Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley

CHAPTER 3

Lily sat in the lobby of her talent management company, waiting for her quarterly meeting. She was wearing one of her favorite spring outfits—a midi skirt of the palest pink and a matching sleeveless silk blouse with an ivory cardigan. Her kitten heels were ivory, as was her clutch purse. Her accessories were a rosy gold: hoop earrings, a woven bracelet with some chunks of pale jade interspersed. She’d deliberately gone professional but soft with her makeup, brightening her skin. She’d been having some trouble sleeping the past few nights, but thanks to Fenty and some skilled highlighting, nobody here in the office would know that but her.

“Lily?” Her manager, Maria, walked out, shaking her hand and smiling. “It’s great to see you. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.” Lily followed Maria into her office. There was a view of downtown Los Angeles in the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the skies were relatively clear. Lily took the proffered seat across from the black lacquer desk as Maria sat behind it. After exchanging some pleasantries, Lily took a deep breath, broaching the subject at hand . . . the reason she’d come in. “For this quarter, I wanted to focus on seeing if I could upgrade my profile a bit. Expand my brand.” She was still stinging from Rickalicious’s sneering dismissal of her current sponsors and lack of cosmetic partnerships. It was stupid, but she knew that he wouldn’t be the only one who made that kind of snap judgment.

“You’re not happy with your current sponsors?” Maria asked, taking notes.

“I’m thrilled with my current sponsors,” Lily said quickly, not wanting Maria to think her ungrateful. “But I was thinking: Isn’t it time we started aiming a little higher?”

“You know I’m always about aiming higher,” Maria said with an encouraging smile. “What’d you have in mind?”

“Lots of other beauty vloggers have their own palettes with various cosmetic companies,” Lily said. “It feels like if you want to be a popular influencer, that’s a key component.”

“Did you have any companies in particular in mind?”

“The bigger the better.” Lily’s reply was swift, so she softened it with a smile. “I don’t necessarily mean some huge conglomerate—L’Oréal or Elizabeth Arden is probably out of the question, but a midrange with a good following . . . I’m sure we could find a good fit.”

Maria’s soft sigh instantly put Lily on her guard, although she schooled her expression not to show it.

“The beauty community is so glutted right now, is the problem,” Maria said. “Every day, there’s a new influencer on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. It’s a struggle to stay relevant. You know that.”

Lily felt her jaw tighten. She forced herself to relax. “There was that big shake-up,” she pointed out. “Karmageddon . . .”

“Yes, but that didn’t really open up spaces so much as reveal the dark underbelly of the community,” Maria protested, steepling her fingers on the desk surface and looking at Lily sympathetically. “A lot of the people who were ‘canceled’? You know they could afford to shed a few million viewers and they still have careers. People always forget the drama, which is unfortunate. And worse . . . a lot of people want the drama.”

Lily nodded. She had not gotten into many—any, really—online feuds. She didn’t get called out, and there wasn’t any drama. She’d thought that was largely a good thing. She couldn’t afford to lose subscribers or get canceled because of doing something stupid.

Besides, the idea of being called out for terrible behavior, engaging in petty drama? Her family would be furious, and she wouldn’t blame them.

“You’re doing great as far as avoiding those kinds of pitfalls,” Maria continued. “Still, staying neutral can sometimes mean being too neutral. Sometimes it’s problematic. Just something to consider.”

Lily stilled. “What do you mean?” She was proud that her voice sounded calm. “I’m close to five million subscribers on YouTube, three million on TikTok, and I’m still building my Insta, but that’s near two million. My numbers have been growing steadily. I don’t see that as being a problem.”

“The numbers have been plateauing,” Maria pointed out. “And again, there are only so many topics you can cover without repeats when you’re not reviewing palettes negatively. ‘Forty daytime-to-nighttime looks’? Or ‘five must-haves in your spring wardrobe’? You need to come up with something more compelling. Something people haven’t seen before.”

Lily bit her lip. She knew what Maria was saying, and her manager wasn’t wrong. Still, it made anxiety knot in her stomach.

“I guess you need me to do something more original.”

“And hit maybe six million,” Maria agreed. “Show that you’re growing strong. Have you considered some collaborations?”

“I’ve done collabs.”

Maria smiled gently. “I meant with somewhat more prominent YouTubers,” she clarified.

“Well, I’ve thought about it,” Lily said. “But it’s not that easy. And I don’t want to be seen as a social climber, necessarily.”

She had a brief flashback to senior year in high school and swallowed hard.

“Besides,” she added, “that’s not going to help me with the ‘original content’ problem.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Maria said. “Let’s set your goal as building your audience as much as you can, shooting for six million as a baseline. And see if we can’t get some of your content to go viral. That’s the game changer.”

“Most of the beauty community’s stuff doesn’t go viral unless it’s a scandal, an apology for a scandal, or spilled tea about a scandal,” Lily protested.

“Not true,” Maria said. “There are those cosplay ones that tend to capture a larger audience.”

Lily couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. “Well, yeah. But that’s a slightly different audience, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Maria countered. “It’s a larger audience. Geek is chic, sweetie.”

Lily’s smile was forced. As if she wasn’t familiar with geeks. “Touché.”

“Speaking of geek—did you see that latest viral video?” Maria said, tapping on her keyboard, then turning her computer screen. “This is brilliant.”

Lily watched, unsure of what she was seeing, until one of those inflatable tubes with the waving arms popped up; then another one did. She snickered as she realized what it was from.

Suddenly, Tobin Bui’s face was in the screen. “The beacons of Minas Tirith are lit!”

It was like a slap. She glanced at the channel name.

GoofyBui.Because of course it was.

She watched the rest of the video, then automatically went to the views counter.

Four million views? Already? What the hell?

