-Rush
I spend the next hour sitting in the den and watching Peter, Paul and Mary swim around the fish tank and setting up my Instagram profile. It literally took me an hour to figure out how to add details to my profile and add my first post. I snap a picture of the sharks and post it. It feels kind of like mindless busy work, and I wonder how people do this on a daily basis.
I look at Tiger’s profile and scroll down to check out some of his older posts. There are lots of pictures of him with players, a few celebrities and a lot of women including myself. I’m seeing that part of his “brand” is to post a picture with a different woman each time. None of the pictures look authentic. They all feel staged to align with his brand of being the most personable and popular player on the Nighthawks. At least that’s how his publicist said he wants the public to perceive him. Safe and friendly means more endorsement dollars and a carefully crafted social media persona can help attract big money.
I like his most recent post and move onto another profile when my phone rings. It’s Tiger.
“You’re on the ‘gram!”
“How did you know?”
“I can see who likes the posts in real time just like Facebook.”
“Oh.”
“Glad to see you’re moving with the times.”
“I still haven’t figure out how to post a story though.”
“Take a short video of your fish swimming and we’ll post it.”
“Okay.”
I take the video of the sharks and Tiger walks me through how to post the story and add little stickers to it as well. I feel somewhat intelligent after I get it to work.
“I did it!”
“Now because you have no followers, no one will see it so what I can do is share one of your stories so my followers will see it. You’re going to do the same thing you did except tag me in your story.”
“Oh, boy.”
“You can do it.”
I create another story of the fish, tag Tiger’s name, and post it again. Then he explains how he gets a notification that I’ve tagged him and then is asked if he wants to share it on his stories. It sounds very complicated and I don’t totally understand but lo-and-behold I see Peter, Paul and Mary swimming on his stories and something about it is kind of cool.
“Thanks for the tutorial, Tiger.”
“You have a killer aquarium by the way, Mia.”
Ugh, and the lies continue.
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing for the rest of the night?”
“I’m not really sure. Probably just watch a movie or something.”
“You know they’ve got that whole watch party thing now on a lot of streaming channels. We could watch a movie together if you want.”
“Umm–“
“I remember what you said, Mia. No mixing business and pleasure. This is just two friends watching a flick.”
“Okay, any genres you prefer?”
“Action or mafia works for me.”
“Action like a superhero movie?”
