Julia, a vlogger and senior in high school, has a major problem. She can't get away from her school's two most confident, athletic jocks: Patrick and Brent. They're her neighbors, lab partners, and, as of lately, vlog co-stars. To make things worse...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Julia's POV
Parasocial relationships: psychological relationships experienced by fans of a media personality. They're one-sided, easily exploited, and vital to any influencer's success.
If I want to get to 10,000 subscribers by the end of the month, I'll need to establish some more of them. A lot more of them.
I set the camera by my vanity mirror and take a deep breath in.
Ok, Julia Hensley, this is it. Your first vlog of the new school year. Your... sad, lonely, senior year, 500 miles away from anyone you like and without any joy other than your vlogs.
I push the thoughts away and start filming.
"Hello, you beautiful people!" I say with a grin to my 7,986 subscribers.
That sounded so fake. And I'm pretty sure Stella yawned in the background.
I lift up my makeup brushes and hold them to my face. "Right now I am getting ready for my first day of school at Wellington High. It's gonna be..."
Depressing? Miserable? Straight up horrible?
"Great," I say. My mom always says complaining doesn't transfer well in vlogs; of course, that is unless you can turn it into something relatable or a sob story.
I pause and look at myself in the viewfinder for a moment. I've curled my dark brown hair using the curler my channel is sponsored by. I'm wearing a fake tan so my skin looks light brown and like I just stepped off a plane headed back from Maui. My face still looks "natural" right now so my prominent cheekbones, dark brown eyes, and tiny button nose look good, but they'd look even better if the little pimple next to them were covered in some concealer.
I pick up my skin primer. "Let's do this."
***
Twenty minutes of quality content later, I rush down the stairs of my two-story house in full glam. My mom is waiting at the bottom of the stairs in full pissed-off mode.
"Hi, Mom!" I say, showing off my outfit and hoping to break the tension. I'm wearing a simple summer dress that's black and patterned with flowers. I even got it tailored, so it fits my lean body well.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
