The Campaign

Ryan always saw himself as having a gift for making social media posts and managing social media accounts. When some social media managers get their first projects or assignments they let their personal social media accounts fall by the wayside, but not Ryan. Ryan stayed up many sleepless nights managing his own and others social media. It was worth it for Ryan, because in his mind, he was too good to fail.

Ryan’s favorite platform to work on was Instagram, and his personal account had thousands more followers beyond what he had on other platforms. Ryan’s Instagram was eye-catching and sophisticated. He always knew which trends were bound to flop after a short time and which trends were classy enough to warrant engaging in.

Ryan managed social media accounts on other platforms, but Instagram was his bread and butter. Every Instagram account he managed turned into a smash hit for his clients in a matter of days. Ryan was good at other platforms, for sure, but his Instagram accounts were always the most successful.

Ryan was so good at managing Instagram accounts that he had more people asking him to do social media than he could possibly respond to. Some people took offense to Ryan never getting back to them and complained online, but Ryan was so good at making carefully curated and stylistic Instagram posts that it didn’t do much to affect his business.

One day, Ryan got an email asking him to manage an Instagram account for a political campaign. Ryan was usually wary of getting involved in politics, and had yet to take any politicians or political movements as clients, but something compelled Ryan to open the email:

Subject: Manage our campaign!

Mr. Grainger,

We are reaching out to you with an exclusive opportunity! As you may know, Richard Cogner is running for congressional house seat number 7 to represent our great city. We’d like YOU to serve as our social media manager. Please respond to email with a time and date you can meet us at our campaign office at 105 Edwards Blvd. We look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully,

Campaign Manager Sadie

Ryan had only heard of Richard Cogner in passing but he knew enough to know that he agreed with Cogner on many points. While hesitant to get into politics, Ryan couldn’t help but think that this could be a good opportunity. He decided to write an email reply:

Ms. Sadie,

Thank you for your email. I would be happy to provide my services for Mr. Cogner and his campaign (including my usual fees of course). Does 2pm on Tuesday the 25th sound like a good day and time for me to swing by the campaign office?

Respectfully,

Ryan Grainger

Ryan paused before hitting send. Did he really want to work for a political campaign? “What’s the worst that could happen?” Ryan thought to himself. He hit send on his email and less than an hour later, he received a response:

Good Afternoon Mr. Grainger,

Yes! That time and day works perfectly. We have heard about your standard rates and are prepared to compensate you at those rates. We can discuss further at the campaign office on Tuesday the 25th. We look forward to seeing you.

Respectfully,

Campaign Manager Sadie

Ryan leaned back in his chair; satisfied with the exchange. He spent a brief period of time planning for his visit to the campaign office before going about his day.

At 1:55PM on Tuesday the 25th, Ryan Grainger arrived at the campaign office for congressional election frontrunner Richard Cogner. As Ryan got out of his car he surveyed the surrounding parking lot and the outside of the building. At one end of the strip mall in which the campaign office was located was a massage parlor, but the only cars in the parking lot were parked much closer to the campaign office. Ryan counted at least 20 cars.

The front windows of the campaign office were fully plastered with signs reading “Cogner for Congress 2024”. The glass on the front door was black, so no one could see inside the campaign office from the outside. Ryan approached the door, pulled it open and was met with a large room of people sitting in front of laptops while managing phone calls. A few of the call bank volunteers glanced briefly at Ryan before returning to their phone conversations with constituents and the occasional angry conservative from another state.

Ryan was almost fully recovered from the initial overwhelm, spurred by the volume of the room, when a blond woman in a blue shirt and black pants approached him.

“Hi! are you Mr. Grainger?” The woman asked.

“Yes! And just Ryan is fine actually.” Ryan’s feeling of slight overwhelm was quietly rising during this exchange.

“I’m Sadie, it’s good to finally meet you! Why don’t you come to the back and we can talk?” Sadie offered.

“Sure thing.” Ryan could feel his anxiety lessen as the walked back past the rows of people on phones into an office that was so much quieter that it would’ve been unsettling if it wasn’t for the flowery and homey décor of the room.

“So we’ve been following your work for a while,” Sadie continued as they sat on either side of the desk “and we really appreciate the vibe that you bring to the social media accounts you’ve been managing.’

Ryan nodded, still taking in how much quieter it was in the room than outside it.

“We heard from a friend at Albert’s Bookstore about how many new customers your Instagram work brought in for them. Would the rate you used for them of 210 dollars per post be an acceptable rate?” Sadie asked.

In his head, Ryan knew that he could charge more than that if he wanted to but the drive to the campaign office combined with the initial shock caused by the volume upon entering the office had drained him slightly. “That works for me.” Ryan told her while reasoning that it made sense to charge less since he agreed with Cogner on a lot of points anyway.

“Great!” Sadie replied. “I’m going to go ahead and start emailing you some campaign materials that you can use for the posts and I’ll get Brenda to give you the password to the existing Instagram account.”

“Sounds good” Ryan at this point had shed some of his anxiety thanks to the quiet of Sadie’s office. “Do you want me to focus more on Mr. Cogner’s background or his policies? Or a mix of both?”

Sadie paused to think. “Let’s go with policies for now. The materials I’m sending you will have some example language of what we want. Once I’m done attaching these files and I’ve sent the email, we can walk over to Rick’s office and you can meet him.”

“I get to meet Mr. Cogner today?” Ryan asked while barely masking the surprise in his voice.

“Of course! He’s actually in his office right across the hall right now. Oh, and by the way – You do need to run your posts by either me, Brenda, or Rick before you post them. Ok?” Sadie explained.

“That works for me.” Ryan declared as Sadie hit send on the email.

“Great.” Sadie stood up and gestured toward the door. “Let’s go talk to him.”

Ryan opened the door and was briefly hit by the noise of the phone bank volunteers busy on their calls. Sadie stepped in front of him and knocked on Rick Cogner’s office door.

“Come in!” Rick Cogner could barely be heard saying over the clamor of the phone calls.

The meeting went well and Ryan began work on Cogner’s campaign Instagram account. A few short months later Richard Cogner won the election for the House of Representatives seat, but something was off. It wasn’t clear what was off at first; Cogner seemed displeased with his own victory. Suddenly, Cogner took to Twitter in the early hours of an otherwise normal Wednesday in January. His ramblings were shocking to those who had supported him.

“Get rid of all the dammed immigrants!” one tweet read. “Down with the woke agenda and brainwashing of our nations children!” read another tweet.

Sadie tried to reach Cogner but couldn’t. Ryan asked her what was happening and she had no choice but to admit that she didn’t have a clue.

Before anyone knew it, Richard Cogner was on the afternoon news saying much the same things as he was saying on Twitter, only this time calling his voters gullible and ranting about what he called a “new world order”.

Ryan, Cogner’s staff and everyone who had been following the election of Richard Cogner to Congress was baffled. Conservatives celebrated as liberals lashed out online, some purported it to some sort of elaborate prank or hoax, but after several weeks of the same rhetoric from Cogner it was clear that this is who he actually was.

Ryan, Cogner’s staff, and the voters, had all been played for fools. Ryan even lost business and got long streams of hateful, and sometimes even threatening, online messages. Ryan and others who had supported Cogner mounted a lawsuit and eventually won, but the damage was already done.

Cogner would go on to somehow get re-elected for a second term, before disappearing inexplicably about five days before the scheduled announcement of his re-election campaign for a third term. No one knows what ever happened to Richard Cogner, and Ryan was grateful to never hear from him again.