I woke up to the shrill sound of my alarm, signaling the start of another boring, monotonous day. As usual, I dragged my laptop off the ground onto my lap, and decided to check my email. Honestly, any excuse for staying in bed for an extra five minutes of happiness was a good one. I sighed to myself: 308 unread emails… typical. Lately, I have been feeling lost and numb; I felt like I had no reason to live, I had no friends, and I had no motivation to get out of bed. I checked the time. Hm… 15 more minutes to stay in bed, before my crazy mom breaks down my door... Surprisingly, I had finished all of my homework the night before, and I was up to date with the recent season of Orange is the New Black. I decided to use the extra time to check my email and basically declutter my life, one email at a time. I opened up the first email to find that it was an advertisement for a new social media platform called RealTalk. I rolled my eyes. Was that really the best name they could come up with? Just as I was about to exit out of the email, the slogan at the bottom of the screen caught my eye: “Chat with real people with real problems, just like you!” I came to the realization that out of the seven billion people on this planet, through this app, I could find at least one person who would be willing to listen to me and be my friend
“ASHLEY KONG GET OUT OF BED RIGHT NOW AND INTO MY CAR BEFORE I CUT OFF THE INTERNET---” The ear-splitting voice of my mom pierced through my concentration. I checked the time. 8:45?!!!! I realized that I had lost track of time while making my profile on RealTalk. I picked up a hoodie off of the ground and threw it on over my pajama top as I raced to catch the bus. I couldn’t wait to get home and finish up my profile on RealTalk.
As soon as I got home, I turned on my laptop and proceeded to log on the website that had been occupying my thoughts all day. I decided to use a fake name, just in case it was just a scam. Hmm.. Betty Williams.
The RealTalk Cycle
By Grace Kim (Campbell Hall '19)