fighting for my life to get this ticket is now causing everyone to accuse me of only getting one because I’m a beauty influencer? If you’re not an influencer who got a ticket, please let us know below. I posted proof of my registration email, ticket receipt. Girl, here’s a screenshot of my bank charge when they snatched that money out of my account. What do I gain from lying to y’all about how I got this ticket? I waited for two hours on that site and paid just like everyone else. But I just got super lucky.”

“To my knowledge, there was no pre-sale link, no special code. Why would Ulta allocate 2,000 of the 3,000 tickets to influencers only? How did the website know I was an influencer during checkout? Please put on your thinking caps and stop believing uncredited sources on the internet. Take three seconds to look at my profile. You can see I primarily post early career content to help Gen Z get hired. I’m verified because I’ve been featured in national publications and even gave a TED Talk about how I designed my dream career. It’s okay to be upset about not getting a ticket. I was too when I didn’t get Sephora tickets, but your misdirected anger isn’t going to help anything. Some of you have decided to accept this narrative you’ve created on who got tickets, and I don’t know what to tell you. But if you’re interested in learning about how to land a job, how to perfect your base routine, or even following along with me to Ulta Beauty World in April, definitely make sure to follow me.”

But suddenly, people with platforms had to defend themselves against an onslaught of hate comments and accusations like some sort of Wattpad witch trial, which is exactly what corporate giant Ulta should have expected. When you create a chaotic, frenzied environment of scarcity on the public, it’s not fair to the public. And I would imagine — again, I don’t know the inner workings of the people on the business side, and I’m so far removed from that industry now — but I can also imagine that there are creators, influencers, whatever, who didn’t deserve backlash. They’re just over here doing business, thinking that the public stuff is being handled appropriately, and they have no clue about it.

And I think that this really should be laid on Ulta to have done a better job explaining how all of this works, what the breakdown is, and not wasting people’s time for hours when you’ve already sold out of tickets. I think that’s crazy. It’s disrespectful to people’s time.

Things really sunk to the bottom of the Susp-ool when one cybersecurity creator, Cyber Alyssa, made a video exposing the source code of the registration website. Yeah, it was that serious for some. And what she found inside the Matrix sent the Ulta mob into a spiral. And Ulta, I’m telling you, y’all need to do better for your customers and your fans here.

“I thought this was supposed to be the most advanced security system on the planet.”

As somebody who works in cybersecurity, this is why nobody in the public could actually buy an Ulta Beauty World ticket today.

Now, to be fair, some people in the public did buy tickets, but I’m here for the detective situation going on. I’m here for the cybersecurity moment. I’m telling you, if the high end of the government were to hire these people to get sht done, we would have healthcare for everyone. We would have the roads paved, new rail systems in place, the Epstein files would finally have some f**ing justice. Things would be solved if we had these women in charge, because they don’t play around. They don’t play around with getting results.

“Let me start off by just stating how prepared I actually was. I followed every single tip from those group chats. I thought that I had it in the bag because I implemented a client-side refresh interval — a controlled three-second reload cadence to maintain session freshness without overwhelming the end.”

I have no idea what any of that meant. Literally none.

“Also automatically disabled on any user interaction. So the refresh shut off the second I could actually do anything, and I still barely got the chance. I waited in the queue for an hour. Now, this is where it gets interesting. There are some source code snippets circulating showing that invite codes were pre-generated prior to the ticket sale.”

Oh no, she got into the metadata. She got into the metadata. We have seen some crazy-ass sh*t in the metadata. Okay, there’s a big case — a whole bunch of metadata stuff going on. This is wild.

“Based on the naming pattern and timing, many people are assuming that these codes were tied to influencers. From a technical standpoint, this rollout had several red flags. If these invite codes were validated before the queue, that means that some users bypassed demand entirely.”

Now, it sounds like this hasn’t been proven. So just as much as I love me a good conspiracy theory — girl, I love me a conspiracy theory — I also then love to bring it back down into reality and understand: what does the actual evidence say, and what can we support it with?

