Parasocial activity
What would you do if you found out the person you loved represented everything you stood against - a month before you were about to marry them?
Ola Olajide is at the pinnacle of her professional career - she’s a journalist at feminist magazine Womxxn, making a name for herself exposing the machinations of toxic men at the top of their respective industries. And she’s more than just a professional success; she’s set to marry Michael Koranteng, handsome, charismatic, and set to make waves in London’s media scene with his new role as a presenter at popular online platform CuRated. Together, the two enjoy moderate online fame with their frequent features on #couplesgoals Instagram accounts.
When a “Shitty Men in Media” (those who worked in media back in 2017 may remember that this was very much a thing IRL) drops, it appears to be right up Ola’s journalistic street. Her boss, a well-meaning but out-of-touch middle-aged white woman named Frankie agrees, and immediately tasks her with breaking a story around it. But there’s an issue: Michael’s on it.
The story unfolds (unravels?) rapidly from there, with Ola making desperate pleas for Michael to prove his innocence, while simultaneously trying to prove to her friends that she’s not compromising her moral standards and hiding Michael’s presence on the list altogether from her magazine colleagues.
Adegoke also showcases the fallout on Michael’s end, from the tense conversations he has with an HR manager desperately trying to uphold the company’s reputation as a cool and casual workplace to the varying degrees in which his friends - most of whom aren’t nearly as “online” as Ola’s friends, and would’ve gone through life blissfully unaware of the list’s existence, if not for Michael’s deluge of panicked messages in the WhatsApp group.
The List is a skillful mix of so many things, including a page-turner with a satisfying, thriller-esque twist (something I am powerless to resist), but the through-line is an interesting exploration of the social, emotional, and societal implications of what it means to be “online,” from the parasocial relationships to the inability to revert to nuance or exhibit any sort of weakness once you’ve built a platform. It’s one of those reads you can breeze through in a day - but it’ll stick with you long after.