Like, Comment, Subscribe?

Fifteen-year-old
Becca questions the influencer life that supports her family when an unexpected
friendship in an online writing community challenges her to step into the
’real’ life she craves.

Becca has been
online influencer since she helped make promotional baking videos for her mom’s
patisserie as a toddler. Now at fifteen, cutting online comments remind Becca
she is no longer the cute flour-covered kid her followers first subscribed to.
Her business-driven manager fuels Becca’s self-doubt by pressuring her to
rebrand to a health and weight-conscious influencer. Becca vents her
frustration in her poetry journal, questioning if the online life is worth
sacrificing real friendships.

A teacher
encourages Becca to sign up to the online writing community Poet’s Portal and
there she meets @notmylife, another poster feeling trapped by family
expectations. Becca and @notmylife confide in each other without giving away
their identities and Becca feels like she has finally met someone who really
understands her. When the two win a writing contest with their verse story
’Your dream not mine, ’ they receive entry to a writing workshop.

Becca and
@notmylife agree to meet in person before the workshop. But Becca’s manager has
booked her for a TV show on the same day as the workshop. Becca is torn as her
influencer work supports her whole family. Now, she has to decide between the
online life that’s never been her dream and the real-world connection she so
desperately craves.

With teens
increasingly aspiring to become online influencers, Like, Comment,
Subscribe? aims to show the less glamorous side of the influencing
lifestyle, particularly when the decision to be thrust in front of the camera
is not made by themselves.
Rhiza Shorts are teen novellas for reluctant readers.