Autumn Ryan’s career as an influencer has exploded like a fireworks display over the Statue of Liberty, until it fizzles out under that most feared of words: cancellation.
Tail between her legs, she retreats to the only friend she has left, Zane king of the Cool Kids and God Emperor to the entire New York club scene. It’s more than Autumn deserves, but Zane tells her she’s worth it.
Hugo, stay-at-home husband, has nothing to stand on when he’s surprised by a divorce. With a twelve-year gap in his resume and nowhere to turn, he is rescued by his only remaining friend, loyal, generous, and cranky Craig. At least his new neighbor is cute.
Autumn, settling in for an off-the-rack life, notes that her new neighbor is sweet and
delightfully dorky. But he immediately learns the reason for Autumn’s fall from grace, a reason that affects him personally. If that’s not bad enough, she accidentally frames him for murder.
With the cops close to a conviction, despite the lack of evidence, Hugo and Autumn turn to Max Fuentes, the sleaziest journalist the Big Apple has ever seen, to find the real killer hiding among the New York club scene, before they can strike again.
Chapter One: Under the Influence
On YouTube, the preview image pops up. Dressing comfortably in a low-cut, mint-green top that sported lots of cleavage, a young woman with blown-out, auburn hair sits in the center of the camera. Stuffed animals and pillows cover the bed behind her, and the posters on the wall behind her screams of nostalgic youth. Over there is Zack Morris. Partially hidden by her head was Garfield, next to whom was Jordan Knight.
She is young, and probably pretty, but it’s hard to tell with the triangular “play” icon across her face. She points to a tiny glass bottle in her hand. Starting the video reveals that she is indeed pretty, though this might be the result of the professional-looking makeup she’s applied in such a way that it looks like she isn’t wearing much makeup.
As she talks, her energy and enthusiasm burst from the screen. “Hey, gang! What’s up? This is Autumn, and it’s time to see what I got in my mailbag!”
A heavy electronic beat plays, and Autumn dances in her seat while an autotuned voice sings, “Mailbag! Mailbag! Gotta love that mailbag!”
“Mailbag!” she says again, laughing uproariously. “I can’t believe I got a theme song for my mailbag.” The video cuts several times, but you can only tell if you’re watching and listening carefully. “The first thing I got here is a box from …” She reads the label. “Je Ne Sais Quoi!” She squeals like a little girl at Christmas who just unwrapped the Barbie Corvette. “Yes! I’ve been coming onto them like a dirty ho for a long time, and they finally noticed me!” Cut. “Let’s see what they sent.” She takes out a small tube. “Lipstick, Tuscan Red, for when you want to smolder.” She makes a scratching gesture. “Rawr.” Cut. She takes out another tube. “Clay Rose, for when you have a job interview or you want to look your best for that funeral or you’re trying to impress someone’s parents.” Cut. “The last thing you want to look like when you’re trying to impress someone’s parents is smoldering.” Cut, and she’s suddenly holding a bottle of nail polish, as in the preview image. “Tilting at Windmills. Which is good if you want to have orange nails. I guess you can get this one and sit on it till Halloween.” Cut. “Special Instructions to the Jury! Oh, yeah, this is the stuff.” She starts to open the bottle, and it cuts to her blowing on her fingers before waving her now-navy-blue nails in front of the camera. “Now you can look like a witch who’s been poisoned.”
Pausing that video and clicking over to a different tab goes to TikTok, where the girl, wearing less makeup than on YouTube, shoves her whole face uncomfortably close to the camera, saying, “Check it out, gang, I got a pressie!” She backs up until her whole body is visible, wearing head-to-toe footie pajamas. “This came from Mercantile, and they are literally the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn.” She does the mailbag dance again, this time standing so there’s more hip-work. “If I only wore this for the rest of my life, I’d die happy. All right, gang, see you!” She blows a kiss to the camera, and it cuts out.
A look through her Instagram feed reveals her in the bedroom, holding more products. In addition, there are also plates at classy restaurants, geotagged all over the world. There she is, lounging by the pool in a bikini, drinking a daiquiri. There she is, chugging a beer at a baseball game and wearing a sexy New York Knights uniform. A lot of her photos are gorgeous land- or cityscapes, all with the same two-word the caption, “My view.”
To get through her TikTok feed, you have to scroll through hundreds of videos, all short, mostly advertisements for products. These are generally something related to beauty or fashion, though she has a soft spot for anime, Chainsaw Man being her favorite. Her videos seem professional and staged, compared to her YouTube channel, which is relaxed and intimate, despite the heavy editing.
