Public Relations

Chapter 15: Brett

"This is stupid."

"Yeah, well, so are you. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Mia pegs me with a 100-watt smile and taps the whiteboard behind her. "Welcome to publicity training."

My head hits the small conference table I'm seated at. We're in a private room in the front corner of her office building. Tony had scheduled this with her following my podcast stunt - which neither Mia nor Tony appreciated very much. I'm still paying the consequences, obviously, in the form of Publicity Summer Camp.

Her backpack is at the front of the room by the board she's faux presenting at, and she kneels down to retrieve something from it.

No, I realize. She's reaching behind the bag, which is obscuring -

"I brought donuts!"

She drops a half dozen box of donuts onto the table, opens them, and slides them down towards me. I try not to look as excited as I feel - I haven't eaten a damn thing today, and sugar sounds magical.

Napkins are conjured somewhere between my first and second donut, which I use to wipe some of the sugary, sticky glaze from my face.

"In exchange, you owe me your full attention."

"Not once did I agree to that," I say, barely swallowing my bite before the words get out.

Her face turns to stone, unamused, and I raise my hands in defeat, silently acquiescing her.

"Let's start."

Publicity training, in Mia's sense of the word, is a twenty slide PowerPoint of how to handle myself. It's a punishment without a doubt, intentionally and mind-numbingly boring.

Our first exercise arises on the third slide. 

"I want to reevaluate your idea of your brand," she tells me, stepping across the screen behind her as though she's presenting to a dozen C-suite executives and not a sleep-deprived man who makes 15-second videos for a living. She presses a clicker in her hand and the text warps on screen to say What Is Your Brand?

A silence washes over us, one that I realize quickly she's expecting me to fill.

"My brand?" I ask, leaning my head against my fist. "What is that even supposed to mean?"

Mia's face cracks into a grin, and she pushes the clicker again. The screen changes again, the text rotating three dimensionally to change into What Does That Mean?

I roll my eyes. "Good god, am I that predictable?"

She says nothing, pushing her button once more for much smaller subtext to pop up beneath the title, reading Yes, you are that easy to read.

"Your brand," she starts, ignoring the horror on my face, "is what people think of you. How they see you. What they associate you with. For example -" The screen pulls up a photo collage, shadowy, misty forests and fantastical book covers and dark outfits scattered the page. "When you first started TikTok, you had a hot, elvish prince energy. Girls were using you as their face claims for their favorite morally grey fantasy love interests. You and Jasper had that Ying and Yang thing going on, with your dark palette and his light one."

I raise an eyebrow to challenge this, but she stops me before I can protest.

"I'm not saying I agree that you look like an elvish prince. This is objective data."

My lips turn into a mischievous smile. "What do you think I look like, then?"

"Right now? A colossal pain in my ass."

The slide changes as my ego deflates. This one is a collage of smoke curls and midnight cocktails and gleaning swords and tattoos. It's still dark, but the fantastical elements have been swapped for more of a nightlife variety.