Ellen50

The picture taking of it all takes forty-five minutes and the result is 114 new images in my phone’s my photo library. Half of these can be selected without a second thought and discarded to the delete folder, where they will sit in digital limbo with 567 other rejects until I do a mass ‘Delete all’. The instant rejects are mostly due to the following culprits: blurriness, squinted eyes, a finger slipping over the camera, lips parted mid-sentence as I suggest another angle.

The shortlisting takes a little more time and care. This is where I narrow them down to about 30 shots that have potential. I don’t delete any of these, in case I change my mind or decide that none are good enough for a single-shot post but could potentially be included in a month end ‘dump’, where I collate the best pictures from any time (they could be from a year ago) that most importantly give the air of being un-curated; a breezily thrown-together collection of stories that make up the larger sum of what I want my life to be, how I want people to see me, what people can aspire to.

This time, I think I have a shot that will be good enough to be a single picture post. When I’ve whittled them down to five I take them to a separate editing app where I tweak brightness, blur my acne scars, do a few other little tricks of the trade and compare each one until I start to disassociate and they become one amorphous blob of a human and I have to look at something else for a while (usually TikToks) so I can come back with ‘fresh eyes’.

I do the Sally test. I imagine I am a fourteen-year-old girl in the American Midwest flicking through social media between her calculus and history classes and I consider how she will see the picture, what she will think of it and whether she will like it. As in physically 'like' it. I will unashamedly take a hate-like over genuine admiration. I wonder if she will comment ‘Gorge!’ and then get on with her day.

When I have chosen the picture that I think Sally will like best I pick a prewritten caption from the locked list on my notes app that fits the vibe of the photo, do a final bit of in-app editing, tag our holiday location and where I got my dress, put a trending TikTok song over the top and then schedule it to be posted at a time when it will get the most traffic. Now me and my boyfriend, who graciously moonlights as my photographer, can go out for dinner.

It’s the last night of our holiday in Sorrento; we've spent a week in a compact but pretty villa a twenty-minute walk to the beach. I wanted to go to Capri but we couldn’t afford it- I was making a little money doing this but was still being referred to by brands as a ‘micro content creator’, an MCC in the emails. I don’t have a manager yet and still have a full-time job as a dental nurse. Dan, my boyfriend, is as an electrician. We just put a deposit down on a nice one bed flat and are careening towards thirty. I still want more.

“I want to be a medium creator before July.” I tell Dan over a frosted glass of Aperol Spritz, my lipstick slightly smudged because it is my fourth of the evening and I’ve been dieting for the holiday and have slid into a light and effervescent mood. He is being extra charming and agreeable with me, and I know it’s because I so rarely allow myself to get loose nowadays. I wasn’t the carefree twenty-two-year-old he’d met when we got together.

We used to sit in pubs for six hours a night with friends, drinking Bacardi cokes and passing cigarettes back and forth before taking a greasy kebab home and abandoning it to have sex on the kitchen island. We ordered Chinese takeaways on a Sunday or Dominoes on a Tuesday, for the cheap deals. I could shoot three sambuca in a row without flinching, it was my party trick. On his twenty-fifth birthday we’d had a blazing row over an inflatable penis I’d stolen from a hen party and run around Soho bopping unsuspecting people on the head with it.

Now my days were more rigid, like a coiled metal spring. I tracked calories to ensure I was always in a deficit, ate an ungodly amount of Greek yoghurt and took vitamin supplements. I went to an expensive Pilates studio to harden my body and take pictures in the flattering glow of the purple lighting. I boiled chicken and broccoli and we had sex a couple of times a month, quietly and purposefully.

I spent my money on eyebrow threading, full body waxing, eyelash extensions, acrylic nails, laser for my acne scarring, hair extensions, hair highlights, hair growth supplements, teeth whitening, fake tan, facials, make-up, face washes and serums and moisturisers, hair masks and lip masks and foot masks and a red LED light mask that made me look like a salonified Darth Vader. I had lip filler every few months and biannual baby Botox. Dan had a three in one soap he used in the shower.

The day I got my first brand deal I squealed so loud Dan had run into our bedroom, worried. It was for a hair product you put in the ends to make it look ‘full of life’. I’d slathered the greasy, coconut and mango smelling oil into my hair, blow dried it and thought it looked no different. I took a picture, edited it so my hair was fuller and espoused its benefits in the caption of a post with #ad written at the end. I felt like I’d made it.

Now, I got sent PR packages from smaller companies just starting out, and some bigger names. Companies are all using social media as their foremost form of advertising now, and we are their models. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship and everyone is happy. When I was given my first discount code that my followers could input at checkout for 50% off, that in the email was written as YOURFIRSTNAME50, it felt like the next rung on the ladder I was scampering up.

Ellen50. I’d wanted to get it tattooed on me somewhere. But no: tattoos weren’t part of my brand.

Dan smiles at me now. “I’m so proud of you, El. You work so hard. I have no doubt you’re going to keep smashing it.” He reaches a hand across the table and squeezes mine. I squeeze back, how lucky I am to have an understanding partner, who no doubt is enjoying reaping the rewards of #gifted hotel stays and fancy meals paid for by one post, even if he must take the pictures.

We order our meals and a bottle of red wine special to the region. The waiter pours it like thick blood into our bowl-like glasses, I pick it up and swirl it around, making a comment about the ‘legginess’ which makes Dan guffaw. I don’t know the first thing about wine; I just know this one is rich and earthy and a tiny bit sweet and slips down like velvet.

The food comes and I eat a bowl of pasta puttanesca bigger than my head, each ribbon of homemade tagliatelle unctuous and delicious, the red sauce vibrant and juicy. The restaurant hums with quiet music and sometimes loud chatter. We sit on a terrace sheltered by a trellis doused in white flowers looking out over the pearly blue ocean in the dying pinkness of the sky, dinky sail boats bobbing close to the shore.

I feel so in love, with Italy and this man and this night. After mains we order gelato and do shots of Limoncello and discuss our future wedding and the kids we may have one day. I forget to open the app and track the numbers and engagement on the post I scheduled, thinking later that it can wait until tomorrow.

I want to relish this evening, every moment. Tomorrow we will return to England, I will put my Fitbit back on and input my overnight oats into MyFitnessPal, scroll through model’s feeds and choose which pictures of the holiday to post. For now, I just want to be in it. I lean over to the table next to ours and ask the elderly Italian man for a cigarette and lighter and he happily obliges.

“When in Rome.” I quip to Dan, his eyebrows raised.

“When in Rome my darling.”

The smoke trails into the warm air and cicadas serenade us.