Addicted to Popularity

My thumb swipes at my phone screen with slight irritation and uneasiness. I scroll through my notifications on Instagram, biting my bottom lip from anxiety. Glancing at all of my photos from the previous month, I compare them to my photos from this month.

“Why… Why..?!” I quietly mutter to myself, gritting my teeth. “Why aren’t they getting the amount of likes I usually get!? I didn’t get uglier, nor did the quality of my pictures drop, so what’s wrong!!” I groan, squeezing my hazel colored eyes shut and gripping my long locks of light brown hair. I can feel the gazes of people looking at me, thinking that I’m weird or something, since I’m talking to myself. I just want to turn around and yell at them to focus on their food and drinks; this isn’t a cafe for looking at people who are struggling!! I let go of my hair, since I shouldn’t ruin the soft waves I put in them for future selfies today. “I need those likes, or I won’t be able to live!” I irritatingly take pictures of my latte; it had a beautiful white heart in the middle of the drink. “Will this give me likes..?” Adding a picture filter on the photo to make it appeal to the eye, I post it on my Instagram. “Lunch break is about to end, so I need to get back to work. Being a supervisor of customer service is tough work.” I sigh, and finish my latte before leaving.

Hours pass by, and I manage to get off work at the usual time. I stop in the spotless and quiet lobby of my workplace to check my photo of my latte that I posted earlier. 3,000 likes.. that’s still not enough. I need to have at least 5,000 for a picture of this adorable latte art!! I have 37 thousand followers, what the hell are they doing?! Is it so hard to click on a heart button, and comment something nice?!

I tighten my grip on my phone, looking at the tiles of my workplace in anger. My view gets slightly blurry, as tears fill my eyes. "No, I can't cry at work, even if it's just the lobby!" I quickly walked out before anyone could notice my eyes, and took a deep breath of cold air. The sky was a bright, dazzling orange color, purple and blue closing in on the edges. As I observed the colors and shades of the never ending sky, I feel a sense of familiarity. I ponder, while I stare at the beautiful blurs. "Evan!!" I shout, covering my mouth before I could shout anything more. Evan uses these colors on his pictures a lot, no wonder they seemed so familiar.

Evan is a popular social media celebrity. He does something somewhat similar to what I do. Posting photos on social media, and getting popular from them.

I make my way to my car, unlock the doors and get in. Sitting in the driver's seat, I call Evan. Waiting for Evan to pick up, I look into my side mirror, making sure my makeup still looks nice and presentable. I finally hear a small static noise from my phone instead of the usual ring. "Oh, hey! It's Ellie! Um, have you had dinner yet? I was wondering if you'd like to.."

Before I could finish my sentence, Evan answers happily, "Yeah, of course! Where would you like to meet up?"

Hearing the chipperness in his voice made me smile a little. "Oh really? That's great! I was thinking about Sunny's Diner in about an hour, would that be alright with you?"

"Yeah, I'm down! I'll meet you there!" He responds, and cuts off the line rather quickly.

I smile from the plan making with Evan, but the thought of what I want to ask him brings panic to my heart.

--

I walk in Sunny's Diner, and get waited to a table. Settling down, I drink the water as I wait for my guest. I hear the door jingle, and turn to look who it is. I see a bundle of fluffy, dyed blue hair. There he is! I twist my torso to face him. "Evan, over here!" I call out to him, waving my hand to catch his attention.

"Ah, there you are." Evan laughs, approaching the table. "What's up with the sudden dinner invite? Feeling lonely?" He laughs, sitting down and ruffling his soft strands of hair.