Charm/Offensive

Charm/Offensive [01/01]

Hey there, lovelies!

I'm waving like a performing idiot. I used to think that intro was cute. My name is Hannah Love, you see. 297 videos later, I can barely keep the contempt from my voice, and the vomit from escaping my gullet.

Over two-and-a-half million people will receive an email in the next few minutes, notifying them that my video is now live. This week, they will be treated to ten minutes of hair tutorials, very tenuously based around Freshers' Week. I've waxed lyrical about my own, purely fictional, Freshers' Week experience; cute boys, cheap drinks, dodgy takeaways, and contracting a cold from one of my many suitors. In reality, I spent most of the week in my room, mainly sober, nervously waiting for anyone to knock on the door, whilst my new housemates forgot there was someone living in 3B.

The isolation I felt at university was actually what led me to start creating videos. I found online what I couldn't seem to grasp in real life; friendship. It was amazing to discover people just like me; shy, awkward, and funny in their own way. Over time, virtual relationships became analogue, and a core collective was born. We played out our human experience over videos and tweets and heavily edited photos. Our audience, a trickle at first, became an explosion. Suddenly, we were the most famous people you've never heard of. It has been overwhelming, to put it mildly.

I've tweeted the link to the new video. Within moments, hundreds of replies begin to roll in. Several of them are barking 'FIRST!'; I don't have the heart to point out that the first comment actually came from a bot linking to supposedly illicit images of their favourite online stars. My friend Geo and I once allowed curiosity to overcome us, and we clicked one of those links. It was horrifying from a photo editing perspective, but hilarious to uncover how my unnervingly pale head would look on an olive-skinned naked body. I'm a committed feminist, so the objectification of any woman pains me, but solely for comic value I hope the creator of that site is receiving some kind of peer recognition.

The screen of my standard-issue iPhone illuminates. It's a text from my manager, Matt.

Good job on the new video, Han. Let's try to get the view count up on this one! You know what to do 😉 Matt xxx

Thanks, Matt. What an absolute winking-face prick. I certainly know what to do; tweet the shit out of the video, maybe call a few friends, blackmail a couple of colleagues, enlist the Mafia, sell my soul to Beelzebub himself. Too late on the latter. I have made the transaction, and the buyer was Matt.

I haven't always been so cynical. When I signed to Charm Digital, the brainchild of Matt and his cousin Tara, the courtship and honeymoon were blissful. I had amassed a committed audience of 300,000 in two years, which drew the attention of Charm's pack of talent scouts, whose behaviour still reminds me of hungry bloodhounds. Within a few weeks, I became caught in a whirlwind of telephone calls, expensive gifts, movie premieres, emails, promises of unbelievable wealth, more telephone calls, a bouquet of balloons, long discussions with my parents, a further flurry of frantic phone calls, and finally, my signature on the dotted line of a contract. I kept the pen and the little index markers instructing me where to make my mark.

In the following months, I became a brand. The page header I had lovingly created in Paint, many moons ago, was replaced by a pastel monstrosity, created by someone called a 'Digital Design Visionary'. Like, that is their actual job title. DDV. More like DIV, ya get me? It wasn't just the header that needed a makeover, according to Tara. During one meeting, she walked over to me, her boots clicking against the wooden floors like a pair of horseshoes, and swept my full fringe to the side. Much better, she said through gritted, frighteningly luminous teeth. And so it became a permanent fixture. My own teeth were soon bleached Day-Glo white, and all my social media were somehow purged of barefaced selfies, dodgy outfits, and winter weight gain. Many of my old videos were deleted. It was equally rejuvenating and terrifying.