Please, don't try to become a content creator

I know it sounds ridiculous. The danger exists all around us, and once you recognize it, it’s hard not to understand. I CANNOT be the only one who’s experienced this.

I’m in my fourth year of college at a state university, and I’m still living in the dorms. My roommate was an influencer. She has a lot of followers on all of the major sites and I don’t want to expose her here, so let’s call her Roomie.  Her “brand” is her lifestyle stuff in conjunction with being a student. All get-ready-with-me kind of stuff.

When I first moved in at the beginning of the fall semester, what annoyed me the most was the amount of crap she had. The room barely had enough space for two beds, a desk, and communal space in the middle;  When I came in with a couple of suitcases, her side of the room was already full of stuff: all boxes. Beneath the bed, on top of the desk and under it, stacked up against the wall, and up to the middle-point of the room, on which the other side was my half. It was like an episode of Hoarders of something. Some of the boxes were open, and they were all full of clothes and makeup and hair stuff.

Roomie arrived a couple hours after I’d checked in to the dorm and had been unpacking. She was pretty and about medium in size, and her outfit matched her shoes and accessories. Our first conversation went exactly like this:

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you. I’m Nicole, I just checked in and I’m gonna be your roommate for this semester. Sorry that my suitcases are sticking out into the middle, I’ll pick them up soon.”

“Nicole! I’m Roomie. It’s so nice to meet you, girl! Let’s get dinner. I have a sponsorship at the place downtown, so the meal will be comped. Are you okay if I post a meeting-the-roommate selfie?”

“Oh, yeah, that sounds, um, okay with me. Let’s go eat, then. Are you on Instagram or something? I’ll add you.”

“Yeah, I’m everywhere. Hang on, let me change my headband. I already posted myself wearing it today. I need something kind of nostalgia-y, like blueberry mocha combined with Y2K kind of couture. Hang on. Do you mind putting your hair up? I’ll get more engagement that way. And let’s go to the bathroom mirror to make it look more casual and spontaneous.” 

I knew she was kind of weird from the start. Not like creepy or mean weird, but just weird with how she did things.

So for the most part, I tried to stay out of Roomie’s way. I was taking 18 credit hours, so it wasn’t hard to do. But things got difficult after a little while.

Her ringer was always on. Always. And her phone wouldn’t ever go more than half an hour without a loud ding! After two near-sleepless nights, I decided to confront her when I woke up for the fifth time at two o’ clock in the morning.

“Hey Roomie, are you okay with turning down the volume on your phone? It’s a little bit loud,” I explained in the dark room. 

“Sorry, Nicole, but I have to be ready to engage at all times.” 

I bought earplugs the next day and that fixed it, but I noticed that she never really slept for more than a half hour at a time. Since I tended to stay up later to study during the week, I noticed that she would stay on her phone for a few minutes or step outside to make a call. I don’t know how she did it, and a couple of weeks in to the year I tried tactfully asking her one evening:

“Ugh, today was so long! I don’t know why I stacked four two-hour classes for Fridays. Since you’re always getting…woken up at night, how do you do it?”

“It’s not hard. It’s just part of my life. Do you want this skirt? I did a go-to-class-with-me shoot this morning and I’m done with it.”

That’s how most of our conversations went. I’m a pretty easygoing person and the earplugs made it easy to deal with, but it started getting way harder to bear when the stuff started piling up. Literal stuff. The boxes of crap that lined the walls and the living space started to move toward the center communal area in the room. They were all filled with plastic junk.

“Come study with me! I got this pencil eraser holder and it is so cute, you guys, you need it. Look, it’s metal, it has these little plates to hold those pencil-topper erasers and those bigger pink ones and I got mine in ivory to match the calming environment of my desk to go for the serious studying aesthetic, I just love it. If you’re interested, the link to purchase them is down in the description. Love you guys!”

That crap would go back to the box on the same day. I ended up speaking to our floor’s RA about it, and he scheduled a conflict-resolution discussion for the three of us. We sat in the shared office, and I was over being polite by that point.

“The stuff is getting really, really out of hand. The boxes almost block the ceiling lights and her phone rings all the time throughout the night.”

“It doesn’t encroach on her space. I’m a content creator, and half the room is my space. I need my stuff to make content.”

“Well, the contract states that you guys’ space is divided down the middle. Let’s go look and see if your room violates that.”