“The queue system itself appeared to be very client-side heavy, meaning that your browser session — not a centralized server — was doing most of the work. There was also no visible rate limiting, which means that your device or region could have determined where you were in line. In short, this wasn’t a first-come-first-serve queue at all. It was fragmented access disguised as public sale.”

So my next question is going to be — because that sounds diabolical — is this the way they all run? Is that the way it has to run for these things to even function, and it’s not something diabolical? I don’t know half of what she was talking about. I just don’t. Is that the way it has to run? If y’all know — in the chat, if y’all are in cybersecurity, you can explain this — then let me know, because I’m curious.

It’s wild the way that people be digging into this. And I’m telling you, we would get so much more done in this country if we hired some of these powerhouse women like this. I’m just saying. Just saying.

After this mysterious line of code got out, people were convinced that the whole ticketing website was more rigged than a self-made nepo baby. You can’t publicly invite everyone to the party, sell false hope, and then say, “Oh, actually, you know what? This is really just invite-only.”

One legal creator, Attorney Heather, even brought the case to the SUS Supreme Court of the For You Page, claiming there’s a case to be made for a class action lawsuit.

“Something tells me Ulta’s lawyers are about to be working overtime from this whole Ulta Beauty World scandal. And no, it’s not just because people are upset and this is a huge PR nightmare. This could actually be a lawsuit.”

If you’re not familiar with the situation, here’s what happened. Ulta has been advertising this Ulta Beauty World ticket sale, and yesterday they posted that tickets were available. Now, they’ve been posting this for a while. This is a screenshot from their actual Instagram account. There were other posts as well. Tickets were supposed to go on sale around 10:00 AM. Millions of people were waiting in line virtually for these tickets, just for no one to ever be able to get them. People waited in line for literally hours. They got notifications saying they were next in line, and then they got kicked out of the queue.

Out of all the videos I’ve seen on this topic, no one has actually said they got the tickets. So that led people to question who actually got them. And of course, leave it to the tech girlies to go into the backend, figure out the code on the ticket website, and see that there was a special link that they’re thinking was reserved for influencers or beauty insiders — people in the industry.

And that’s where it matters, at least legally speaking. If these tickets were really only reserved for influencers or certain people, and that wasn’t clearly disclosed, that’s not just bad PR. That is potentially unfair business practices under consumer protection laws and deceptive advertising.

Now, let me be clear. The issue isn’t that the tickets sold out, because obviously that happens all the time for events. The issue is whether consumers were led to believe they had a real chance at getting any of these tickets when in reality there was no chance at all.

Is this an automatic class action lawsuit win? No. But is it legally questionable enough to get attention from regulators and plaintiff’s lawyers like me? Yes.

So people started filling up the Ulta Instagram comments with lots of hate comments, calling them out, saying things like, “I sense a class action lawsuit coming.” Uh, that was from Attorney Heather. We got another one: “Never piss off a woman, and y’all done pissed off about 3 million.” Yeah, people were genuinely pissed off.

Even the most loyal customers were saying things like, “I’ll be canceling my credit card and shopping my brands now since my loyalty meant nothing.”

In the midst of all this fallout, Ulta Beauty sent an email to their loyalty customers pushing a new product they playfully marketed as “cheaper than a plane ticket.” So yeah, okay. Ulta’s got a little petty game. They’re playing a little petty game over here. I’m sure that went over well.

Deep in the Susp-ool, the outrage against Ulta reached nearly grifter-gong levels of sus. So cue the sus gong. People were not having it and, convinced that they had been lied to, started a Change.org petition. We love a grassroots moment, honey, because it’s apparently that serious.

