Everybody freaked out the day after my birthday when Facebook quadrupled the amount of information they shove in your face with their invasive News Feed and their numerous "story" updates. Before I shared my own disgust with the massive pull of this online blackhole, I wanted to put some effort into it. I'm posting the fb inspired story I wrote for my fiction class on here, but now I almost like all the new features, though I have to believe they are meant to cause me harm.
Voyeur Life
Conceived from a combination of the earliest days of internet blogging and the infatuating, highly publicized lifestyles of Hollywood stars, the United States government created an online network capturing and exposing the lives of college students, transforming an entire generation into celebrities. Each individual profile harvested intimate details from the lives of students and delivered their fluctuating relationships, thoughts, and daily journeys to the colossal pool of connected members. The network generated a continuous stream of images of "action shots" from each student's life. The pictures brought viewers face to face with revealing scenes of humor, romance and intoxication. As a social rule, students who produced the most captivating profiles were granted higher levels of member access, strengthening their role in the electronic web of faces. Membership was quickly extended to every high school in the country, and later became available in most middle and grade schools. Hatched from the dream of producing a new breed of human glamour, the government's project mutated American culture into a nation of obsessive observers locked into the tyrannical online entity known as Voyeur Life.
Cramped inside the moldy carpet walls of his dorm room on a Thursday night, sophomore Adulfus Huxtable banged his head against his desk. A verification horn sounded as Adulfus' roommate, Thom Anderson, entered the room through a sliding metal door.
"Evil bots in your head again, man?" Thom asked.
"VL is down. I'm going to die. Do you have any soma?" asked Adulfus.
"You mean adrenaline pills?"
"Anything you have that can pick me up," Adulfus said.
"Oh, I have what you need," Thom said. He reached into the front pocket of his shirt that read "The Government Killed Tenacious D" and plucked out two amber capsules. "I'll give these to you if you let me use your VL port."
"I told you the entire network is down."
"Yeah, I bet. Good thing I'm the Harry Potter of hacking," said Thom.
Thom removed a piece of skin from inside his right ear, pulled out a wiry metal input device and reached for a plug lying on the desk.
"Get away from my port. Go use your own if you can really get in," Adulfus said.
"Can't. I've been kicked off for six hours for breaking up beautiful couples and pairing them with ugly people," said Thom.
"I don't want you getting me banned too. Please, just give me the pills, and if it comes back online you can use it the legal way."
"Let me put it to you like this, just let me log in for twenty minutes, I'll give you one of these and your withdrawal migraine will vanish in a matter of seconds."
"Thom. You're an asshole. I think I'm going to pass out."
"Hey kid, you think you're the only one who needs his fix? We are all addicted to the constant flow of beer bong images, the tiny vibrations they rigged to travel down your body when you get a new message, the fun of picking out the most attractive female in group photos, and the fact that she is always the one in the middle. I'm a junkie too, man. While you are pounding your head against the table, I feel the stranglehold of Voyeur Life's sweeping tentacles tightening around my neck. I can't breathe, Addy. I could suffocate at any moment. Move your ass," said Thom.
"Just give me the goddamn adrenaline and don't get caught."
Adulfus gulped down the pills and poured a glass of water over his head. He grabbed a ratty blue rag from his bedpost and wiped off his face, rubbing his temples.
"Now I can make a list of my favorite video games so the network will find me a perfect mate," said Adulfus.
"Good idea. I'm sure that you'll find true love now that I've changed your profile's sexual orientation to animal, mineral, or vegetable," said Thom, laughing while chewing on his fingers.
"That's my life you are fucking with you rectum ripping thunder shit!"
"Addy, I'm kidding. But what do you think would happen if I made all the tri-delts look flabby and pregnant?"
"Seriously, don't. The tri-delts are high class. Hackers have died trying to bring them down."
"And wouldn't it be worth it!? This game is kill or be killed, and with the hacks I've pulled off, how could I back down to these meat wallets?"
"Don't be stupid. The scanners they hire squash hackers all day long."
"I'm only going for one. The queen bee. Watch this."
Thom removed another jack from his left ear and plugged it into the monitor in front of them. He closed his eyes and began rapidly flashing through tri-delt profiles. He stopped at member Brittany Princeton, connected with over thirty million Voyeur Life members.
"Her pretty little hard body is about to be impregnated," said Thom.
Exploding through her tight light blue top, Brittany's belly inflated to the size of a globe. Her belly button morphed into an outie, skin continued to stretch, and popped out of her body like a cork, deflating her figure to natural size. Suddenly Brittany came alive on screen. She turned her head and flashed a smile at the boys.
"Hi, Thom," she said.
Thom's body went into epileptic shock as thousands of volts of electricity flowed into his brain. Thom laid on his back, convulsing on the floor. Adulfus grabbed a hold of Thom's wrists with his still-wet hands. The voltaic jolts traveled up Adulfus' body, toppling him on top of Thom. Their bodies continued to cook as the low whir of the current matured into three large lethal shocks. The monitor zoomed in on Brittany's face. As she giggled, the words "Angel of Death" burst onto the screen.
I am raising a glass. Hooray! I rank amongst the elders. Heave hoe a baby's bonnet. I am man.
So the best part about turning twentyone this weekend was Friday night. Saki bombing was crazy. It was one of those nights where you find pictures of yourself the next day with no memory of them being taken, and you need to have friends around to fill you in on the details of what exactly happened, like how did I miss the toilet, why are my sandals broken, and why is there a hole in the wall. On Saturday I had to enforce my rule of trying to stay sober after a night of blacking out. Sunday night was the countdown to my bday, and at midnight I celebrated by shotgunning two cans of high gravity Steele Reserve back to back. It was cold, and better than sipping on that sh!t will ever be. In fact, I will only be drinking the can form of Steele Reserve in a shotgunning manner from here on out.
Yesterday, Monday, my birthday, was a holiday! I had emptied my wallet Friday night with no way to get more cash. I had a few birthday checks, but every bank in the country is closed on Labor Day. Luckily, my freshman roommate brother Farrell was willing to loan me a twenty spot if I agreed to pay him back the next day. I bought a few twelve packs of Bud Light, had cake, played darts, and dragged out the night with A Few Good Men. I recieved a lot of love from a lot of beautiful people on my twenty first birthday. I have lived a full and happy life.
One night this summer I had a few power hours under my belt and decided to attempt a new personal record for drunken push ups. I had a fresh pack of Marlboro Reds and smoked aggressively while working my way toward a new record. Somewhere around push up number 65 something in my left arm snapped. I badly sprained my brutish left grabber, and after a few weeks of immobility, the arm began losing mass, shrinking down to a tiny version of my right arm, as if I were a crab and had been growing back a lost limb. I was really worried! My arms were different sizes, all I wanted to do was relax and forget about it. Plus five points to drug addiction. But that's awesome! Because it was summer. And energy flows where the drug goes. But most would say that, technically, summer is over by now. I have been able to compensate by working on leftie. It is probably up to %80 about now. Even my splendorous playmaking basketball skills have returned. I played the game 21 on Sunday with a couple of dudes, and brought my A+ Dwight Howard game, but I didn't play on my 21st birthday, which I now realize I obviously should have. I'm pumping up while galactic energy is rising, and prepared to blast off into completely new dimensions of athletic talent and sophistication. I am an adult, don't fuck with me, I will burn your house down.
Holy shit! The fourth season of Nip/Tuck premiers tonight. I will be drinking Red Stripe, petting my beautiful cat, and watching that soft core FX boner ride TV show rock the shit.