Lights. Cameras. Action.
That’s your life––that’s everyone’s life in your world.
You aren’t an actor on the silver screen. You aren’t a prisoner under surveillance. You aren’t even a character in Orwell’s book. You aren’t special, talented, beautiful––you aren’t noteworthy in any way.
But still––a camera watches you. Always on, always vigilant.
You must make sure that you’re always presentable, always appropriate, always perfect. Synthetic, plastic, artificial––that’s all. No emotions, no exceptions. Of course, there’s no real choice in the matter; you wouldn’t have any followers otherwise. You wouldn’t have any purpose in your life. No followers equal no life. Simple mathematics.
There’s always a bevy of men or women or children, watching you.
Watching you from their beds. Watching you from their coach. Watching you with popcorn in their mouths, empty margarita glasses in their hands. Watching your every move.
You aren’t particularly interesting to the mainstream, but you do have a comfortable niche audience (around 5000 followers). Because of this, you can’t afford luxury but you’re well off.
Usually, you try to focus on your job––entertaining watchers around the world. Your income, status, likability, sanity––everything depends on it. Everything depends on your follower count. Everything depends on the number of views. Without any followers, any views, any watchers, you’ll start to implicitly equate yourself with Bes. Oh God, Bes. She’s fat. She doesn’t have any watchers, obviously. She doesn’t have any friends (why would anyone want a friend with zero followers, right?). She doesn’t even have a boyfriend––every suitor you know of has a minimum requirement of a thousand followers before even considering courtship.
You open your computer to check your comments feed; there’s a barrage of questions and feedback.
You are the hottest girl in the world, reads one but you don’t bat an eyelash––you already knew. Another reads, You need a bit of liposuction. Your belly is starting to show.
You close the laptop and rummage through your purse, looking for Dr. Cameron’s business card.
Anything for your followers.