Park watched as they all exchanged looks. But it was Park who frowned. “A what?”
He didn’t miss their snickers. He looked to Gift for clarification, but it was Payton who answered.
“An influencer. One of those kids that are, like, famous for being famous on social media,” Payton said.
“What kind of influencer?” Gift asked, narrowing his eyes at Persephone’s tablet. “Her social media profiles are still up?”
Persephone scoffed. “Of course not. That would be morbid as fuck. I used The Wayback Machine.”
“The what?” Dove asked.
Park was glad someone else asked. He was starting to feel his age.
“It’s a web crawler that archives websites and allows you to go back and access a web page as it was on or before a certain date,” Remi said, not even looking up from his phone. “But it’s shit for social media.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Drake sighed. “And why is that, professor?”
Remi flicked his gaze upwards. “Because social media uses dynamic content which fucks with the bots that crawl the internet collecting data.Thatmeans only certain elements will be on The Wayback Machine because of the way it mines and displays the content.”
“So, those videos don’t play?” Luca asked. “It’s just kind of like a screenshot?”
“No, not exactly. The videos don’t play, but I can see certain hashtags and links,” Persephone said. “I also found her Instabio.”
“Her what?” Park asked, already tired.
“It’s like a url where you can list all your social media links. Or any kind of links, I guess. Her parents never deactivated her account, and since it was free, the site just left it up,” Persephone said. “That’s how I found all the links to the products she was hawking.”
“Like what?” Dove asked, leaning in and squinting at the new page Persephone presented.
“Mostly it’s the same stuff. Skincare, make-up brands, clothes from boutique stores. But there was one that was, like, an…outlier.”
She showed them a blown up picture of a pixelated spiral, and beside it were the words Chatterland Adventures.
“What the fuck is Chatterland Adventures?” Dove asked with a snort.
“That’s what we wanted to know,” Lennon said. “So, we looked it up. It’s an online game for, like, little kids to talk to each other using avatars and handles to make it safer.”
“Why is a fifteen-year-old lifestyle influencer pushing a kid’s game?” Luca asked.
“Money?” Morgan asked just as Park asked, “Lifestyle influencer?”
Morgan smirked at him. “Basically, she just spent her days explaining how amazing it was to be rich and hot.”
Payton scoffed. ”Hey, don’t knock it. I personally have half a million followers on TikTok. People come to me all the time trying to sponsor me. If it wasn’t against the rules, I totally would have done it.”
Mos sniffed. “I have over seven hundred thousand followers on Instagram.”
“One point three million, baby,” Drake said with a smirk.
“You’re all hot and rich. Of course, people are gonna follow you,” Remi muttered. “It’s not quite the accomplishment you think it is.”
Drake cooed at him. “What’s the matter? Jealous?”
“That you’re so insecure you have to seek validation from twinks and skanks on the internet to feel better about yourself? No, I think I’m good,” Remi told him, attempting to hide his nerves behind his bored tone. But there was no hiding how flustered Drake made him feel. Park could see it in his body language, the way he compulsively pushed his hair from his eyes and licked his lower lip. Interesting.
“Damn, someone’s in a bad mood today,” Drake muttered. “What’d I do now?”
Remi continued to glare at him. “Like it even matters.”
