About the Lady of Erudite

So who am I?

My name is Jaime. I'm 26. I'm from Washington, pretty close to Seattle. I graduated in 2010 from Washington State University with a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. I was in and out in 4 years, although I lived in Pullman for 5 years. That extra year at the end was nice, but I had to move home eventually. =) Now I've moved back away from home, up farther north (I've gone from central western WA to central eastern WA- like 8 miles away from the Idaho border- to about 30 minutes away from Canada when I was in Bellingham. It feels like I've lived in the corners of the state (except obviously not). I just prefer the edges.) I'm married! I've been married since September, 2012. My husband is quite the Erudite too, so we're really a well balanced couple.

I used to work in two public libraries. (I recently moved so I am currently searching for a new position.) I checked in and shelved the books (and whatnot), I'm not a librarian- you have to get a Masters in Library Science for that. In Washington, the only place to get that accreditation is from the University of Washington. (A shudder runs through me just typing the horrible name). I was born and raised a Cougar, you see, so getting any kind of degree from UW is off the table. I will never give them my money. I would go to the University of British Columbia up in Vancouver first. I could go on about the Cougs all day, but that's not what this blog is for, so off this tangent.

This is a blog about Divergent, so I suppose I should start with how I came to love it. I'll talk about my association with Ansel Elgort later.

I read it at the very end of January in 2013. January 28th to the 30th, to be exact. I know because I keep track of the books I've finished with an app (on my iPhone) called Lift. It's created a list of all the books I've read, a calendar to show me visually how often I'm finishing books, and it's connected to lots of other people for encouragement. I've finished 45 books this year. It would be more, but I've recently gotten addicted to twitter and instagram, and just before that I got a great version of mahjong that ate up half my life. Anyways.

I got it off the shelf because of a list at the library called "Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, End-of-the-World Fiction/ If you liked the Hunger Games..." It led me to a lot of great books (again, I'll write about that some other time), but Divergent was one of them. I read The Host first, actually, out of all the books I chose, mainly because I had just seen an early movie preview for it. But then a coworker started reading Divergent literally the same day I was thinking of starting it or something else, so I went with Divergent because my coworker was already really into it. That day we both sat in the middle of the library at one of the tables reading Divergent for about 15 minutes until our shifts started. I quickly surpassed her (not at the table, but by the next day I was three quarters finished). I devoured it. That's the only way to describe it. I sat there on the couch or in the La-Z-Boy and read it all up. I couldn't get enough. Then I instantly read Insurgent. That one took me under 24 hours, easy. I got to the end and turned the page and literally groaned out loud, like I'm sure the rest of you did.

How did that translate into managing a crazy fan account called "Lady of Erudite"?
Designed for me by Divergent Norway

Well, after finishing Insurgent, I let myself decide that I didn't want it to be over. So I googled it. I found some Divergent fansites, found out Divergent had just begun the process of turning into a movie, and finally realized that if I truly wanted to be in touch with Divergent I'd have to get on twitter. So I got on (with a normal username) and joined the fandom. I also started using my personal instagram for fan stuff, and realized how much fun that was and how much I was probably annoying my friends, so I made a fan instagram account a couple weeks after the twitter. I thought about it all day one day, trying to figure out the perfect username. Something that describes me but is clever.

"Lady of Erudite" just rolls off the tongue, in my opinion. It was perfect. So I took it.

My thing with Ansel Elgort started quite soon after I made my fan instagram account on March 25th. The first day Ansel ever talked to me was March 28th, 2013. I had reposted a tweet of his on instagram and unknowingly tagged him in it. He must've liked my username (this happened the day after the very first table read for the Divergent script, so he had most likely just learned the word Erudite) so he commented to me "Thanks for the post, fellow Erudite." I said "Thanks! You should follow me to get some Erudite in your instagram. You know, for Caleb's sake. ;)" And he said "okay i will!" I was like... shaking with excitement.

Then after that I posted things I thought he'd find interesting. He turned out to be quite the active follower. He liked a lot of my posts, and would even answer questions that I asked him in my captions.

It took him a while to follow me on twitter, but then he followed me from both his personal account and his Ansolo account. I was the 22nd person he followed from his Ansolo account and the 78th from his personal. I'll never forget those numbers, lol, but I don't go sharing them often either.

