Nick Little for BI
Before losing most of her inheritance on TikTok, Cindi White wasn't very interested in social media.
White, a 65-year-old former insurance investigator who lives alone in Burlington County, New Jersey, spent the year she retired traveling — dining in Dubai, sipping cocktails by the sea in Montego Bay, Jamaica, or strolling among monks in Kathmandu, Nepal.
But in 2020, the pandemic halted her jet-setting lifestyle.
She'd suddenly found herself profoundly lonely. Most of her friends were from work, and her closest relatives, a brother and a nephew, lived over 80 miles away in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Her only real company was her cat, a green-eyed tabby named Bella. To pass the time, she spent months writing poetry and rap-inspired lyrics about feeling isolated from the rest of society.