Observer: Social Clout - Read and participate in the hottest campus show.

By: Daiyu Tang
Photos: Participants / Angel Reignz (for Olly)

There are moments in journalism when an editor must ask herself difficult ethical questions. Trust me, having been in Hathian for nearly five years this is still fairly often. Now normally, campus is a little less difficult. There may be missing ethics (bimbo science is fake!) but there are less stabbings, murders, and other horrors that Hathian and Laveau perpetrate.

There are questions such as: Is this news? Is this culture? Is this the inevitable collapse of civilisation wearing lip gloss and with a GG chest? Has Stanley approved this because it is good for the Observer, or because someone said the words “five women” and “camera crew” in the same sentence?

Unfortunately, dear readers, I am contractually and spiritually too tired to answer all of those at once and want to retain my job and nominally ‘produce’ this series.

So instead, welcome to Observer: Social Clout.

Filming is already underway. Some of you have already seen the camera crews around Columtreal University. Some of you have probably been filmed! Remember if you have sex with a participant in a public space, you might be on camera. Yep. I thought I’d get that out of the way! Now, slightly less controversial, several of you have already pretended not to notice both our participants and more importantly the cameras while adjusting your hair, changing your walk, or suddenly having very loud opinions near a lens. We have seen you

Anyway, for the next three months, Social Clout will follow five young women as they move through campus life, online life, social pressure, friendship, rivalry, parties, study, branding, gossip, bad decisions, good lighting, and Professor Hades (scary), Professor Danzig (Can give you a workout), Professor Nara (Workouts are bad for your makeup) and of course CUPD Captain Cyrus; “NO NUDITY IN PUBLIC!”

Five women. One campus. A thousand eyes watching.

What Is Social Clout?

Well, for a start it’s not something that I encourage every student to aim for, and definitely not in the way that these five are. Being on camera all the time in a modern take on Big Brother is not for the faint of heart. It’s also… potentially dangerous, somewhat vapid and depending on how popularity votes go over time, could lead to hearts, purses, and other things being broken.

But, these five represent those who wanted to do this… and it is not only about popularity. It is about influence. It is about visibility. It is about who gets talked about, who controls the conversation, who survives being talked about, and who manages to turn attention into desire. Stanley wants me to ensure that body count counts, but I advised him this would disadvantage those actually do have clout, partly because they’re not on everyone’s dick.

The participants will be followed by the Observer crews ((NPC mostly)) across campus and beyond. Their daily lives, public moments, social choices and campus interactions will help shape this feature as it unfolds.

Why Columtreal? Why Now?

Columtreal has changed.

The University has been rebuilding itself, not just in brick and funding, but in mood. There are new staff profiles, new student stories, new clubs, new relationships, new rivalries, new money, old money, athletics, music, social media, fashion, gossip and emotional complication arising from the old and the new to make Hathian proper look almost honest by comparison. Columtreal’s clash of old (The Blood Empress is back), and the new (like Lucian and his moneybags) will surely lead to some memorable stories enveloping our contestants and it is my distinct hope that by the end of this, they might even have learned somethin themselves..

I guess dear reader, that I’d sum it up as saying:

“The Observer has decided to do what the Observer does best: point a camera at chaos. Pretend that is a civic documentation and then just see what happens.”

Daiyu

Meet the Cast

The girls below are not meant to represent every woman on campus. They represent five different ways of moving through CU. Yeah, there’s no Goth, but since we won the influence war by not participating in it anyway, this is (whisper it) really a competition for second place.

Isla Hawthorn arrives with pageants, rodeo sweetheart energy, coffee, books, and the kind of softness that can either make a campus kinder or get eaten alive by it. Her role is ‘The Hype Girly’, but behind the kindness is a fear of expectations, and that may be the more interesting story. People who spend their lives fixing each other’s crowns sometimes forget to check whether their own is cutting into their head.

Olympia “Olly” Lowell-Forbes brings blonde hair, designer perfume, panty shots, expensive wine, late-night gossip and the danger of someone who may flirt because she is bored. Her biggest fear is apparently a 9-5 job, which is probably a cry for help (or a sugar daddy) wrapped in a very expensive handbag. Olly understands that social power is a currency. Whether she spends it wisely is another matter!

Iolana “Io” Kamakeeaina is the focused one. Volleyball, surfing, painting, discipline, and a calmness that may either be natural or carefully practised because everyone else around her is exhausting.

She dislikes fake people, disrespect and being underestimated, which on this campus may keep her busy until graduation.

Lucky Lowkey enters as the older, sharper, messier truth-teller of the group: photography, parties, loose tongue, good listener, F.O.M.O. and the kind of last-night’s-makeup energy that usually means someone has either seen too much or stayed out long enough to become part of the evidence.

Lucky’s role is calling it as she sees it, which is wonderful for the Observer and extremely dangerous for friendships.

Jizzabelle Lovejoy is, predictably, not arriving quietly. Science, music, sex, gallows humour and a fearless voice of reason backed by science make her one of the more combustible participants.

She dislikes entitled people, showoffs and female competitiveness, which should be interesting in a series built around five women being watched, compared and discussed.

Voted most likely to be caught banging on camera.

How the Clout Score Works

The Observer will be tracking the series through regular round-ups and a developing Clout Score.

This is not a scientific measure, because I have met science (and not bimbo science) and it would never be able to claim (or want to be blamed) for something like this. But my scoring will be consistent enough to fuel arguments, which is the real purpose of most social systems anyway.

Participants may gain ground through:

Visibility: Being seen, discussed, invited, photographed, quoted or impossible to ignore.

Narrative Control: Shaping the story rather than simply being dragged through it by gossip, rumours or someone else’s camera angle.

Campus Impact: Involvement in classes, clubs, events, athletics, arts, charity, parties or anything else that leaves a footprint on CU life.

Style and Branding: Not just clothes, but consistency, recognisability and whether people know the image before they know the person. ((Also ensuring AI photos are close to their SL avatar!))

Chaos Survival: Because attention is easy when everything is going well. The real test is what someone does when the clip goes wrong, the rumour spreads, the ex appears, the party collapses, or someone says ‘we need to talk‘ within range of a microphone.

So if I might say… this is really:

Who controls the narrative?

Who becomes the narrative?

Might I also entreat that you, dear reader, engage with these students and if you do… kiss and tell with me at the Observer? If we didn’t catch it on camera, but it was newsworthy, you could earn a special reward! Contact me with your juicy gossip!

A Little Bit More

After reviewing the profiles below, we encourage you to cast your first vote. Who made the biggest impact? Who is starting this competition off running!? Your scores will be tallied and form part of my next update…

((Note that the series has reasonable use of AI for images. While I personally prefer SL taken images, there are good reasons why (timezone co-ordination, not relying on just one or two photographers) and so on, why for this series there will be more ‘glam’, AI. Participants have been reminded that if their social media photos (i.e. AI glam ones) stray too far from their SL ones that are deemed to be them ICLY without gloss, they may get deducted marks! Prompt well 😀 ))