Aria Featherstone is a young pigeon girl who somehow turned posting goofy videos online into a full-time career. Fashion, travel, coffee shops, skating, random adventures, "Get Ready With Me" clips... if it sounds fun, she'll probably film it. Millions of people have watched her straighten her feathers, clip colorful barrettes into place, look into the camera and cheerfully announce, "Hey everyone!" Far fewer would guess how shy she actually is when the camera turns off.
Aria knows the stereotype: airheaded influencer, constant attention seeker, walking advertisement. She laughs along with the jokes because it's easier than explaining how much of her life is actually spent editing footage, answering emails, negotiating sponsorships, watching analytics and wondering whether the latest wave of comments might be right about her after all. She reads far more of them than she should. Compliments can brighten her afternoon; one casually cruel remark can follow her around for days. She knows perfectly well that she should stop scrolling. Tomorrow, perhaps.
Often behind the camera is her best friend, Dustin Hansen, a lanky skate rat and aspiring filmmaker who knew Aria long before strangers on the internet did. Their friendship is entirely platonic, deeply affectionate, and largely immune to the internet's determination to turn any two people appearing regularly in the same frame into a couple. Dustin has filmed her while crouching in bushes, lying on pavement, balancing somewhere unsafe, and occupying numerous other positions no sensible camera operator would consider. More importantly, he knows when Aria needs another take, when she needs coffee, and when she needs someone to quietly take the phone away.
Offline, Aria is thoughtful, curious, and considerably quieter than her videos suggest. She'll happily spend an afternoon exploring a new neighborhood, feeding ducks, trying an absurd seasonal drink, or dragging Dustin and whichever friends are available into an adventure that sounded reasonable five minutes earlier. She is sensitive enough to cry over a nasty comment and stubborn enough to upload again tomorrow. If there's one thing Aria wishes people remembered about the internet, it's that the person on the other side of the screen is exactly that: a person. 🐦📱