Now the Change.org petition is titled, and I quote, “Demand a Separate Ulta Beauty Convention to Separate Influencers and Loyal Customers.” And you know what? I think that’s actually a really fair concept. I think that’s a fair idea. Unless they’re trying to — I don’t know if they were mixing in meet-and-greets and stuff. That was a thing that Ipsy Gen Beauty did. Again, that was many, many years ago. So I have no idea what these things are like now. But if it wasn’t doing something like that, then yeah, have a separate event. It’s not that hard. Ulta, you’re probably worth billions of dollars. I don’t really know, but I’m sure you’re worth a few billion dollars. I think you can afford to do it. But maybe that’s just me.

“What’s your name?”

“Michelle.”

“Michelle, do you know that feeling that I’m talking about where you suddenly feel pretty and next thing you know you feel better about yourself?”

The main purpose statement for the petition says the following, quote: “As a dedicated Ulta Beauty customer, I, alongside hundreds of others, took time off work hoping to experience the magic of Ulta Beauty’s convention. We believed it was an opportunity where loyal customers like ourselves would get a chance to explore the latest beauty trends and products in an intimate and inclusive setting. However, we were significantly disappointed to discover that a substantial number of tickets were gifted to influencers. That’s interesting. Leaving many genuine customers without a chance to attend.”

Now, if they’re gifting public tickets — oh, that’s big bad, honey. Ulta, you know better. You know better. You’ve got to treat the people fairly. If that was what was going on, that’s not a good look at all.

I will say, though, in the grand scheme of a lot of the stories that we’ve covered — we’ve got some more stuff that we’re going to get into, but I’m a little torn on some elements of this just because I feel like it was known there’s only going to be 3,000 tickets available in advance. And so I feel like expectations should be managed in these scenarios, realizing that the likelihood of getting a ticket — even if there were just 100,000 people vying for only 3,000 tickets — the likelihood of actually getting a ticket is going to be very small.

Let’s just pretend for a second that Ulta didn’t give away some of these tickets to influencers. But maybe they did, and that sucks. But taking the other thing aside, I get a little torn because I see where people would be very pissed off. Again, if this was marketed as a public event but influencers got special access, all that stuff. But at the same time, from multiple perspectives of a very sussy, Susan-level situation, this is a scandal where people were not charged money, which is actually very rare for the Susp-ool.

Like, we’ve covered stories where a woman was just — and then she just wasn’t giving them the products. Like she just literally wasn’t selling them. She was literally stealing these moms’ hard-earned money. And those are the types of stories that we’re often covering, where money was spent and then they didn’t get something in return.

This is different because they weren’t charged any money because they did not get the tickets. So it’s not a fraud situation involving millions of people being charged for something that they never got. Yes, very frustrating to miss out on an event if you’re looking forward to it. And at the same time, this isn’t like one of those TanaCon-level disasters where people actually paid money and were left out in the sweltering heat all day to burn, or Fyre Fest where people also paid lots of money and had no access to drinking water on a remote island.

And there are likely at least some influencers who got tickets by waiting in a queue for hours like others, I would imagine. So it’s just kind of a messy situation where I just genuinely think at the end of the day this came down to Ulta doing a better job in marketing and helping people manage expectations. Yes, people are going to be disappointed no matter what happens, but I think they could have done a much better job with that. I don’t love creating this absolute frenzied thing for such a teeny, tiny, tiny, tiny supply, creating this massive amount of demand. It’s just not my favorite thing.

Now, I guess in an attempt to try to demystify the scandal, Ulta finally replied — but to a comment, which is weird. They said the following, quote: “We’d like to clarify that tickets provided to the Ulta Beauty Collective were allocated separately and did not reduce inventory available to the general public.”

Now, my follow-up question, Ulta, is: what was the inventory available to the general public? Was it precisely 3,000 tickets for the public and then a different inventory for the influencers? Was that the breakdown, or are we being a little — are we kind of talking around it and just putting it in a comment, which is like — what are we doing with these comments? What are we doing?

