Two friends become best friends over Instagram fan page

by Jessica Cline

Staff Writer

The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.

A fan page/fan account is a social media account dedicated mainly to an influencer and/or a celebrity. Junior year, bored at our lunch table, I took to recognize that my friend’s name, Delaney Warner, had a very nice ring to it. Her name sounded very celebrity-like and I knew I couldn’t let that go to waste.

Minutes later of contemplating the thought in my head, Delaney’s phone lit up with a notification from Instagram. The notification read, “@welovedelaneywarner is now following you.”

The Delaney Warner fan account was officially created on September 20th, 2021.

Jessica Cline (12) and Delaney Warner (12) taking a selfie for senior sunrise on the first day of school. Photo by Jessica Cline (12).

The fan page started as a joke as I started to follow everyone she followed and begged her for all the content of herself. Asking for funny high school photos with friends, goofy baby photos and embarrassing middle school photos. The fan page was something small that her and her friends could laugh about with seeing random pictures of her on their Instagram feed.

Our school's pep rally for homecoming was held on our school's field with multiple games and challenges happening around us. I took a video of Delaney playing tug of war and absolutely destroying the other team. I added music to it and posted the video right away. Later my phone kept blowing up, and the likes on the video absolutely did not stop.

The video had reached 26,000 likes and over half a million views. Delaney and I were In absolute shock as we were getting followers from random people that had no idea who Delaney was. Even though this whole thing was not something we took seriously, I knew I couldn’t let the fanpage die after that.

All through the rest of our junior and senior year together, it was a habit for me to take photos and post them of Delaney whenever I got the chance to see her. I had earned the title of “Delaney Warner’s biggest fan.” I also had the biggest honor of becoming one of Delaneys good friends. We’d constantly laugh over the photos I took of her and how I would stop any moment to get some content.

Delaney Warner (12) cheering for her school at a high school football game. Photo by Jessica Cline (12).

With this silly fanpage, it had brought out a lot of happy moments that I was able to capture. Delaney Warner expresses that the fan page became a photo album for her, “it features a lot of candid moments of me that I’m grateful to be able to look back on.” Seeing Delaney and taking funny pictures of her truly became one of the things I could always look forward to.

Present day, Delaney and I are on our last few days together as we are graduating high school very soon. Running this fan page provided me with a friend for a lifetime and an indescribable amount of laughs and smiles.

Delaney and I will be attending different colleges next year and will have to put the fan account to rest. We both don’t see it continuing so much as we will be living our own lives. Delaney knows and told me that this fan account will be something we laugh about every once in a while as we remember the account and all its glory. Delaney’s biggest fan will have to sign off soon but being a supportive and loving friend for Delaney will be a job I do until the day I die.