I'm sorry, but you just don't have the follower count to work in our humble little shop

We'd be happy to consider you in the future after more people smash that follow button.

Dear Person,

Thank you for your interest in the Junior Retail Associate position at our humble little shop. Unfortunately, we have chosen to proceed with other candidates who better meet our needs at this time. We wish you all the best in your search for a way to continue to be alive.

If we can provide some feedback, which we can because this is an email and you can’t stop me from continuing to write — you seriously need to consider upping your follower count before you apply for another job. How can any business trust that you’ll be an asset to them when you can’t even be an asset to yourself?

Your application made it through our initial screening process, despite your frankly humiliating follower count that should keep you awake at night, because of your previous training and experience. Your glowing reviews from former employers caught our eye, but not enough to make up for the fact that you have absolutely no influence over other humans at their most influenceable. You absolutely crushed it in your interview which, if we're being completely honest, we only invited you to as a goof. We needed to see what kind of person had such pathetic numbers online. You were lovely, personable, and probably perfect for the day-to-day aspects of this job. We all loved you in person. It’s a shame you can’t seem to make that work online.

If you’re not able to make thousands and thousands of idiots online desperately looking to keep themselves occupied smash the subscribe button so they don’t miss more of what you have to say, then how will you possibly represent our humble little shop to the best of your ability? Who’s going to even see it when we tag you in posts about our store? When you post about having a bad day at work who is even going to see it to ask “where do you work?” so you can reply “at this #humblelittleshop” resulting in a flood of new eyes on our stuff (no press is bad press.) This is the way all industries are going so you better get used to it.

Do you know that only 25 percent of your high school graduating class follows you on Instagram? Those are terrible metrics. These are the people who you should have in the bag. They should be auto follows. Might we suggest some Reels where you tell inside jokes about your hometown. Make local references. Say stuff like “Remember when we used to drive down that creepy street at night at make goat noises outside that one old guys house? What was that about? Why goat noises, he didn’t own a goat. Did he look like a goat? Is there some weird story about this guy and a goat from a long time ago that we didn’t even know about?” That’s, like, an auto share from anybody who follows you to anybody else in your class, they’ll pass it on to other people in your hometown, and pretty soon everybody’s going to be talking about Goat Man and following you. This shit works. Sure, some people will be like “That’s not cool, did you know that Goat Man had to be hospitalized because he tried to do self harm because generation after generation of kids kept harassing him outside his home.” But that’s just engagement, baby! That just feeds the algorithm exactly what it wants.

The algorithm does not want what you’re currently giving it. Your most recent post is just a picture of a tree in the snow. It’s beautiful, but what is the viewer supposed to even do with that? We’ve all seen trees, we’ve all seen snow, we’ve all seen trees beautifully covered in freshly fallen snow on a perfect moonlit evening. Standing tall and lonely in a field that hasn’t yet been walked on. Perfect snow with endless potential. Sure, it makes us think of the joy of childhood and the excitement of the night before a potential snow day. It feels like a little Christmas, the anticipation building in the pit of your stomach, waiting for the announcements on the news the next day, hoping you’ll be set free from having to go to class. Free for a glorious day of playing with your friends outside, tramping over the formerly perfect field, climbing the tree, shaking the branches and watching the snow fall on your friends below. The feeling of going inside for lunch and thawing out over a bowl of soup prepared by your loving mother. Our own potential as endless and perfect as the field the night before. But where’s the call to action?

Lucky for you, one of the things our humble little shop offers is a crash course in mastering social media. For just $79.99 you can learn how to maximize your follower count, increase engagement, and make yourself desirable for potential employment in humble little shops like ours. That’s a small price to play for influence. And the ability to get a job so you can continue to live.