What I do find sus about the whole thing, though, is that they built all this hype up over a year and only reserved the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando for only one day and 3,000 guests when its banquet space max capacity is over 52,000 people, and its seating capacity in the exhibit hall theater is 64,000 people, according to Association Meetings International. Because I’m a slightly thorough btch in these little skinny dips we’re doing. I’m a thorough btch on the main channel over here. I’ll dabble a little bit every now and then for a statistic.

For reference, Madison Square Garden in New York City seats just under 20,000 people. So there could potentially be like two to three Madison Square Gardens full of people in the building. But instead, they only let in the equivalent of a midsize concert venue.

But again, if they’re saying that 3,000 tickets were just for the public, I’d imagine that they are at least doubling that for influencers or brand partners and company employees, things like that. I don’t know how much space the booths take up. And then again, I think probably the brands themselves are limiting how much product they are willing to give away in these things, and that’s going to determine how many tickets they have. Because the last thing — also, it would be a very bad look for the brands to just be rampantly running out of product midway through the event, and then people don’t even get the product that they actually paid for. You know what I mean? So there is a good chance that the convention center will be filled with a bigger mix of people, not just the 3,000 golden ticket holders.

We really can’t talk about this ticketed Susp-ool without giving it a little quick mention. Okay, we just got to — we take our dip, and we swim out a little further into the deeper end of the Susp-ool, like the world as a whole — or at least in this country as a whole — because I think that’s important.

So I can’t do this without mentioning how absolutely cooked modern ticketing is in general, real quick. Have y’all been seeing the news that a lot of artists and touring people going on tour are canceling their tours and giving very weird, random excuses why? Well, I think it’s because the f***ing ticket prices are out of control for everybody.

Like, let me read a little quote here. “Nearly 40% of ticketing traffic is compromised of bad bots,” according to Imperva — bots who turn around and sell their tickets for high profits. We also know that there are some companies, there are record labels, there’s all kinds of shady sh*t going on where they will just preemptively buy out blocks of tickets to their artist’s show — the artists may not even know that this is happening — just so that they can be like, “Oh, the tickets are sold out” or “There’s high demand and very few tickets,” and then they just turn around and sell them on a resale ticketing platform for much, much, much higher.

And so the companies behind it, the labels, sometimes even the ticketing offices themselves, are doing stuff like that to make crazy additional profits, fully taking advantage of people.

I am getting tickets for one of my absolute favorite bands. The band is Muse. I love Muse. I’ve loved Muse. I will always love Muse. They’ve got a new album coming out, and they’re going on tour, and it’s a different type of tour for them. It’s outside. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I’m still going to go, honey. Okay, this is one of the few things that I try to treat myself to.

And when I was looking at ticket prices, I think I lost a little bit of my soul. Like a little piece — maybe not a piece, maybe a whole chunk — just kind of broke off and just dissipated into the ethos. And there it went. There goes my soul. Because what do you mean the tickets are that price? And what do you mean the fees are that high? And oh wait, I’m sorry. How much was parking? Oh, and if I get parched, if I need a beverage — I’m sorry. How much is that going to cost? Out of control. What else am I to say?

So with that, there’s the whole Ticketmaster issue of these absurd fees that they can tack on because they have a literal monopoly — which is illegal — over the whole ticketing industry. Here’s a quote. “In 2023, The Cure’s Robert Smith made the US tour tickets available for as little as $20. This band did that for their fans, $20. He soon discovered Ticketmaster’s fees cost more than the tickets themselves,” which is so unhinged. That was reported in The Guardian.

As recently as literally April — just a few weeks ago of this year — a jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster guilty of in fact having a monopoly on the ticketing market. Great. It’s illegal. They found them guilty, and then they still didn’t do sh*t.

“A jury found Live Nation unfairly created a monopoly over the ticket market. The jury reached its decision on the fourth day of deliberations. Live Nation settled with the Justice Department and several states back in March, but more than 30 states did not settle at that time and they continued forward with this case.”

Literally nothing happened, because their punishment was more of a slap on the wrist than a real remedy. Here’s a quote. “That deal included a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters, plus some new ticket-selling options for promoters and venues — potentially allowing, but not requiring, them to open doors to Ticketmaster competitors such as SeatGeek or Access.” Which is just absolutely effing unhinged.

