^{Yass, my king!}

---

I suck down the last of my Strawberry Watermelon Prime drink which I love and tap open my ‘mail.

It's Jake, a PR I don't know.

“Hello Jamie, Hope you're having a fabulous day! I just had to reach out because I'm a huge fan of the incredible content on www.rollonfriday.com—it always brings a smile to my face.”

Crushing it, I think.

As I post his compliment on my LinkedIn, the work experience student looks over my shoulder and suggests that Jake has just copy & pasted our website address into a template, and that he doesn’t even know what our content is, let alone think it’s incredible.

"OK, boomer”, I smirk, and clap back with a TikTok reaction video destroying her, before reconnecting with Jake’s email.

“Now, get ready for some major excitement, because I've got an exclusive opportunity that's too good to pass up!”

After jumping on my socials to add the Ukraine flag to my profile and join a dogpile on someone defending Holly Willoughby I check out more of Jake’s words.

“We recently conducted an exclusive interview with James 'Diags' Bennewith, the beloved reality TV star known for his appearance on TOWIE. He shared some incredible insights into his time on the show, and his personal life, and even addressed those rumors about a possible romance with fellow TOWIE star, Elma Pazar!”

Here at ROF Towers the ‘will they-won't they’ tension between Elma and Diags gives us all the feels, as do all the other things that Gen Z like, including all the memes and protests, so scoring an interview with an OG like Diags is squad goals.

The suggestion that we're so out of touch we barely know what TOWIE stands for is patently absurd, as demonstrated by everything I've just written about what we love and do.

I dive onto the 'gram to post a #nofilters selfie and cancel a close friend for criticising Holly Willoughby, then smash into another sesh with Jake’s email.

“Now, here's the best part: We want to offer you this exclusive interview as a guest post for your website! It's like an all-access pass to Diags' world, and we know your readers will go wild for it.”

Diags spilling the tea on his world? Lit AF.

I tell James and Matthew, who immediately set up a 'deo call.

I'm on my skateboard in the office, Matthew is rocking a dope eScooter on the north circular and James is walking, but hops on a Lime bike to join in.

"I can’t even”, says Matthew as he weaves through the traffic looking chill AF. “A collab with Diags would be on fleek”, he adds before cutting out suddenly.

“You got this", James reassures me as he jumps off the bike and leaves it lying across the pavement like a real one.

I chow down the last of Jake’s words.

“We've even jazzed it up with stunning images and helpful links to make the experience even more unforgettable. Would you like to take this up? Let’s talk! Best regards, Jake”.

This is fire content, and I am here for it. Or there for it. I got this. Climate change.

But then the work experience student says that TOWIE isn’t even a Gen Z thing, it's barely millennial, and that my ignorance of that fact along with my attempts to appear on trend make me look desperate, irrelevant, and old.

"Cringe!" I tell her. "This interview with Diagonals is going to slay."

"Who's Diagonals?"

"Our readers are wild about him. Jake told me."

"They're not wild about him."

"It's an all-access pass, to his world."

"Ok."

"It's an unforgettable experience."

Her look suggests otherwise.

Then Jake sends through the interview and I eagerly start to read.

"How it all Began

Elma and Diags had already known each other for four years before being reunited on the show.

Their flirtatious exchanges began in the pilot episode of the 30th season. Chloe Meadows, their co-star, joined them for drinks and gushed about how cute they were together. But Elma quickly friendzoned Diags."

I scroll down. There are two more pages of this. I grit my teeth and smile at the work experience student.

"Elma and Diags became closer in TOWIE episode 11 while on a group vacation to Thailand. Elma was reassured by Diags that he was not seeing any other women in Thailand."

"Are you ok?" says the work experience student.

"Following the events of the show, fans are left wondering: does Elma TOWIE have a boyfriend? The answer is no.”

"You’ve gone really pale."

“Instead of jumping into relationships to see where it goes, she decided to focus on herself and spend some time single."

I try to ignore the stabbing pains in my eyes and brain. 

"Diags was seen kissing another woman in a bar on a night out. There are pictures all over the internet of him grabbing the woman's hips and them holding hands.”

As I convulse off my chair I wonder if Jake used an AI prompt to write this. I hope so, the alternative is sad.

"This happened when episode 11 came out. In that episode, Elma and Diags are shown to be close, so it made a big stir online."

The work experience student is leaning over me. Her eyes are wide. She's shouting but I can’t hear anything over the dull roar filling my head. “It’s Jake’s words”, I gibber. Somehow they’re still going, pounding my consciousness into mash.

"Elma and Diags have known each other for a long time and dated on and off, both in real life and on television.”

She's on the phone, I think, it's hard to tell. I can feel foam bubbling in my mouth.

“Fans may be frustrated because they were rooting for them to get together, and when they didn't, it made them upset."

"Post this", I whisper as everything shrinks to a pinprick, “for clout”, but I don't know if she caught it.