Project Equality

Be Mine

Hazel

When I became the "social media manager" of Club, it was kind of an accident. I'm charismatic, so it was more of being able to grow our following base and help out the people starting their own Clubs. Of my many talents, technology is not one of them. Sofia, on the other hand, knew everything about everything. She was great with people, great with computers, and just great. I felt less like a mentor and more like a supervisor.

"Here is the new Tumblr theme for February," she said, turning her laptop to me. "Good enough for Jenna Louise Sterling?"

"It's lovely," I replied. It was certainly better than anything I'd ever done.

"But there's more!"

"Of course there is."

"It's animated." Sure enough, it started moving as a GIF.

"That's very impressive," I told her.

"You don't look impressed. You actually look disappointed. Is something wrong? Are the pride hearts too much?"

"What? No, they're lovely, Sofia." I tried to smile, but I was too overwhelmed by my own feelings of inadequacy.

"Then is it me? Do you not like me? Am I the wrong person for this position?"

"That's absurd. You're perfect for the job. I've just come to realize that I am not," I admitted. "I'm supposed to be your mentor, but you're better than me in every way. I feel like I've learned more from you than you have from me."

"My dad writes software for a living," she said. "He's the one who taught me how to code, ever since I was younger. I can teach you, if you want, but your skill has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with your ability to bring people together, and to do it through this. Soon, we will be building a website. Those will require my technical skills, of course, but I still need to learn what it is that draws people in. How do I format this so that people will get the help they're seeking?"

"Uh, hashtags?" I replied. "It's how we organize our Tumblr. Instead of reblogging, we hit the like, but that's it. Then, our dash stays organized. We organize it further by tagging according to the category of the post."

"And that's how it reaches so many people?"

"Well, that, and we all reblog onto our personal accounts. You had to have known that?"

"No, that's never come up. I thought it was making it look a certain way."

"Not at all. I mean, kind of, but that's not the whole thing. Mostly, it's just a really strategic game of telephone."

"So, I'm over complicating this?"

"Maybe," I laughed. "Come on. Let's head to Jenna's for the admin meeting. We have big party plans to discuss, I believe."

"Ah yes. The Valentine's party, that isn't happening on Valentine's Day," she recalled as she got into my car. "Why is that?"

"So that we can keep our dates, I presume. It's more about the symbolism."

"How's that?"

"Well, back in freshman year, most of us were single, so we sat in my house, moping about. I had a thing for a fictional character called Abby, and a very real girl called Lauren. Ami liked Jacob, May liked Lisa, and Jenna wished her moirail was with her and not her bad boy boyfriend."

"Wait, isn't Ami dating Jacob, and May dating Lisa?"

"Funny how it all panned out. And I'm dating Abby." Seeing the confusion on her face, I explained, "Andrea. She's the person Rose based Abby on. She's even better as a real person, actually. We've been together almost two years."