In a country with one of the highest rates of murder of journalists, content-creators and influencers are also becoming targets, especially if they criticize the bosses of organized crime.
Translated from the Spanish by Mike Gatehouse
Many of us witnessed, during a live transmission on social media, the assassination of Valeria Márquez, a young model, businesswoman and content-creator, on Tuesday 13 May in Zapopan, Jalisco.
The murder scene has been shared again and again by users on different platforms. The 23-year-old woman, holding in her arms a pink fluffy piglet, falls forward onto her desk after being shot twice, in the chest and in the head.
The camera shows only Márquez in the foreground. The model had turned off her microphone while accepting from a courier what she had been told was a parcel containing ‘something really expensive’. So the shots are not heard, and her attacker is not seen. What we do see is a woman who after the event turns off her camera as if this were a film or a television programme and not a murder happening in real time.
With all the information available on social media, internet users began to invent theories about the circumstances of the murder, sometimes identifying possible perpetrators: a female friend, her ex-partner, someone involved in organized crime. This was all speculation about a murder carried out in full public view, where social media users were witnesses to a crime, and took on themselves the duties of a police investigation.
Videos previously recorded by the young woman were discovered by internet users and shared afresh. Some reflect an ostentatious lifestyle, in others she speaks about her daily life, live on camera, talking with no shame about the cosmetic surgery she has undergone, answering her followers’ questions, sharing every minute of her life, her nights of partying, her plans, her worries, her romantic situation… – just as nowadays thousands of content creators do.
While the authorities continue with the investigation, treating it as a femicide – the murder of a woman because she is a woman – a song is already circulating on the internet called the ‘Corrido of Valeria Márquez’ (the ballad of Valeria Márquez) – corridos being ballads which specifically recount the life and death of a well-known figure.
‘Zapopan is mourning/there is another cross to weep by/they have killed an influencer called Valeria Márquez/as she was recording a live stream/and they killed her with three bullets that found their target.’
Although there are no statistics which record the number of content-creators killed in Mexico, press reports have documented at least 15 such murders in the last eight years, some of them likely linked to organized crime.
Of these murders, seven took place in the state of Sinaloa, two in Guerrero, one in Jalisco, two in Baja California, one in Nuevo León, one in México City, and one in Oaxaca.
Six content creators in Sinaloa state were murdered during an internal war which broke out in September 2024 between Los Chapitos and La Mayiza, two of the most important factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Juan Luis Rosales was shot 17 times in a bar. Video: Ava Gordy, What’s Trending.
Most of these murders are yet to be cleared up. One of the most notorious cases was the 2017 murder of 17-year-old Juan Luis Lagunas, ‘El Pirata de Culiacán’, who some months before his death had insulted, on video, Nemesio Oseguera, alias ‘El Mencho’, leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel.
On 5 February 2018 in Acapulco, Guerrero State, Pamela Montenegro, known as ‘Nana Pelucas’ (‘Granny wigs’) was murdered after she was threatened for her comments about politicians and organized crime.
In May 2023 Kevin Kaletry was shot in the head and killed while filming at a hotel in Colonia Condesa in Mexico City; in June 2024 Rafael Lazcano Rosales, alias ‘El Peinadito’ (‘smarm-hair’) was murdered in Culiacán, Sinaloa; in October 2024, Cindy Elizabeth Hernández Pérez was found dead in her flat with gunshot wounds; José Carlos González Herrera was gunned down while transmitting live from a market; Leovardo Aispurio Soto ‘El gordo Peruci’ was shot and killed in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
One of the few murders to be cleared up is that of the 27-year-old YouTuber Mariela Saidí ‘Marielita’, which happened in 2019 in Oaxaca state. The crime was designated a femicide and her ex-partner José Domingo M. was found guilty and sentenced to 73 years in prison.
While official figures show that in the first 100 days of the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the number of femicides in Mexico fell by 26.5 per cent, data from the Citizens’ National Register of Femicide suggest that there are still around 1,500 femicides annually in our country.
172 journalists have been murdered in Mexico in the last 20 years.
The killings of content creators are taking place in a country which has one of the highest number of journalists murdered. According to the organization Artículo 19, 172 journalists have been murdered in Mexico in the last 20 years.
Some content creators are also journalists, but many of them share their output on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or YouTube. Their output is not necessarily news journalism, but covers the various themes in which they specialize. They are called ‘influencers’ because supposedly they can influence the decisions made by their followers.
It is estimated that there are around 670,000 Mexican influencers on Instagram and 11,000 on YouTube. A study by Doctor Mauricio Flores Gerónimo from the Universidad Iberoamericana shows that 350 Mexican influencers on TikTok have between them over one million followers.