Now we've progressed to the point where I DM him tweets from news sources about articles he's in, or photos I think he should post. I know what questions he won't answer (although I still find myself asking them sometimes). I know that guy really well now.

He wished me a happy birthday on twitter in 2013, my 25th birthday. My dear friend Kylie had been "stalking the set" that summer a lot in Chicago, and she asked him if he would do it, and he did! He even signed a book with a "Happy Birthday!" and a smiley face and heart which Kylie mailed to me! And she also (not during that same visit but in another of her lucky trips) got Ansel to talk to me on FaceTime! She called me up from her iPhone to mine and just held it up to him for us to speak face to face! It was cutting out a lot on my end, but Kylie told me later what he had said (he told me to DM him so we could talk)!  Then the next year, on my 26th birthday, he wished me an even bigger happy birthday on twitter (if that's even possible, lol). That completely blew me away because I knew no one had seen him the days before asking him to do it for me. He just... did it! Seriously, best birthday present ever. (Of course, it kinda stirred up the hate on twitter, but that's okay. It was easy to ignore in the face of such awesomeness.)

I'm happy to say he's asked me to help him run the raffles he wants to have when his new Ansolo songs release. I already ran the whole first week for Unite, and after it was over I apologized to him for getting mean and being a bitch in general, but he told me he thought I was great and that he needs someone like me to keep him in line, and then he asked me if I'll continue on with him for his next release!

The Totem raffles, the second week of them that we did together, went well too. I was able to keep my cool the whole time (unlike the first week, when I really had no idea what to expect). Basically.. I was just more laid back about the whole process, and it went well. Except for the very first day... sigh... That day Beatport didn't put Totem up until like 5 pm on the East Coast, it was terrible. So although we had planned to only support Beatport in the raffle, Ansel DMs me (from his Ansolo account) asking me to change the whole damn thing up to include iTunes purchases as well. That wouldn't have been a problem if he had told me about it at least the day before. Then I could've researched how I could've turned an iTunes song purchase into an entry in a Rafflecopter raffle. As it was, he gave me 45 minutes to figure it out before he had a livestream to announce all this. And the first desperate idea I had given him about possibly using order numbers (even though it was an absolute bitch to find them and iTunes notoriously doesn't send email receipts for days after purchases...) was the only thing he responded to. Then when I did a little research and figured out the situation I begged him not to say it on the the livestream. To say we're working on it, we're figuring something out. But nope. He must not have looked at his DMs again before the livestream because he went on to tell at least 4,000 people to use their iTunes receipt numbers...... AH. I was freaking out. I was saying "no, no, no, Ansel stoooop". But it was too late.

And then, the icing on the cake, is that he goes and says (watch it here for yourself) he's working with me again on this and "she's not queen of the fandom. I know people always like give her.. people are giving her crap or something now. She's just like one of my first fans, I think she was my fan when I had like a thousand followers. So, she's like someone who I sort of trust and she helps me out with stuff." You'd think this would be a sweet thing. He's looking out for me. I don't know why, lol it makes me cringe at the fact that I ever tweeted about that. Although, in my defense, I only did tweet about it one single time. I don't even know how he reads my tweets. I can only guess it's from his Ansolo account, where I must be the craziest person he follows. I really can't think about that too much or I'll get way too nervous about saying anything, ever.

Anyways, the point is, by saying that he unleashed the fury of twitter on me. It was... hurtful... to say the least. Right after he had said it during the livestream I DMed him a cringy face emoji with a gun emoji pointed at it and then "You owe me so much for this." With another choice emoji. Lol and then his response afterwards was "haha fuck sorry" and "that was kinda a mess". You think? I like to refer to this as the incident in which Ansel threw me under the fandom bus, lol.

Anyways, my method of getting over twitter's sudden excommunication was to just block the bitches. At least now I can't see their crap. And then Ansel gave me some... encouragement, I guess you could say, about it. So that made it all easier to ignore. As long as he doesn't mention me from his @AnselElgort account again for a long time, it should be fine, lol.