I hate it here. Legitimately hate it here.

And there are — for some artists, some of these artists out here — I’m not going to lie, some of these artists be exploiting the hell out of their fans. And I don’t love it. I understand larger shows, larger productions cost a lot more. You have a lot more people. I’ve been to some shows. I have performed on tours where there were like two semis required to build the stages. And for those of you who don’t know, I was also a touring recording artist. And I hope to get back to that soon because it’s my favorite thing in the world to do — performing live. We got some new music coming. I know I’ve been saying that, but we actually are — we’re actually in the studio, and I’m very excited.

But with all of that, with touring and stuff, I understand the budgets and things of staging and whatnot, but some artists be really, really, really doing the most. And so when they’re doing the most, and the labels are doing the most, and then the ticketing agencies are doing the most, and it’s all piling on top of each other, you’ve now priced yourself out of the market for fans to be able to reasonably afford a ticket and have a good time. I don’t think that it should like put people out of house and home or make them unable to eat for the next couple of weeks because they want to buy a ticket to this artist where the tickets damn near wind up being $1,000 after some of these fees. So maybe that’s just me.

It’s just — I think there’s a lot broken in this whole thing, and it’s obviously impacting the touring industry now because people are canceling their tours.

“So, um, I blacked out.”

But wait, there’s more. While looking into the story, I stumbled upon a much more concerning Ulta Beauty controversy that I had literally never heard about. In 2020, the company settled a $1.75 million lawsuit over employee working hours violations. Have y’all heard about this?

Global Cosmetics News reported the following, quote: “Ulta was charged with requiring its employees to report for work-related checks and tasks before clocking in, as well as not providing timely rest and meal breaks to non-exempt employees. A federal judge signed off on the payment, which equates to about $44.38 per complainant on average, although the exact amount will differ between the 23,767 employees covered.”

So when you think about that — about 20,000 more employees sued Ulta than tickets that were available to Ulta Beauty World — and I never heard a thing about it. And I hate it here.

“This is everything I received today from Ulta Beauty World.”

But now the moment everyone’s been waiting for. Well, I mean, by everyone, I mean the influencers and people who actually got tickets. The moment they were waiting for — the actual event. The actual event has now happened. It just happened.

On April 16th, Ulta Beauty World 2026 finally came to fruition with a fiery start. No, literally — literally a fiery start. A booth caught on fire at 3:00 AM the morning before the doors opened. So things were off to a great start.

“At this point, the convention center and fire rescue haven’t told us anything about how much damage was done inside. But of course, if there is a fire there, you could have damage from the flames as well as from water from the sprinklers inside when they turned on to try to put that fire out. So at this point, we don’t have any word on how much damage or whether anyone was hurt or not.”

Could you imagine if the whole thing — the whole event — not people involved, but the actual event, the booths, just burned down the night before? Oh my gosh, the conspiracies.

“All right. A day after a fire broke out at the Orange County Convention Center, the highly anticipated Ulta Beauty World Expo officially got underway today.”

“Yeah, yesterday’s scare couldn’t keep the big show from going on. Thousands of people are there and getting their hands on some valuable products.”

“You better believe it. A lot is happening, and right now the event has officially ended. They have announced it over the loudspeaker. So what we’re seeing, besides a lot of women making a mad dash to get their last-minute products — because this is all about getting their hands on sample items and getting out the door — but we are literally seeing women with loads of bags wrapped around their ankles, their feet, and anything that they can hold on to with all of their items.”

Holy overconsumption. These guests walked away with what looks like a five-year supply of beauty products. And good for them.

“Come with me to the biggest beauty event of the year. I’m at Ulta Beauty World. This was my first time going, and I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know how good. We started off the morning bright and early. As soon as we walked in, my jaw was on the floor.”

