The Unfollow Button

Themes: Comedy, Contemporary, Power, Reality, Rejection
Length: 1 Minute
Gender: Female

The character, a teenage girl, sits on her bed surrounded by photos and mementos of her friendship with Maya, her frustration and hurt evident as she scrolls through her phone, pausing occasionally to reflect on the loss.

I swear, one day you’re best friends, and the next, you’re just… unfollowed. I mean, literally unfollowed. Like, I open my phone, and there it is—98 followers. Not 99, not a hundred—98. And I know who it is. It’s Maya. She didn’t even try to hide it. We’ve been friends since forever. We shared everything. I knew her secrets, her dumb crushes, the time she stole her mom’s car and we went joyriding to the beach. And now? She just ghosts me, like I’m some embarrassing phase she’s over. Like, ‘Thanks for the memories, but I’m moving on.’ It’s not just social media, it’s school too. She’s sitting with them now, the ‘cool’ crowd, the ones who pretend they don’t know your name when you pass in the hallway. I’m like, ‘Hey, Maya,’ and she’s all, ‘Oh, hey…’ Like I’m some random, like we didn’t spend every summer together plotting to sneak into PG-13 movies. And it’s not that I’m jealous—I’m not. I just don’t get it. How do you go from sharing everything to sharing nothing? From ‘You’re my ride-or-die’ to a casual head nod across the cafeteria? I thought I had this whole friendship thing figured out. I thought we were solid, but now I feel like I’m back at square one, trying to figure out what the rules are. What’s the trick? Is it me? Am I just not good enough? Or is this just how it is now? Just… disposable connections, where you’re one unfollow away from being erased? It’s like no one’s real anymore. And I’m trying to act like I don’t care, but I do. I really do.