No, it wasn’t. One half of the room was just turning into a void of crap. Since she wasn’t breaking the contract rules, it was declared fine. I wanted to rip my hair out. Roomie gave me kind of a sad look, and after that, it started getting worse.

She stopped going to class. On the days of the week when I left before the sun came up, she’d be sitting at her desk chair on her side of the room, filming herself opening a box, and when I came back in the afternoon, she’d still be there, opening a different box. The ring light around the phone would illuminate her face in the dark room, eyes boring into it as she spoke.

“Oh my God, guys, look at this gorgeous pendant! The gold plating just screams hot girl autumn. It’s a must-have for anybody. As a college student, I feel like it just ties all my outfits together, whether I’m going out with roommates for the evening, or just going to class on a low-effort vibes kind of day! The circular shape and floral embellishment ties it together into a really defined kind of thing, and the simplicity of it matches your style whether you’re into like, alt girl vibes or y2k girlie vibes or clean girl aesthetic…”

Then I’d hear the rip of packing tape, a breath, and the same words, again. “Oh my God, guys, look at this off-white pencil holder.” “Oh my God, guys, look at this sunset-orange organic nail polish.” “Oh my God, guys, look at this wood-carved earrings set I got from this online boutique.” The words came out of her mouth smoothly and robotically, her voice high-pitched and monotone. 

My stomach churned every time I walked into the dorm. She needed some sort of help. I got into the habit of asking her if she wanted to go out or needed help with any homework or anything, and she’d turn in the chair and just look at me, eyes unfocused.

I ended up contacting the RA again, and we met in the dorm. When he’d walk in, she’d pause her filming, and when he asked if she was alright, she’d nod and say “Yes,” still in that high-pitched monotone, like she was recording a meet-with-my-RA-with-me. She gave bland, sensible answers to a few questions, and he shrugged at me and left. 

There wasn’t much left to do. I started throwing away stuff, the boxes that had already been opened, with the crap neatly put back inside. She never seemed to mind. It was like bailing water from a flooding room; even after making several trips to the trash chute a day, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

One of the worst parts was how they clogged the doorway; the packages always arrived right at the door, instead of going to the mailroom. I always seemed to miss the deliveries; only once, a few weeks ago, I saw the back of a man dressed in gray dropping off a box without a label. 

I tried waving him down to talk to him and figure out how on earth she was getting multiple deliveries straight to the room a day, but his worker’s boots rounded the corner before I could.

Roomie filmed through the night. I had to shove my earplugs in as far as I could, and she didn’t stop. Her eyes bored into the light, and her lips moved to smile and speak, but she barely blinked, and never broke eye contact with the camera. I had to pull my blanket over my eyes to block out the outline of her lit-up, smiling face from behind my eyelids.

About a week later, when I woke up, got ready for class and opened the door, it was completely blocked by cardboard boxes. That’s when I fucking lost it.

I almost broke a tendon when I threw my head back and groaned in pure frustration. I threw the stupid boxes off the railing. I kicked them till my toes were bruised. My weird dumb roommate filming nonstop and not letting me sleep or have friends over or even leave the fucking dorm without her packages filled with plastic shit that nobody needs getting in the way. I hated her.

Once a couple of my neighbors had seen me lose my shit, I stormed back inside, blood boiling. The room seemed smaller than ever. Five thousand dollars a semester for a tiny room with a crazy roommate. Nice.

“Roomie!” My voice was too loud for the room. I didn’t care who else heard. “I can barely get out of the damn room! Get this shit out of here!” 

Nothing. She just kept talking into the light. She had stopped blinking.

I walked up behind her and shoved the chair forward. The legs wobbled, but she didn’t move. She still didn’t give a shit that she was the biggest pain in the ass I’d ever had. Her head stayed rigid, never moving an inch. What the hell? The blood pumping through my veins slowed. She would not move.

“Roomie, this is weird. Get the hell up off that chair and move your shit. You’ve been recording yourself for days. I don’t know where this stuff is coming from. Come on, please get up.”

“Oh my God, guys, look at this name-embossed luggage tag. Made up of durable soft pleather, it can hold its shape while serving as a zip tie.”

I tapped her shoulder. Stiff, not soft. Grabbed it and shook it. She just kept talking. Her body was rigid.