Like, it looks well put together. The installations look great. It actually looks like there’s space. I don’t know what the lines were like when you get there — like, do you have to wait in super long lines for the beauty products or not? I have no idea. But like when everyone was talking about the brands having booths here, I was thinking it was a little lemonade stand. Tell me why some of these brands had whole houses.

“Oh, they have like full-size products going on, too. Okay, I see you. I get it. I get why people want to go to this.”

“Every single booth I stopped at was giving out full-size products. And it’s hard to stop at every single booth because this place is so big.”

So that’s the other thing. I know a lot of these events were not doing small-size products. There would be little sample-size things and stuff. And that’s a completely different experience than when you get full-size products. And I really — when I come back to people working so hard to get into this thing, I also think some of that is just like — it’s hard out there, man. Life is hard. It is hard out there for a lot of people. Most people, if you’re not a billionaire, it is tough out there. And people are looking for some type of joy, some type of community — you’re going to have community with other like-minded, beauty-minded people. And to feel like you didn’t have a fair shake at getting some of that joy, I think makes it all the more crushing.

“I ended up making a list of about twenty brands that I really wanted to see, and literally none of them disappointed. Not only were they giving out products, but they were also doing games where you could win more products. Some brands also had some snacks and drinks. Pretty sure there was a brand giving out caviar at one point on top of all the products we got at the booth.”

Not the caviar.

“Like the full-size products — it’s a good deal if you do this fairly.”

“Everybody also got a BÉIS tote bag and luggage.”

Not a BÉIS tote bag. I didn’t even know that. I made a joke about filling up your BÉIS duffel bag earlier, and I literally just said that because — it was actually BÉIS who I did a flash sale for that I was talking about earlier. That’s so funny. I didn’t know they were giving out BÉIS tote bags. I love — not sponsored, but I enjoy — I have enjoyed a bag or two from them, gifted as well.

“The tote bag was also full of products. I saw people dragging all their tote bags on the floor because it was just too heavy to carry. This felt like an Olympic sport. It was the most incredible experience. I ended up giving away about 95% of my product.”

That’s nice. That’s really nice, giving away a bunch of the products. Not a lot of people would do that. And you certainly don’t have to. People paid, and that’s — they’re getting, it seems like, a lot for what they’re paying for. Those products, just like five of those products would wind up being the total of that ticket price, because cosmetic prices are also just insane. What do you mean concealer is like $45? What do you mean?

“I’m just so grateful I got to experience this. I really loved meeting you guys and all the brands. And if you’re wondering if Ulta Beauty World is worth it, the answer is yes.”

My gosh. That’s so much stuff. Now, it sounds like this person is an influencer. I don’t know if she’s told the story about how she got the ticket or not. I can’t remember if she said it at the beginning or at all. But that is so much product, dude. Holy — that’s so much product. Wow.

Now, as you can expect, the product hauls were decked, too. I guess they really did get their money’s worth and then some, with people creating their very own landfills on their hotel beds. No shade.

“Ulta Beauty World 2026 did not disappoint. Here are all the products I got at the booth. A lot of full-size products. Absolutely crazy.”

Now, these masterclass crowds looked like a Coachella mosh pit, but in this chaotic world, it’s also really nice to see some fans really get to enjoy themselves immersed in what they love and bring themselves joy, because I know they worked hard to be able to get these tickets and to be able to afford them — the fans. Especially after they basically went through Hunger Games-level sh*t to get their tickets.

“Well, I was just hoping that I wouldn’t burn to death.”

But of course, some people felt that after all the hard work to get their ticket, it actually wasn’t worth it. Like this creator.

“Number one, you end up carrying like so much sh*t that you physically cannot hold by yourself. You can’t bring in your own bags or roller bags. You have to purchase the roller bags from Ulta Beauty, which are like 60 bucks. Also, you have the option of shipping boxes back to you filled with product, but one tiny ass box that barely fits anything in it is $35, and you can only order up to five boxes. I purchased the roller bag as well as five shipping boxes, and it was just about like $250. You have to bring a checked bag on the way back because you have so much stuff, you have to pay for that checked bag, and a checked bag is like easily over $100.”

