Author Karen Harte on the writing of her laugh-out-loud debut graphic novel, Effie is Offline . . .
As a person born in the 1900’s, I remember a time before the internet.
I know. Mad.
Those everlasting childhood days where the only devices we had were Walkmans, Tamagotchi’s and Fashion Wheels to keep us entertained. No smartphones, Tiktok, Instagram and no omniscient algorithm that constantly sends you videos of pimple popping just because you were intrigued by one particularly bad boil lancing video.
When the internet arrived and we kept it safe and sound in one room: The Computer Room. Here in this sacred space, you went inside, cranked the dial-up. Eventually when you were connected, you did your internetting and then TURNED THE INTERNET OFF.
We hung out with our pals and then came home and had no idea what anyone else was doing. There was no Instagram story of you calling your teacher ‘Mam’ in Art class. No group chat or comments analysing your behaviour when you were sitting on a park bench with 10 other teenagers. You could just go home and eat a Findus Crispy Pancake in peace.
Mind-Blowing!
Trying to explain this to children now is mind-blowing for them, because the internet is not just in one room anymore. It’s everywhere. It’s the little rectangle in your pocket, your smart watch, your kitchen radio, your TV, your car. It knows what you want more than you know what you want. It knows you better than your spouse or your codependent best friend.
Then one night while I was lying in bed doomscrolling, where most insightful cultural observations and ideas come from, I had a thought. What does all this hyperconnected, ‘performative existence’ mean for kids online today? Particularly those whose parents choose to show every part of their life online?
Not just influencer families, everyone wants their chance at a viral moment. It’s like You’ve Been Framed on steroids. Jeremy Beadle has a lot to answer for.
Nothing is off limits for the chance of viral fame. The child coming home from the dentist, completely off their face. The toddler that just learned we all die one day. The baby pooping in the bath. The terrified screams of tiny cousins running away from an evil family member dressed as The Grinch to steal their Santa presents.
Then you look underneath the post. 300,000 likes. 43,000 comments. 36,000 saves. Woah. What happens when that kid grows up and finds out their childhood trauma has been turned into ‘Engagement’ fodder?
I also viscerally remember being in my teens. Everything was embarrassing. Everything my parents did was excruciatingly embarrassing. I got over that…about three years ago. I’m really mature now.
Effie is Offline
That was the beginning of Effie is Offline. I started thinking about what it might be like to be a teenager whose entire life had been turned into ‘content’. Not just your day to day life, your whole identity. And what if the version of you that exists online isn’t the person you want to be? That was where Effie finally finds herself in the opening chapter of the book.
It was the first scene I visualised in my head when I started thinking up this story. Effie walks in to a ‘Kidfluencer’ support group meeting for children thrown online from before they could speak and expected to perform at a moment’s notice. Every moment of Effie’s life, every meltdown, embarrassing moment, birthday, success, failure has been filmed and most likely sponsored. Then her dad has a very public cheating scandal and the family’s online ‘picture perfect’ image is tarnished, their empire implodes.
While I was making the book, I was going through some major upheavals of my own. I had recently been made redundant and was questioning what I was doing with my career and also what the hell was I doing with my life. All while navigating single motherhood and the end of my marriage. Then my mother died in August 2025.
So there was a lot going on.
Identity
I was thinking about identity quite a bit. About how much of our identity is tied up in our jobs, our relationships with friends and family and the expectations other people may have of us. And what happens when all of that changes.
Effie is a teenager and I am a 41-year-old woman that gets a rush from a great car parking spot and changing the sponge on my dish scrubber. But I understand the feeling of looking around at your life and thinking: is this actually who I am now?
That is something I wanted to explore through Effie. Who are you when no one is watching? And who are you when everyone is watching?
Writing the Book
Then there was just the little insignificant matter of writing the book. I’d been a graphic designer and illustrator for years. I had illustrated a best-selling children’s book series. I studied animation. I had spent years telling stories visually. But I had only just got comfortable in my late 30’s calling myself an ‘artist’. And now I was going to add ‘author’ to that? Sorry what? Excuse me? Who did I think I was? A friend pointed out that I had been telling stories with pictures for my entire life. Ok fine I guess!
I also found an old memory box my mother gave me on my 21st birthday and there was my first battered old diary from when I was 6 years old. Yes, keeping a diary is a valid and important form of writing, I think Helen Fielding/Bridget Jones would have something to say about that!? My young diary entries were less Virginia Woolf and more:
“Dear Diary, I love colouring. My grandad died and I got two days off school. Love you.”
Humour
And then there was comedy. I wanted to write something funny. Humour has always been my way of coping and processing life. Writing a book about a teenager growing up online could be grim. It could be super depressing and terrifying, because the internet can be depressing and terrifying. But it is also utterly ridiculous and absurd. A viral dance video filmed in an ICU ward. Get Ready With Me for Divorce Court! People filming themselves crying. People filming their kids crying. People filming themselves filming their kids crying.
So the book came about from a combination of things. Growing up before the internet. Being a teenager. Becoming a parent. Watching influencer culture. Having a midlife identity crisis. And spending way too much time on my phone.
Ironically while writing a book about a teen who is desperate to escape the internet, I was absolutely glued to it. All in the name of research, of course.
(c) Karen Harte
Author photograph (c) Sara McDonald
About Effie is Offline:
Fifteen-year-old Effie has spent her entire life in the spotlight as the daughter of @thebrightfamily, a famous Irish influencer family known for their picture-perfect posts. But after her dad’s very public cheating scandal implodes their online empire, Effie’s mam relocates the family to a small rural town for a fresh start.
Desperate to escape her embarrassing past, Effie hides her influencer origins at her new school, where she finally starts to make friends and meets Jack – a grounded, gentle boy with a total lack of online presence or knowledge of that world. But as her mam starts reinventing herself, Effie’s secrets and her chance at a new beginning are at risk of being exposed … in a very public, very messy way.
When your parents are online influencers, perhaps the most rebellious thing you can do is to unsubscribe from your life…
Order your copy of Effie is Offline here.
And read more Meet the Authors of Children and Young Adult books here.
