After a few minutes, Wesley moved his seat closer to me. I smiled at him and returned my attention to the television. We spent the next two hours, like that, side by side, watching SpongeBob. He knew almost every word, sang along with the songs, and laughed at the top of his lungs at the obvious jokes, though he missed some of the more adult ones.
It was the most fun I had that week.
17
#sponsoredad
EMMA
The brands, Vidal taught me, were the key. The three F’s (fame, fortune, and followers) only worked if you had the fortune to create the life interesting enough to grow the other two legs of the table. And the money came from the brands. When we were lucky, they helped with exposure too.
We created a list of three hundred potentials. Half of the list were brands I genuinely liked and used — from toothpaste to hair products to soda. The second half were brands that were attainable. I looked down the second list. “I haven’t heard of any of these.”
“No one has,” Vidal snipped. “But their ad budgets are limited to micro-influencers, so that makes them of interest to us.”
“Can’t I just do energy drinks and teeth whiteners?”
He put down his pen and linked his long tan fingers together, looking at me with an expression befitting of world trade talks and not lipstick and bathing suit accessory lines. “Listen to me very carefully, Emma. Every brand that you align yourself with tells the world something about you. And in this world you are only allowed to make a mistake once or twice before you die.”
“Before I die?” I laughed.
“Die.” He put air quotes around the world. “Lose relevance. Drop followers. Cease to exist in the public awareness.”
That was how serious he took it. How serious every fame-chaser in Los Angeles took it. I looked back at the list and shrugged. “Fine. Whatever.”
I don’t know how Vidal did it, but I made three thousand dollars that month, spread over fourteen posts. I posed at the Santa Monica Pier, holding an ice cream cone from Eddie’s Creamery. I tucked my hair behind my ear and displayed a bracelet made by Erica Saint. I kicked a pair of fourteen hundred dollar heels up on a theater seat while holding a popcorn bag, the theater location and account tagged. All for baby paychecks, which Vidal said didn’t matter—not at this stage. What mattered was the pipeline we were creating. The social proof. The baseline of engagement that we could measure and then start to grow.
I spent that three grand on a camera and backdrop and converted the long wall in my living room into a set. And there, under the demanding eye of Vidal, I filmed my first live stream.
18
#nofilter
EMMA: 72,440 FOLLOWERS
That first broadcast was scathing. I’ll be the first to admit it. I took all my pent-up emotions of Cash and dunked them in acid, then spewed them onto the screen. I talked about his mother. His lack of job. His attempt to connect with commoners when we all know he was born with everything. I even told them what he said to me on our date. My voice—on that part of the video—trembles a little bit. No one caught it then, but later, once I had fangirls and the documentary and a giant microscope perched above my head… that line was dissected. Ran through voice analyzation programs. My slight hitch of breath was turned into a Jonah Whale of emotional blubber.
“Easy,” he had said, leaning close into me so that no one else would hear. “Your white trash is showing.”
That… that stupid line is why I was able to do it. His tone was what fueled every horrible thing I said about him. Just thinking about that line, and even now—my skin gets hot. I feel like a failure. I’m taken right back to every moment in my childhood where I was picked on. Laughed at. Pushed down a ramp and onto my knees in the dirt. Ridiculed for having the same pair of tennis shoes two years in a row, or having to eat a peanut butter sandwich every day at lunch because my parents hadn’t paid my lunch account. I was, and still am, white trash. And Cash Mitchell taught me that hearing the truth hurts the worst.
The only thing I didn’t mention in that video was Wesley. And that night, after it was posted, and after the views and followers started to tick into ridiculous and unimaginable numbers, I drove out to the Ranch and shared a bucket of strawberry ice cream with him. Not because I was a good person, but because I was bad. I knew making that video was wrong, but I willingly stepped over that line, desperate for another splash of attention.
I wasn’t a good person, but Wesley couldn’t tell.
“Her first show is still online—you can watch it in the archives of her site. It was back when she always filmed in front of that blue backdrop, where all you focused on was her. And she was pretty, you know—but nothing special. I remember almost turning her off once. But that was the thing about Emma, you couldn’t turn her off—because you never knew what she was going to say. She was ruthless about people, but it was all true. It was all that horrible stuff that you think about people, but you don’t voice, because oh-my-god you’d get murdered. But she didn’t care. And that first video was about Cash Mitchell, OF COURSE. Which, I guess made sense, because back then, the only followers she really had were from that date with him. So anyway, that’s what that video is. Fourteen minutes where she dissects him and… it’s rough. Like, really cruel. But it’s also hilarious. See, the thing is, she’s funny. Like, seriously funny. Even if you hate her when you’re laughing.”
Dan Robbins, The Hollywood Reporter
20
#CashMitchellOfficial
CASH
My team hated that video and its title. It was called Why You Don’t Want to Date Cash Mitchell. We all knew what it was—a pathetic attempt at attention, just like our first date had been—but the public didn’t know that. I lost almost two million followers when that video went viral. It was the white trash comment that really got everyone enflamed.
And okay, so I shouldn’t have said it. But she had accused me of ignoring Wesley, of being ashamed of him. Screw that. I love my brother more than anything on this planet. If she’d been a man, I would have punched her. Instead, I hit out with the only thing I had. I could tell that she didn’t come from money. So I said it. And I’d like to say I regret it, but when I think about what she said about Wesley—I don’t.
My manager wanted me to reach out to Emma, to apologize to her. That was never going to happen, and I told him that. I’m not sure how the MTV Movie Awards thing happened, but I’m pretty sure it was a joint event between my camp and hers. They all knew what was about to happen, but I didn’t. Maybe she did. All I knew is that I walked into that theater clueless. And there she was, standing alone on the red carpet, in a dress that could take a man’s breath away.
There were a series of gossip posts over the years that described the type of girl I liked. Like… a Breakdown of Cash Mitchell’s Dream Girl or… 5 Hollywood Starlets Cash is Dying to Date. And they were always the same. Polished and perfect porcelain dolls, the kind you tripped over daily in Beverly Hills. But the journalists had it all wrong. Just because I’d dated women like that didn’t mean that they were my ideal—they were just the most common occurrence in my world. Emma was different. I meant what I said to her at my party—she was beautiful. Raw. Wild. Untamed. You don’t see a woman like that and forget her. And that night of the movie awards, she was stunning.