success.
Â
Maureen logged out of Facebook as herself and logged back in as Lydia Steenberg. Lydia had six new notifications, and one new direct message. Maureen scrolled through the notifications first â most of them were responses to threads she had followed on the Banting for Life page. But one notification was from Facebook, informing Lydia that one of her randomly friended âfriendsâ, Simone Kunderman, had a birthday.
âHappy birthday, have a great day,â Lydia quickly tapped out on the strangerâs wall.
Within seconds, Simone had acknowledged the message by liking it. Maureen wondered what Simone thought. Perhaps she thought Lydia was an old school friend who had a different surname now, or a work colleague she didnât remember, but was too polite to question
the source of their friendship. Maureen found it remarkable how little visual evidence one needed to create an entire human being online,
one with a birthday, a history, friends and family, likes and dislikes.
When sheâd first created Lydia, Maureen had surfed Google images for pictures that could believably make up Lydiaâs life. She was careful to choose obscure photographs of various young, overweight blonde women, all shot from behind or a bit blurry to protect her theft of their identities, but still similar enough to seem legitimate. Maureen also decided that Lydia had a cat named Ginger Mary, a generic-looking feline who was obsessed with dragging Lydiaâs imaginary neighboursâ socks off their washing line into Lydiaâs imaginary house. The imagin-
ary Ginger Mary liked sleeping in Lydiaâs imaginary laundry basket
on top of Lydiaâs imaginary clean clothes. She might not exist, but
Lydia Steenberg was as vivid in Maureenâs mind as if she were her daughter or next-door neighbour.
Maureen checked her plan on the pinboard, and then uploaded a new photograph of a ginger cat to Lydiaâs profile, right on schedule. Maybe because in her mind they were such great friends, Maureen had taken things with Lydia further than she ever had with Herman or Sizwe. Sheâd even chosen a couple of pleasing hobbies for the young woman. She decided that Lydia would enjoy reading local fiction and knitting, and regularly posted pictures of the books she was busy reading, the kinds of books Maureen imagined a girl like her would like â none of that Fifty Shades nonsense.
Lydia was an only child, Maureen had decided, with a relatively
low- pressure job in Human Resources at a large computer company, and she sometimes went for a drink after work with a small group of girlfriends sheâd had since school, and one or two sheâd met later at college or in th e workplace.
When Maureen first started posting as Lydia in the Banting group, the twenty-seven-year-old blonde needed to lose about twenty-five
kilos. Her journey hadnât been an easy one, on purpose. Because, Maureen felt, everybody loved an underdog.
Poor Lydia had really struggled to lose weight at first. Sheâd even put on five kilos in her first few months of Banting, and had become very despondent about the whole thing. If it hadnât been for the communal strength and encouragement of the group (and cutting down on her imaginary dairy and in-between meal snacks), she would have most certainly given up.
Maureen thought it was an inspired idea to present a different kind of Banting journey. Herman had been almost immediately successful with his efforts at losing weight (as Maureen herself had been). So this was something different for her. And the fans loved it. Their encouragement even buoyed up Maureen herself, especially whenever she was considering a sneaky rusk with her bullet-proof coffee.
Maureenâs most popular comment ever came a few weeks after Lydia had first started Banting, when sheâd posted two silly before-and-after photos of Ginger Mary that made the cat look like sheâd lost a couple of
Â
Maureen logged out of Facebook as herself and logged back in as Lydia Steenberg. Lydia had six new notifications, and one new direct message. Maureen scrolled through the notifications first â most of them were responses to threads she had followed on the Banting for Life page. But one notification was from Facebook, informing Lydia that one of her randomly friended âfriendsâ, Simone Kunderman, had a birthday.
âHappy birthday, have a great day,â Lydia quickly tapped out on the strangerâs wall.
Within seconds, Simone had acknowledged the message by liking it. Maureen wondered what Simone thought. Perhaps she thought Lydia was an old school friend who had a different surname now, or a work colleague she didnât remember, but was too polite to question
the source of their friendship. Maureen found it remarkable how little visual evidence one needed to create an entire human being online,
one with a birthday, a history, friends and family, likes and dislikes.
When sheâd first created Lydia, Maureen had surfed Google images for pictures that could believably make up Lydiaâs life. She was careful to choose obscure photographs of various young, overweight blonde women, all shot from behind or a bit blurry to protect her theft of their identities, but still similar enough to seem legitimate. Maureen also decided that Lydia had a cat named Ginger Mary, a generic-looking feline who was obsessed with dragging Lydiaâs imaginary neighboursâ socks off their washing line into Lydiaâs imaginary house. The imagin-
ary Ginger Mary liked sleeping in Lydiaâs imaginary laundry basket
on top of Lydiaâs imaginary clean clothes. She might not exist, but
Lydia Steenberg was as vivid in Maureenâs mind as if she were her daughter or next-door neighbour.
Maureen checked her plan on the pinboard, and then uploaded a new photograph of a ginger cat to Lydiaâs profile, right on schedule. Maybe because in her mind they were such great friends, Maureen had taken things with Lydia further than she ever had with Herman or Sizwe. Sheâd even chosen a couple of pleasing hobbies for the young woman. She decided that Lydia would enjoy reading local fiction and knitting, and regularly posted pictures of the books she was busy reading, the kinds of books Maureen imagined a girl like her would like â none of that Fifty Shades nonsense.
Lydia was an only child, Maureen had decided, with a relatively
low- pressure job in Human Resources at a large computer company, and she sometimes went for a drink after work with a small group of girlfriends sheâd had since school, and one or two sheâd met later at college or in th e workplace.
When Maureen first started posting as Lydia in the Banting group, the twenty-seven-year-old blonde needed to lose about twenty-five
kilos. Her journey hadnât been an easy one, on purpose. Because, Maureen felt, everybody loved an underdog.
Poor Lydia had really struggled to lose weight at first. Sheâd even put on five kilos in her first few months of Banting, and had become very despondent about the whole thing. If it hadnât been for the communal strength and encouragement of the group (and cutting down on her imaginary dairy and in-between meal snacks), she would have most certainly given up.
Maureen thought it was an inspired idea to present a different kind of Banting journey. Herman had been almost immediately successful with his efforts at losing weight (as Maureen herself had been). So this was something different for her. And the fans loved it. Their encouragement even buoyed up Maureen herself, especially whenever she was considering a sneaky rusk with her bullet-proof coffee.
Maureenâs most popular comment ever came a few weeks after Lydia had first started Banting, when sheâd posted two silly before-and-after photos of Ginger Mary that made the cat look like sheâd lost a couple of
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