I’ve only touched one dead person before. At  my great-uncle’s funeral, when I was a kid. We went to the wake and my mom told me to pick up his hand at the open casket. It was hard and stiff, like a doll’s.

Roomie had a dead body. My stomach dropped.

I reached for her hands to drag her as she presented the luggage tag to the camera. Still warm. The moment I took them in mine, they froze in midair, elbows bolted to the desk, and her fingers clenched tight around the tag.

Bending down a little-I was scared to get too close-I scrambled for her phone and hit the side button, turning it off. The ring light it stood on fell, the battery popping out as the bright circular beam reeled up to the ceiling, flickered, and died. Only some dim overhead lights illuminated the room, half-concealed by the piles of boxes. Roomie still didn’t blink. She still faced precisely forward, back bent, neck sunken in like a recoiled animal. 

She turned her head toward me. Her neck crackled. I took a step back and I yanked my hands away just as she clutched them tight in mine. 

Pop-pop-pop. Nine of my fingers dangled loose in her grasp, flopping like puppets from my knuckles. It took a second for the scorching pain to register. 

“Fuck! What the fuck?! Help! Somebody HELP–” 

“Oh, my God, guys, look at these fingers! They’re limp and soft!”

Only her lips moved. Her eyes were still watery and unblinking.

Blind. She was blind. I pushed myself forward and whacked my head against hers and kicked the chair back and felt the most pain I’d ever felt in my life. I don’t remember screaming, but I probably did. Roomie’s feet dragged and she fell off and onto the ground as the spinning wheels wobbled. She turned her dead-eyed head toward me and I ran to the door as fast as I could. The handle. I couldn’t look down at my hands now. I crooked it with my elbow. 

A pile of boxes covered the doorstep, standing up high over my head. The footsteps started behind me.

I knocked them over as fast as I could, catching glimpses of my fingers dangling down to my palm as I kicked and thrashed my arms in every direction, wailing like an animal as my hands connected with the heavy boxes and fresh agony blazed through them. Slivers of sunlight peeked in and widened until I could break through.

The steps reached close and I could feel her fingers grazing the skin on my neck just as my feet hit the cement floor. I booked it down the hall and didn’t look back.

My breaths came ragged and fast and the path in front of me came in a blur, and as I careened around the corner to the stairwell, I reflexively reached for the handrail and heard myself cry out before I felt the searing scrape on my swollen, dislocated joints. My knees turned to jelly but my legs kept going, unable to stop, and I tripped on the last two steps. I couldn’t hold my arms out. The air came in rusting sputters as my chest hit the ground and felt a tremor run through my jaw. A sharp pain dug into my ankle. I tested my arms and pushed my elbows against the ground. My fingers dangled helplessly. I couldn’t put weight on my hands and get up. I took a deep breath.  “Ah…Agh…Help…HELP!”

The first floor of the biggest dorm on campus is usually busy, and always has at least one or two people standing around. It didn’t cross my mind why I didn’t see anyone on my floor or the first that day. I was head down, and my left foot hurt almost as much as my hands.

A pair of gray work boots crunched into the periphery in front of me. I looked down first. There was blood on the floor and my face felt wet. My neck hurt too much to look up, so I never saw his face. He helped me stand, and we ended up in a delivery truck filled with cardboard boxes.

 

I don’t remember much after that. I think I passed out when I sat still and got a good look at my fingers swinging loose. All I can think of is the work man in all gray, asking why there were so many boxes, and saying how my roommate wanted to kill me.

All he said was, “She’s a hard worker, running her personal brand. Content creation requires a lot of dedication and following the algorithm. Don’t give her a hard time again, or you’ll learn more than you want to know about the business.”

I didn’t press charges. I came out of the hospital a couple days later with bandaged hands and a swollen ankle. It took me weeks to go back to school, and I never went back to the dorms. My RA and parents took my stuff for me. There was only one box in the whole room when the inspection was conducted, and Roomie was recording a video on multi-purpose branded bandages with it. Nothing wrong had happened besides me being clumsy.

Sometimes when I close my eyes, all I see is Roomie’s watery gaze. I don’t go out much now. When I go to the gym and see a guy videoing his routine, or go out to eat and see a lady filming herself eating the food, I feel my stomach churn. Sometimes, their backs are already bent, or their eyes don’t blink.

Please, don’t become an influencer or a content creator. You’ll be dead, and you won’t even care.