“Number two, while it is very organized, the lines are insane. That brings me to ick number three, which is they kind of make you feel a little awkward because some people get like full-size or nicer products and then other people get barely anything at all. Really randomized.”

“Number four is the celebrities that are there. Honestly, this year there really wasn’t anyone great. And the only big celebrity that I saw was Khloé Kardashian. And it’s not like she did like a meet-and-greet with the fans. It was kind of like she was behind a big velvet rope just taking pictures, and then she took off.”

“I think I’m at ick number five. And that would be the fact that there was like a cheerleading competition going on at the same time of the Ulta convention in the same exact building. So it was just like a complete sh*t show.”

Now that that’s all said and done, there’s one more thing left to do. Get ready for Ulta Beauty World 2027, which is allegedly taking place in Anaheim, California.

So let’s bring it back to Ulta Susp-ool World for a second. Yes, overconsumption is running rampant. We’ve done content on it. And yes, the economy being so crap right now makes it a recipe for people who are just trying to survive and have a few moments of joy more vulnerable to being potentially taken advantage of by big corporations or elite entertainers selling tickets with their scarcity marketing tactics.

What this Susp-ool has truly brought to the surface, at least for me, is that when enough people band together, collective pushback still actually does have the power to shift the conversation, specifically when it comes to big corporations. And I think that ultimately is a net positive for everyone.

Okay, sis. It’s time to step out of the dark waters of the Susp-ool. Grab a towel and dry off. That’s what I got.

What do you think of this story? Let me know your thoughts. I know I presented a couple of different perspectives here. Would love to know what you think.

If you want to hear more stories like this, be sure to subscribe to this channel and tickle the like button for more. Let me know what type of stories you would like me to dip into next.

Quick reminder: I have a brand new full deep-dive Swoop documentary out on my main channel. It is on the Epstein story. It is not graphic. We do not get into the graphic detail. I wanted to make the story as accessible as possible. I know there are a lot of people who want to learn about what’s going on in that whole thing but don’t want to get triggered. So just know that there’s nothing graphic that we go into. I do not go into any of the main details of things that happened to the survivors, but it is a very supportive piece for survivors as well as digging into this horrific web of co-conspirators that I really think are not being held to account at all — most of them, certainly not in ways that I think the survivors deserve.

So please do give that a watch. Give it a play. Give it a like. Leave a comment on it. Help push it, because it was just so majorly suppressed, and I think it’s one of my most important documentaries that I have done to date. I am so, so, so very proud of it, and my team worked so hard on it. So thank you to everyone for checking that out and for sharing it.

Huge thanks as always to our channel members. I hope you’re enjoying the stickers, and also to our Patreon members. You can join our Patreon community for exclusive access to four more videos per month. That’s four more exclusive, uncensored, unfiltered videos per month. Plus, you’ll get the entire back catalog of videos that are only available on Patreon, including the podcast, extended episodes, all of the stuff that I can’t post here.

You can also, of course, grab your own pieces from the new Susp-ool Season 2 collection. We’ve got the Worthy collection, the Valid ribcage collection. All of these pieces are designed to just help you feel good in life. I love having things on my body that make me feel good, and seeing some positive messaging makes me feel good. So I hope you enjoy that as much as I do.

Of course, you can also follow me on Instagram. I’m trying to be a real — I’m trying to be an influencer, guys. I don’t know if you knew this. Okay. I’ve been a filmmaker and a musician for so long. I’m trying to be an influencer. So that’s what I’m doing on Instagram. I am trying to influence, do influencer-y things, whatever that means. I’m also on Twitter, Blue Sky. All of that’s linked below. I post most often on Instagram. I’m in Instagram Stories like all the time. So yeah, go check that out over there. And that’s also where I announce when a new Swoop video and stuff is coming up.