chapter 3

She wasted little time in signing up and filling out her profile, copying all manner of things from the more popular models, calling herself a piggy and claiming to want to more than quadruple her body weight. She filmed a little introductory video, telling more little lies about her weight goals, all in order to make herself seem legit.

"There, that should tide the creeps over" she said smugly as she checked out the latest videos. A notification told her that she already had received two thumb ups which made her grin.

"£2 already and I haven't even done anything! I can't wait until the end of the month!"



From there Louella was a woman possessed, posting several videos an hour. It didn't matter to her that her videos offered little of substance, going for quantity over quality.

They were often very short and eluded to her none existent weight gain. One had her posing with an empty jar of Nutella and rubbing her stomach as if she had eaten the entire jar even though in reality, she had simply spooned it all into a bowl and then returned it to the container when she was done. Another featured her simply reading comments she had seen other models make in chatrooms, talking about her longing for cellulite and stretch marks. She even re-used her fried egg video from her food channel but this time instead of being mocked she was lauded for using so much oil to cook.

"This is the easiest money-making scheme I've ever come up with!" she said to herself as she watched the thumb ups roll in, "these idiots are going to make me a millionaire!"



On the first day of the month Louella watched her email like a hawk. She had managed to churn out 775 videos over the previous month, eclipsing every other member on the site by a country mile. Some of her videos hadn't received many if any thumb ups and some members had even accused her of being a fake and a scammer but she just blocked those annoying little voices so her image wouldn't be tarnished.

It was a little after midday when she received a private message from the site administrator.