“Oh, you know who I’m talking about. She calls herself Vicarious or something.” Mom goes to the computer in our kitchen and opens a browser to her Facebook page, scrolling down and then leaning back so I can see it from where I’m sitting at the kitchen island. “Just add some crazy sunglasses and an armful of bracelets and you’re a dead ringer.”
I slide off my stool and walk closer, peering over her shoulder. There’s Vicurious riding the hippogriff with Harry. One of my mother’s friends posted a link to my Instagram on her Facebook page, adding:
I’ve always wanted to do this! Go Vicurious!
Mom turns back to the picture, clicking to enlarge it. She studies it a minute, looks up at me, then back at the screen. “You know . . . ,” she says, turning to face me again.
She recognizes me. I lean to brace myself against the back of a chair, wait for the dizziness that usually comes in moments like this. But, oddly, I don’t feel it. I feel relieved, like I can finally let my guard down.
“I’m . . .” I start to say it, I’m Vicurious, but I can’t. I need her to say it, to see me. To finally #SEEME.
Mom’s eyebrows crunch together as she studies my face. She’s visualizing me with the wig and the sunglasses, the lipstick. I’m sure of it. Vicurious almost always smiles, so I smile for my mother. So she’ll know it’s me. Mom, it’s me.
But she just smiles softly, then turns back to the computer. “You really pegged her. It’s a shame you can’t wear that costume to a party.”
“Yeah. Shame,” I mumble. “Guess I’ll never be her.”
Mom shrugs. “Maybe next year.”
I retreat to my room, my whole body trembling now. It’s exactly what I wanted, right? To disappear. Lose myself. Leave Vicky behind and experience life as someone else entirely. And I’ve done it. I’ve really done it.
Yet I haven’t been online in days. I’ve ignored Vicurious completely, haven’t even charged my phone.
I sit at my desk. Open my computer. Log in to Instagram. And with a few clicks, I find my way back to her. I don’t care how many followers she has. I’m not going to chase followers again. I just need a place to escape myself. A place . . .
My eyes don’t seek it out, but the number of followers is right at the top of the page and . . .
I can’t even . . .
I lower my head between my knees to stop from hyperventilating. And hallucinating. Because I’m pretty sure I’m seeing things now. I catch my breath and the blood returns to my head. I sit up again. Open my eyes. And there it is.
264k
followers
That’s . . . not possible. It has to be some kind of glitch. I click through all my posts, scan the comments, try to figure out what’s happening. How did I go from 14,000 followers to more than a quarter million in six days?
A quarter million.
I Google “Vicurious,” and what comes up is crazy. There’s so much. First is my Instagram. Then a Twitter account, which I never set up. I click on it, and see that someone has posted a screenshot of my user photo as their icon, and is tweeting all my Instagram posts. She has 23,420 followers.
I click back to the Google search window. Next is a link to a YouTube video titled, “OMG Best Instagram Ever.” It has 437,258 views. It’s posted by . . . oh my God. It’s Rhyming Rhea! I’ve been watching her channel for years, since she started it when she was fifteen and I was twelve. She’s this wild, redheaded girl from England who does everything in rhyme. Sometimes she gets all Shakespeare-like, and other times she raps or makes really simplistic poems about whatever is on her mind. She has 2.1 million followers now. The description for the video says, simply, “Vicurious!”
I press a trembling finger to the play arrow and hold my breath.
She’s wearing footie pajamas. She says, “Hello, sweeties!” in her British accent, sounding just like that lady from Doctor Who. Then a beatbox track starts, and her head is jutting side to side to the beat.
“Today I’m in my jim-jams,
hanging with the Instagrams,
saw this girl, said what is THIS?
She calls herself Vicurious . . .”
A little picture box pops up in the bottom right corner with posts from my Instagram.
“Check out her fuzzy sock cocoon,
hey baby do you want to spoon?
Or ride a spaceship to the moon
with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Swoon!”
She tips her head back like she’s fainting. I watch, mesmerized, as she raps her way through almost all of my posts, rhyming “Where’s Waldo” with “crazy hairdo” and “hippogriff” with “Pope Francis.” When the rhyming ends, she does a little bow. But it’s not over. The video cuts to her, still in pajamas, sitting in front of the camera and talking right into the lens. No rhyming.
“If you’ve been watching my videos for a while,” she says, “you know I suffer from depression sometimes. I talk about it, probably too much. Sorry ’bout that. You understand, though. Right?” She pauses as if waiting for her audience to answer. And I guess we do, because she says, “Thanks, loves. You’re the best. I take medicine that helps, and you guys help me a lot, too. But sometimes I just want to escape my life and be someone else, go somewhere else.”
She raises her hands in a calming gesture. “Not permanently, loves. Just for an hour or an afternoon. That’s why I like this girl so much. I mean, how many times have you seen a photo and thought, Aw, man, I wish I could do that. I’m so jealous. I want to be there. I want to feel that. So, she does! She does all this crazy stuff and, spoiler alert, it’s not real. We all know it’s not real. But it’s soooo fun to pretend and imagine, and I love it. I just love it.
“But that’s not even the best part,” she continues. “The best part is, if her followers tell her they’re depressed or alone, she’s there for them. She’s like, Hey, I see you. You’re not alone. I’m here for you. It’s really great. I’m a fan. Check her out.”
She puts her fingertips to her lips and blows another kiss to the camera, and says, “Love you, Vicurious.”
I watch the whole thing again. And again. My heart is pounding. I keep looking over my shoulder, thinking it must be some kind of prank. Half a million people have watched this video, and half of those people have followed me. It’s insane. All I’m doing is Photoshopping myself into pictures! Anybody could do it with a few tutorials and a little practice. It’s not that special.
I read the comments below the video, of which there are hundreds. They say things like:
OMG I LOVE HER.
Thanks. I needed this.
Sometimes the fantasy is all I have to get through the day.
Glad I’m not alone. Or am I? Damn. I am.
And then a dozen people leave comments telling that last person she’s not alone. It’s like a big group hug.
I spend an hour catching up on some of Rhyming Rhea’s videos that I’ve missed in the last couple of weeks, and rewatching my old favorites. She raps about books and music and her favorite shows, but also everyday stuff like doing homework or her “mum” driving her crazy. She raps about depression, too. “Don’t believe the lies it tells, that no one loves you, no one cares . . .”