I'm using this as a half an hour essay procrastination, please don't judge me.
Until about 2 months ago I didn't really who Zoella was, I'd heard her name and knew that she was on YouTube, but that was about it. That is, until I paid a visit to LUSH in Norwich.
It's quite a small store, and it was so packed that there was barely room to move, but I'd promised myself a bath on my weekend trip home, so I persevered. I asked the woman at the till 'Wow. Is this your Christmas rush already?', to which she replied, 'No. Zoella posted a LUSH Haul video a couple of days ago, our sales have doubled over the past 24 hours'.
What?
That was the first time I really realised the 'Zoella effect'.
If you didn't already know, her book released less than a fortnight ago has already broken the annual hardback sales record and has become the fastest selling debut ever. Once again, a celebrity book is at the top of the charts for Christmas.
As with most celebrity publications, unsurprisingly it has come to light that this novel was in fact ghost written, and as happens with everything nowadays, Twitter has gone mental.
Being a Lit student, there is a certain level of heartache that comes with a bestselling novel turning out to be ghost written. I want to write, not necessarily fiction, but I want to make my money by people reading what I have to say. Now, I'm never going to be famous. The same is true for most writers/journalists/authors and creative types in all of their forms. Whenever I get published, it will have been through solid hard work and chances are I'll be paid a tuppence and by the next day it will be used to wrap people's chips. It's just something that you have to accept. But Zoe Sugg or Zoella or whatever you want to call her has got all of this, the recognition that writers work years for, seemingly in seconds. I'm not saying that she's not a worker, her blog has been around for years and I'm sure she works very hard on her YouTube channel, but where's the recognition for the person that actually wrote it? As an aspiring writer there's a certain pain in knowing that celebrity can catapult you to the top of the charts literally in hours, whereas the decades of work go unrecognised. Maybe a little more recognition, or a co-writing credit would have lessened the recent media storm and lessened the resentment a little. I don't know, maybe.
Having said that, well done to you girl. Well done to having a book published by the age of 24 and well done to you for getting teenage girls interested in reading again.
What's happened in the past couple of days surrounding this 'scandal' as it has been labelled. (Really? A scandal? Are you really surprised that a celebrity didn't write their own book?) has really shocked me; and in some ways dissuaded me from journalistic writing. This young woman has quite literally been bullied off the internet. She's left, and probably for the first time in her 'career' has signed off.
Why? Why must the media hate successful people so much?
God forbid, god forbid the Daily Mail, or the Telegraph, or the Independent or anybody like that should be praising of a young, successful person who has got there of their own accord, and found their own unique way of making money in times when 'real' jobs are few and far between. God forbid that somebody should be able to be successful and influential without having been handed the 'Silver Spoon'.
I probably won't read her book, and I certainly will never be an internet fangirl, but give this woman her respect where it is due. The media have turned on their own and are eating her alive. No one deserves to be bullied in their line of work, especially by the people who are supposed to understand the most. I'm not sure if I ever want to be part of an industry that doesn't look after its own.
