“I Lived, Bitch” Caroline Calloway Memes Proof of Life After Hurricane Milton

“My publicist just told me that you thought that this was the world’s deadliest bit,” she said to open our call, referencing a preliminary conversation before we spoke.

So…is it? What’s that tweet pushing preorders all about?

“That is my very, very bleak, dark sense of humor,” she says. “And my attitude towards this situation is, listen, we’ve made the choice to stay, we made that choice days ago. Now we’re just hunkering down, making the best of it, and finding the humor where we can, even if it’s very bleak. And if at all possible, making a little money too. Who knows what sort of funds we’ll need for a cleanup for the condo.”

So as a newly-minted, self-made advice author, doesn’t it feel a little off to be crowing about going against the official, potentially life-saving advice of others, then asking people to listen to your life tips?

“I don’t think it’s my job to tell other people to evacuate,” she says. “I feel pretty confident that I will not be making a post, like listing shelter resources. I just think that is not, a beacon of public safety is not the service that I, Caroline Calloway, was put on this earth to provide to others, nor is today the time to start.”

“I think sometimes think the idea that every person with a platform needs to be a role model is unrealistic and unhealthy. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any reason that you should go out of your way to be irresponsible. I’m not doing this for a publicity bit. Let’s make that so fucking clear. I was mildly offended when my publicist told me that.”

Followers have responded to a Wednesday tweet declaring that she has “champagne and four generations of Floridian blood in my veins. It’ll be fine” (six minutes after texting a similar line to VF and apparently deciding it was too good not to share publicly) similarly. “You guys she’s scamming no way she’s still there,” one user wrote. Another: “You really want that dramatic last section of your Wikipedia article huh.”

Something that she’ll be thinking through later today, she says, is “to what degree does having a platform mean I need to encourage other people to make good choices.”