Then a few weeks later came the time Ansel got hacked on twitter (and possibly instagram). Those crazy tweets happened. His account followed two people, one of which was a member of Emblem3, a popular boy band (I had to look that up, lol). I don't know who did it or why, but during it Ansel was DMing me from his Ansolo account. He was very worried. I reached out to my followers for quick help and some wonderful person gave me the advice Ansel needed (I made sure to share with him who it was). I walked him through resetting his password and revoking the access to all the apps he had authorized. Lol he admitted to me some rather embarrassing things at this point that I won't share as it concerns his internet security, but I can tell you he leaves a lot to be desired in this particular area. Lol hopefully he learned a lesson from all this.

I also learned that day that even celebrities can be pressured by their peers. So many people were giving Ansel his very first glimpse of twitter hate, maybe we'll just call it a little bit of upheaval at this point, that he finally caved and just re-followed the Emblem3 member. Easier to just do what everyone wants and get on with life. He was not happy with having to do that, but he kept that to himself.

I think the only reason he keeps talking to me about any of this at all is because he can't really talk to his friends or loved ones about his internet drama. I mean, people don't just go around discussing their current social media problems. I don't think his friends would care, let alone give him any real advice. So this whole time I've been there, just talking to him like he's a real person. I only tweet things at him once, and I just assume he's seen it. I react to him like he's a normal human being, not a person I adore or something. I respect him and his abilities, but I recognize that he's a 20 year old man that's just coming into his adulthood and career at the same time. It's a journey that I could never relate to, but that doesn't mean I have to be in awe of him.

It's been over a year now of this. Ansel and I only talk occasionally, really. During raffle weeks we talk almost every day, and for a few days before and after them as well. For the Unite raffle we talked every day for almost two whole weeks. I got to congratulate him on his wins for the Young Hollywood Awards and the Teen Choice Awards, and he admitted to me his speeches need to be a little more concise, lol!

The day that he tweeted about people mistaking him for a member of One Direction and that incident with the Soundcloud spammer happened he experienced his first truly hateful reaction from twitter. What he told me was that a girl had sent him "hundreds of messages" (he literally said that) on soundcloud about a cover she did, and he gets emails for those messages, so it was driving him insane. He finally told her to stop, that now he wasn't ever going to listen to it. (Frankly, I see his point on this. The girl should've given him the benefit of the doubt that he would see it. She should've have sent the message more than three times at most). She responded to him with the most cutting remark I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. He calmly responded that she needed to calm down and realize that spamming someone is not the way to get anywhere in life. If she was serious about her singing she should've acted seriously about it. So she goes and shares a screen shot of this on twitter 18 days later (?) and it causes an uproar. People were saying that fame changed him and blah blah blah... WHAT? That's not unlike him! That's exactly like him! Fame has nothing to do with it.

So Ansel told me it sucked that he was getting hate. He saw it happening and he didn't like it. Poor kid. I told him, "Well, you can't be truly loved until you're truly despised." He's told me to ignore the hate before but now he knows what it looks like. Anyways, he then asked me how I was "taking my random hate"? and "Peeps be jelly", lol. For some reason that just made me feel so much better about any and all residual hate I get on twitter. It's like an inside joke for me now.

I don't know what this crazy relationship we've got going on is, to be honest. An internet friendship, I guess? That seems the best way to describe it. I can tell you that I probably wouldn't still be in this fandom, or on the internet at all, if Ansel hadn't talked to me 3 days after I started my fan account. If he hadn't stuck with me for the last year I wouldn't be the person I am today. That's a crazy thought.

Time has gone on, we've settled into a comfortable routine of chatting when something exciting happens and going about our lives the rest of the time. I don't go out of my way to get his attention all the time, or really any of the time. He talks to me when he has something to say. I hope he doesn't forget about me altogether but part of me can honestly say if he did, I wouldn't be heartbroken. But I'm going to stick around for as long as he does. Keeping people informed of news about him keeps me entertained, so I do enjoy doing it. Plus his mom and sister follow me on instagram now and his mom is quite the supportive woman, so I'm loving sharing everything I can with her.

I hold out hope that someday Ansel will come to Seattle (or Portland or Vancouver) to have an Ansolo show. I'd drive as far as Idaho to see him (though I don't think he'll ever go there). He periodically says things to me like "I can't wait for you to see a show" or "You're gonna love it!" and it just... well, gets my hope up. Lol is it stupid that my goal would be to go out for a drink and a chat with him? I don't even really know what I would want to talk about. I think I would ask him what his middle name is, for one thing, and then I would be just stumped. This is something I'm gonna have to ponder!

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