Fifteen-year-oldBecca questions the influencer life that supports her family when an unexpectedfriendship in an online writing community challenges her to step into the'real' life she craves.Becca has beenonline influencer since she helped make promotional baking videos for her mom’spatisserie as a toddler. Now at fifteen, cutting online comments remind Beccashe is no longer the cute flour-covered kid her followers first subscribed to.Her business-driven manager fuels Becca’s self-doubt by pressuring her torebrand to a health and weight-conscious influencer. Becca vents herfrustration in her poetry journal, questioning if the online life is worthsacrificing real friendships. A teacherencourages Becca to sign up to the online writing community Poet’s Portal andthere she meets @notmylife, another poster feeling trapped by familyexpectations. Becca and @notmylife confide in each other without giving awaytheir identities and Becca feels like she has finally met someone who reallyunderstands her. When the two win a writing contest with their verse story'Your dream not mine,' they receive entry to a writing workshop. Becca and@notmylife agree to meet in person before the workshop. But Becca’s manager hasbooked her for a TV show on the same day as the workshop. Becca is torn as herinfluencer work supports her whole family. Now, she has to decide between theonline life that’s never been her dream and the real-world connection she sodesperately craves.With teensincreasingly aspiring to become online influencers, Like, Comment,Subscribe? aims to show the less glamorous side of the influencinglifestyle, particularly when the decision to be thrust in front of the camerais not made by themselves.Rhiza Shorts are teen novellas for reluctant readers.