Returning to YouTube, there is a list of recommended videos on the right side of the screen. The one on top is labeled “Social Justice Woman,” which has over twelve million views. Fifty thousand give it a thumbs up, but the thumbs down number couldn’t be seen since YouTube had stopped sharing that information publicly this past November.
Clicking play reveals Autumn, looking less made up than in her first video. Her baggy sweater looks like it’s designed to be baggy, as opposed to being several sizes too big.
“Hey, gang,” she says, “this is Autumn, and I’m going to put it all on the table for you today.” Cut. “Recently, I’ve been seeing these comments on my page …” She points down. “… accusing me of being some kind of Social Justice Warrior. To them, I say, ‘Hand me my sword and shield, cuz this bitch is about to—” Beep! “—some—” Beep! Cut. “You know what? You got me. I’m Woke as hell, and, if that’s going to be a problem, then down-vote and unsubscribe because I don’t want you anywhere near me.” Cut. “I’m not gonna change.” Cut. “Since, like, all the way to the beginning, our world has been built for straight cis white men. For the first one hundred and forty-four years of this country, women couldn’t even vote. We couldn’t even get our own credit card until 1973. We’re 50 percent of the people in this world, and we couldn’t even vote until the twentieth century!” Cut. “Bitches be shoppin’, am I right?” Cut. How do you justify that? Blacks officially get the right to vote in 1868, but they aren’t really allowed to use it for another hundred years. Even then, with voter ID laws and gerrymandering, their vote is worth less than that of a white man.” Cut.
“I can’t change how laws work. I’m just one vote in a country that always seems to vote for the worst people.” Cut. “What I can do is treat everyone I meet with dignity and respect, and if that means I have to call Mathilda Smith out on her TERF crap, then I will do it, no matter how I feel about the Magicians’ Union series.” Cut. “God, I love me some Magicians’ Union. Mathilda, why?” Cut. “She’s a whole video onto herself, and I don’t want to become one of those people who is only ever gets political anymore when they used to be fun.” Cut. “Just leave the trans community alone, okay? They got it hard enough.” Cut.
“I’m going to cut this short, but, if you take anything away from this video, it’s dignity and respect. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it’s priceless.” Cut. “Take it easy, gang, and, hey, be civil in the comments, okay? I know how some of you guys are.”
There are thousands upon thousands of comments on this video, the first of which is “HYPOCRIT!!!!!!1!”
Among the rest can be found:
“Your so full of shit.”
“I used to really like you but not after what you did”
“Unsubscribe” (That one comes up a lot.)
“I can’t believe the nerve of you to post this video then do what you did.”
“Fucking bitch” (This one also comes up a lot.)
“Delete your account.”
“Kill yourself”
“If your standing on the subway platform and the train is coming do the world a favor and just jump”
They went on like that. Some commenters feel genuinely betrayed by her and try to express it. Some commenters threaten sexual violence. Some commenters express glee and schadenfreude. This is her most talked-about video, by far, and has easily four times as many views as anything else she’s posted. It had originally been posted four months ago and had not been a big deal. Nearly all these comments have been left over the past ten days.
On Twitter, hashtags #autumnsonotwoke and #cancelautumnryan have been trending since last week. Under either of those tags, users gleefully post screenshots of questionable tweets she’d made in the past, including one where she’d put up a photo of a bag of Skittles sorted by color with the caption, “I’m so autistic sometimes.”
Says user The Magenta Lantern, “It’s not enough that she’s racist but she’s ableist too?”
She’s labeled a bigot after she had, a few years before, posted a tweet where she deadnamed a recently transitioned celebrity. Most users, almost exclusively cis, white, and able-bodied, inform her she needs to listen to POC, neuro-atypical, and trans voices.
One user, Gay and Feral, points out that most of these examples were from when she was in her late teens and early twenties, a privileged white girl. What white girl hasn’t made inappropriate jokes? He also tries to bring attention to how quickly she pulls down offending tweets, usually within hours, and apologizes.
He is immediately @ed until he has to put his account on private. Other users who come to her defense suffer similar fates.
And so, last week, @autumnbreze1997 deletes her account. Woke Twitter, along with an army of Right-Wing Trolls, celebrate a mighty victory. Now that blood has been spilled, and the soldiers are finished dancing over her corpse, Autumn immediately settles into obscurity.