“Now that is clever,” Maria said, not noticing Lily’s frozen dismay. “If you could get that level of views, your subscribers would shoot up.”

“I’ll see if I can’t come up with a few more approaches,” Lily said faintly, “and email you some ideas.” She got up, reaching to shake Maria’s hand.

“I know you’ll come up with something,” Maria said. “And I’ll see who I can reach out to. Brainstorming some future merch wouldn’t be a bad idea either. And think of what you’d do with either a cosmetic or fashion line—how you’d make it stand out, besides simply being a Lily Wang original.”

Lily nodded and retreated back to her condo in West Los Angeles, just down the street from UCLA. It wasn’t super luxurious, but it was a decent neighborhood, and it was close to the freeway. Besides, she’d managed to decorate it in her signature style, on a relatively tight budget—living in LA wasn’t cheap.

Lily flopped down on her couch, rubbing at her temples.

I need to get more creative. More clever.

Lily grimaced. She ought to go over to her desk and grab her bullet journal, the one that housed her content calendar for the next three months. Given her conversation with Maria, what she had there was not going to work, which made her both annoyed and dismayed. She would have to redo it . . . possibly the whole thing.

Considering she normally put the content calendar down in permanent ink, this was obviously a big disturbing step. But she couldn’t keep doing the same things. If she wanted to become a big-time success—which she did, more than anything—then she’d need to make the changes Maria was suggesting. No matter how daunting that might seem right now.

How the hell am I supposed to go viral?It wasn’t like anybody planned for those things—they just blew up. It was like a lightning strike.

Lily changed into her scrubbiest yoga pants and a T-shirt she’d had since junior high, one with a cartoon turtle. After washing her face and moisturizing, she sank down in her chair in front of a clean whiteboard, waiting for her leftovers to heat.

Her phone rang, and without even looking, she answered it. There was only one woman who called her regularly rather than just texting her like a normal person. “Hello, Mom.”

“Lily,” her mother said in Mandarin. “How did the meeting with your manager go?”

Lily smiled with weariness. “All right, I guess?” she answered, also in Mandarin. “I want to expand into bigger sponsorships. I really want to get my own palette or beauty products with a cosmetics company.”

Her mother made a contemplative noise. “Your own palette, or maybe clothing line,” she mused. “Or accessories? I can source some things for you, if you’re interested, from Taiwan.”

“Palette first,” Lily said firmly. “My makeup tutorials are getting more views than my clothing ones, so I’m probably going to tailor my content more that way.”

“Good idea. Have any companies in mind?”

“A few,” Lily said. “American. Probably smaller to start; then I’ll move up to larger ones as my brand grows.”

“What’s in your way, then?” her mother asked, her tone prosaic.

“Right now? Subscribers,” Lily said, throwing herself on her couch. “Maria says that if I want to get a makeup deal, I’ll need at least six million subscribers, and I’m barely at five.”

“So get more subscribers.”

Lily rolled her eyes, glad her mother wasn’t into video chatting. “Sure, Mom. Because it’s just that easy to get a million people to sign up for my YouTube channel.”

Her mother made a dismissive sound. “I didn’t say it would be easy, did I? I’m just saying you know what to do. Now, you just have to go do it.”

Lily grinned, shaking her head. Her mother was like this about everything, whether it was about grades, getting into a good college, or making her career a success. “I’m working on it.” She paused. “Maria mentioned that I need to be more creative. And maybe look at collaborating with more popular influencers.”

“That’s a good idea,” her mother said. “Networking is crucial. Remember that venture capitalist, the one from San Jose? Utter asshole. But your father and I laughed at his jokes, went to his Christmas party. I even played golf,” she said with obvious distaste. “So we got the next round of funding, and the business is growing more than ever!”

“How is Dad?” Lily asked. “How are things in San Francisco?”

“San Francisco is fine, and as for your father . . . you know how he is,” her mother said with fond exasperation. “Binging historical dramas on Netflix and Viki, what else? And his doctor told him to cut down his sodium. I’m finding salty snacks hidden all over the house. He thinks he’s some kind of . . . what is it called? A sneaky squirrel.”

Lily laughed just as her microwave dinged. “That’s my dinner.”

“I’ll let you eat,” her mother said. “And don’t worry about the subscribers. You’ll do this the way you do everything, just like with school.”

Lily smiled. “Love you, Mom. Hug Dad for me.”

“Love you, too, Lily,” her mother said before hanging up.

Lily took her dinner out of the microwave, then headed to her computer, putting the plate on her desk. She decided to open her email, poking at the pasta and vegetables with her fork as it fired up. She glanced through emails—a few promotional coupons, newsletters, and the like—and saw an email forwarded from her friend Emily. Emily had been one of her best friends at Ponto Beach, one of the Nerd Herd. Lily still kept in touch with them—loosely—via a Slack channel their friend Asad had set up, but she rarely participated, often forgetting she had access to it. She and Emily usually exchanged texts and GIFs every few weeks or so . . . although, now that she thought about it, it had been longer than a month since their last exchange. She opened the email with a touch of guilt.

The subject read: ARE YOU GOING?

Lily glanced at the forwarded message. Then she reread it.

Ten-year reunion?

Good grief. Had it been that long?

Emily had attached a little note: hope you’ll be there! Tam’s MIA, but the rest of the Herd are going to show up, from the sounds of it. Miss you!

Lily grimaced. It was so weird—she’d just been talking about high school to Mikki; then her mother had mentioned it in passing, and Maria showed her Tobin’s video. Now this. It was like the universe was shouting at her: You may think you’re over high school, but it’s not over you.

Well, she had bigger things to worry about than her damned high school reunion, she thought, stabbing a snow pea and crunching on it savagely. Namely, making her channel a success.