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The creators of Not Okay knew exactly what they were doing when they enlisted Caroline Calloway for a cameo in their influencer dramedy. Still: Why on earth would the maligned social media presence appear in a damning portrait that feels entirely based on her life? The intrigue surrounding Calloway never disappoints.
Not Okay isn’t about Caroline Calloway, but really, it is. Quinn Shephard’s Instagram satire follows Danni (a miraculous Zoey Deutch), a washed-up journalist—when I use the word “journalist,” I mean a writer for Buzzfeed operating out of The Wing—with a penchant for fame. She’s 10 followers short of her desired count: 50 followers. Danni, who watches Caroline Calloway inspo vids on the reg, is a nobody living in the brain of a Kardashian.
So, she commits the unthinkable. Danni pretends to be a victim in a fictionalized terrorist attack at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which earns her a few hundred new followers. That’s not enough for her, so she befriends a high schooler (Mia Isaac) recovering from a mass shooting that took her sister’s life. Then, Danni decides to steal her words for an about trauma that goes viral, finally earning the wannabe a flurry of undeserved attention.