People LIke Her(58)
Well, it turns out that little blue tick means a big fat nothing.
As soon as we found out about the RP account, Irene contacted Instagram directly, thinking the fact that I’m verified, that I earn them money with my paid partnerships and #ads, would lend some urgency to the request. I thought the fact that it was horrible and distressing, and made my skin crawl every time I looked at it, would prompt them to act. We hoped the account would instantly be taken down when she explained all of this, first via email and then in an increasingly irate series of voicemails to the head of influencer relations, that the photos had been stolen and that the content was, quite frankly, threatening.
They didn’t do anything. They didn’t even respond.
Irene didn’t seem to think I should put much faith in the police being able to help either. Sure, the poster could be the person who stole the laptop, she said, but the police had no leads on who that was. And wasn’t it just as likely that someone had hacked into the Cloud and harvested them from there? The overlapping portion on the Venn diagram between lonely, creepy stalker and very good at computer things was pretty bloody large. And anyway, I put pictures of my family online for a living; followers saved them, shared them, screenshotted them, printed them out and turned them into an elaborate shrine, for all we knew—how sympathetic would the police be to my complaints that these were just the wrong photos?
She was missing the point, of course. The bottom line was, whoever stole those photos is obsessed enough with us to elbow their way into our lives. Not a faceless troll or nameless hater: an actual human being who has publicly commandeered my real-life family, our private memories, as their own.
The only way I can stop feeling queasy about the whole thing is to remind myself that anyone with a public profile will find something unpleasant about themselves if they go raking through the internet for it. For all I know, the kids of every single Instamum I’ve ever met could have an RP account dedicated to them—I’m just unlucky enough to know about mine.
“Try not to think about it,” says Irene, leaning across the back seat of the cab to pat me on the knee. “This might cheer you up: the BBC Three producers called yesterday to say they’re close to a decision. They said your story really moved them, so I have a feeling the job might be yours.”
We’re greeted at the recording studio by Hero Blythe, a feminist Instagram poet and the presenter of Heavy Flow, a period-focused podcast. She is an extremely pretty, waifish blonde, wearing a white head scarf and tasseled green kaftan over a white crop top and cutoff denim flares, wafting a bunch of smoldering sage leaves around the place.
“Well, hello, you supernova of a woman! This is just to welcome and cleanse.” She gestures to her stinking fire hazard as she ushers us into a soundproof room where Hannah, Bella, Suzy, and Sara are already in their seats in front of giant microphones. “I’m just going to get us all some raspberry leaf tea, then we’ll be ready to start.”
I take a seat in between Suzy and Sara, and take a moment—as I do whenever I am about to record anything—to put all my distractions, all my personal problems and worries and fears to one side and focus for the next half an hour on the job in hand. One of the very few useful things my mother taught me, apart from how to mix a mean martini, is how to put on a brave face.
The way she does it, she once told me, is literally to picture a box in her head and all the things she doesn’t want to think about she just puts in there, and then she forces the lid down, plasters a smile on her face, and gets on with it.
“Are you sure that’s healthy?” I asked her once. “What happens when the box gets full? What happens when there are things you can’t fit in it?”
Her answer was to imagine a bigger box.
Hero wafts back in with a tray of steaming #yaydays mugs. “Shall we hit record?”
I give her the thumbs-up.
“Welcome, blood sisters and regular listeners,” she says, gesturing for us all to hold hands. “This week’s edition of Heavy Flow is sponsored, as always, by Goddess Goblets, the world’s most eco-friendly way of embracing your monthly blessing. These miraculous moon cups for women who truly care about the planet are available in four colorways, including a new, limited-edition rose gold, and are totally dishwasher safe.
“Today I have with me a group of game-changing mamas who are everything. Seriously, you are all just heroes, redefining what it means to be a modern mother. Before we start, I’d like to share with you a poem I’ve written called The Blood of Creation.” She presses pause briefly. “I prerecorded that from the bathroom because of the acoustics, so I’ll add that in later,” she explains.
Irene looks like she wants to suffocate herself with a moon cup.
“Now, ladies, first question: Can you talk me through your first-ever period?” Hero asks earnestly.
Sara, the_hackney_mum, almost springs off her chair. “I’m so lucky that I had a wise mother who always taught me that periods were a woman’s gift from the universe. That my womb is a garden where human life grows and that every month my menses were simply watering its flowers. So when it arrived, when I was eleven, she threw me a period party, celebrating with a flower-arranging class. Isolde is nearly that age now, and we are already planning hers, although we’ll be making flower crowns.”
Utter rubbish, of course. Like everyone else’s mother in the nineties, Sara’s mum had handed her a pack of those terrible sanitary pads with a single stripe of glue down the middle and all the absorbency of an umbrella, and told her she shouldn’t go swimming that week. Still, Tampax has lapped it up, and as soon as poor Isolde starts bleeding, she is lined up for an #ad and a photo shoot in a white dress with a load of red roses on her head. I suppose she should just be grateful she doesn’t have to roller-skate down a beach in Lycra.