She is white, slim, blonde and awkward. She is from the East Coast. She loves snowboarding, dogs, Pac Man, pinball and Orange is the New Black. Her favorite band is Alt-J, but Passionpit is distinctly preferred during rainy days.

She’s in her late 20s. She loves Starbucks (half caf / burnt soy / no whip) and drinks Double IPAs (but not too much). She is blissfully single, but wouldn’t mind a consistent FWB…maybe it can grow into something.

She is the average lust for life Millennial except for one thing: She isn’t real.

I made a Bride of Ebook Frankenstein; she is on social media, has a website, a Linkedin page and she tweets consistently. She has multiple pictures showing off her size 4 body and her long flowing hair.

Digitally, she is as real as you and me. Well, at least her pictures say so.

So why make my All American, Uggs wearing, latte sipping ghostwriter persona? Why not just be me, a tough, smart beautiful African American professional who has so much to offer as far a knowledge, experience and talent?

 

Because, sadly, the internet is racist. While Wired’s article may be a surprise for some, for many, including people of color, racism on the internet is a reality; if one thinks that it stops are forums and reddit, it doesn’t. Those who work deeply within the internet economy, skin color must be taken to account if one wants to have clients across racial lines. A few power through it, but for the case of the experiment, and my habitual lack of patience for societal red tape, I did not.

Thus my Muse was born.

You may wonder: ‘Why make a persona in the first place? What will that solve?‘ Well, every story needs a backstory. There is a saying that you can’t ‘sell the steak without the sizzle‘, right? There’s a Freakonomics podcast labeled ‘How To Save 1 Billion Dollars Without Even Trying‘where economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro revealed that the average person will buy name brand medicinal products over store brand even though the same active ingredients are the same.

But why would someone spend triple, or quadruple in some cases, the amount for the same product that only differs with a simple wrapper? Simple answer;  marketing and emotional bias.  If the purchaser identifies with an previous emotional driven solution, then it is automatically a better product.

So I sat thoughtfully and asked: ‘Were a bunch of internet ebook savants going to take advice or read weird romance from some black chick who is not Oprah?’

No, but if my Muse had a face like them, habits like them, a background like them, loneliness like them and aspirations like them, why not indulge the reader with an easily identifiable ,virtual version of themselves?

 

After such celebrated pieces of literature such as ‘Twilight‘ and ‘50 Shades of Gray‘, I concluded that my fabricated ‘SHE’  would be perfect for the Romance ebook reader base, though I could be wrong.

 

OMG…TIGER MEME REMOVED BECAUSE OF LCS, inc.

Because Copyright Trolling is SEXY

 

If you notice, I haven’t outed my ‘Freak Muse’s’ identity, which I would love to but won’t. What I found extremely interesting about her fabricated persona is that most people won’t fact check her existence. Since she randomly responds on twitter (automated), releases blog pieces (automated), answer every once in a while on Quora (low mental investment) and has some sort of digital pedigree (multiple stock photos, social sites and a fabricated work history), she exists and that’s perfectly fine.

And that’s perfectly fine with me.

Every bad, or good book review review, every flame war or email threat, every purposely pointed insult and question of credibility goes into the  virtual trash bin; any sale of ‘her books’  is funneled to my established bank account and the negativity simply disappears.

I personally don’t know what feels better: seeing the vitriol of the internet crash on a fortress of nothing or watching those who spew it actually think they’re genuinely insulting a breathing person.

The internet…I love it.

***

I’m not above asking for tips!

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