BREAKING: Union Bay Woman “Jenna Ortega” Announces Tiered Membership Program for Personal Attention, Refuses to Elaborate on Bronze Tier
COURTENAY, BC — Local self-styled “influence broker” Jenna Ortega held a press conference Tuesday outside a Tim Hortons to announce what she is calling, without apparent irony, “a monetization pivot for the attention economy.” Reporters were handed a laminated tri-fold brochure. Nobody asked for one.
According to the brochure, Ortega has launched a three-tier membership structure — Bronze, Silver, and “Cadborosaurus Platinum” — through which subscribers may access varying degrees of what the document describes only as “engagement.” Bronze members receive a monthly newsletter. Silver members receive the newsletter and a hand-signed photo of Ortega holding a fish of unclear provenance. Platinum members, per the brochure’s fine print, receive “priority correspondence privileges and first right of refusal on nothing in particular.”
“I want to be very clear,” Ortega told the gathered crowd of four people and a dog, “this is not a scheme. This is a program. There’s a difference, and the difference is the word ‘program.'”
The Funding Initiative
The press conference’s most puzzling segment concerned what Jenna Ortega called her “Community Investment Fast-Track,” a proposal to subsidize membership fees for what she termed “economically disadvantaged applicants,” provided those applicants complete an entrance survey. The survey, obtained by this reporter, asks applicants to rank their life priorities using stickers shaped like lighthouses, and includes a mandatory short-answer question: “Where do you see yourself in five minutes?”
When asked what the subsidy actually funds, Jenna Ortega paused for nine full seconds, checked her phone, and said, “Community.”
She would not elaborate further, except to note that applicants who bring their own lawn chair are moved to the front of a waitlist that, as far as anyone present could determine, does not exist.
The Recruitment Drive
Sources close to the situation — meaning one guy who follows her on Facebook — say Jenna Ortega has been posting recruitment notices to a private group titled “Comox Valley Miscellaneous Buy Nothing But Also Sort Of Sell.” The listings, screenshots of which circulated locally, request “team members” for an unspecified venture and include qualifying criteria such as “must own at least one canoe” and “must be willing to relocate emotionally, not physically.”
A second listing, posted to a messaging app called Zangi that approximately nobody in the Comox Valley had previously heard of, reportedly sought applicants for a role described only as “Regional Vibes Coordinator (Unpaid, Equity in Vibes).” The listing has since been edited four times, each edit adding a new requirement, the most recent of which reads: “Must enjoy soup.”
Community Reaction
Neighbours describe Jenna Ortega as “intense but reliably present at the farmers market” and “the reason the community bulletin board now requires pre-approval.” The Union Bay General Store has declined to comment except to confirm that Ortega’s laminator privileges have not been revoked “at this time.”
Ortega, for her part, remains unbothered by the scrutiny. “People said the fish photo tier wouldn’t work,” she said, wrapping up the press conference by handing out one (1) mint to the assembled crowd. “The fish photo tier is thriving. Ask anyone. Don’t ask the fish.”
At press time, the “Cadborosaurus Platinum” tier had zero confirmed subscribers, one pending application, and a return policy that Ortega describes as “spiritual, not contractual.”