it’s almost like it was written by someone who casually dilly dally wrote a thousand words at breakfast before trotting off to lunch and the cinema.
the downfall of Bert is disappointing. Ten years ago she was almost untouchable - never problamatic, stayed relatively mysterious, usually just popping up to say something quite cool or clever then disappearing again giving the illusion of a smart poly fat girl about town.
she has fallen in love with her own thinner self image and can’t help but share herself every day which has revealed her as spoiled, smug, boring and hugely annoying.
She is an allegory for influencer versus old school expertise. She put out performed vibes nice or nasty to the ‘right audience for her need’ but never grew past marketing soundbites as a person. She bought her own hype and took her ‘success and offers of chances’ as confirmation bias people love her as much as she worships herself. Her pre trot 1k words are like dear diary today I am a goddess affirmations without irony or skill.
Alice however worked at jobs, writing, taking risks, building networks, growing a podcast, being a well rounded person just ‘fat is my personality’ and shows how you can use the internet, IG and marketing to polish the skills offline. She knew her audience at her talks and neatly knew how far to tease some she maybe didn’t adore in bookselling but values for their takes still buying books from her and by her. She does not take it for granted but I bet has a few group chats you’d think were Tattle threads
Bert is all posed angles to mis-sell and spiky judgy vibes and that mean girl influencer stuff is old overall now but especially for a 35 year old. This book was like ‘I was hot
tit 10 years ago!!!’ Well love, life moves on and as they say ‘be careful who you piss off on the way up, because you meet them on the way down.’ Her real personality is peeking out in lieu of more structure and being able to coast off Alice’s work on the podcast etc.
The day Bethany fell behind her chub babe rivals of Stephanie Yeboah, Danielle Vanier and Callie Thorpe and Grace Victory got the Peleton was a better twist than anything in BDE….
