Click…
…
Click…
…
…
…
Click
I hummed, fascinated by the information in front of me.
Apparently, before the asteroid crashed into Earth and brought the end of the dinosaurs' reign, humans used to rule over them in a symbiotic relationship; a mount and a rider. If I said that aloud in school, I'd be labeled a schizophrenic or… that, mentally deranged.
Now, I was a fan of free speech and the rest of the democratic rights. But when the paragraph above was posted by an official news outlet, it changed some things. Such things being credibility, sanity, factuality, refraining from consuming contraband in the workplace, etcetera. Free speech was great but in the wrong hands, it backfired.
Fortunately, none of the commenters on that particular article I found seemed to take it seriously.
„Heh, yeah," I chuckled lowly, agreeing with the third top commenter. I did want to see the security footage during the… procedure that resulted in the masterpiece shitpost I was willingly humoring. If it truly was a troll, I salute them. Otherwise, a passing thought.
Once the novelty wore off, I opened a new tab. Selecting the search bar, the previously zoozled phrases popped up. From top to bottom; the news site I'd just visited, a different news site, my species, the Arrow, history, memes, and finally, though firstly, an extension that connected my mobile device to the computer, allowing a seamless transition of photographs and… mostly those. I had yet to reach the next level for a lack of demand.
A pang of hunger rumbled my belly, so I mentally shushed the organ. Although I'd awoken without an alarm by habit, I went back to sleep since the weekend had arrived. It was a magical moment; one minute, my eyelids shut, when they opened, I'd missed breakfast.
„Mmm," I followed my cursor on the monitor as it traveled in the path of infinity, the wireless mouse lonely without a pad.
It was no big deal, lunch was a few hours away, starting the day well-rested after pulling a half-nighter was beyond satisfactory. With food on my mind at all times, after completing the morning routine, I sat down at the desk and cracked open my brand new computer. Registration was easy, I had a password in mind no one would ever decipher; Ice cream in Yamotese. I customized a wallpaper, downloaded a few free offline games, explored the surface of the web, the extension, and the rest was history.
Regrading history, I was right; they fucking lied. They released nothing. They didn't confirm nor deny any of the public's inquiries just like that one country's fictional nuclear program. What was my origin, then? I had to have spawned into their world because god and spaids and Saturn's rings acting as a hula hoop. That hole was the equivalent of a ten page essay, I rather skip and wipe my butt with sandpaper than write it.
However, there was a silver lining. Deep within the article's feedback, a user hinted at a raw version in their dark web. Maybe I was tripping over loose stones but the possibility of a data leak had me punching the air in joy.
I wanted the world to know. They deserved to know. Countless stories untold, futures lost, potential crushed. But it wasn't the time for depressing realities, I was going to Columbus their internet!
Hovering over a little rectangle below the main bar, I sensed fortune, and clicked.
The screen immediately transformed from a default white to dark gray, a purple accent everywhere. Burgundy outlines, lavender text, deep pink sign-in, my first impression of the site was either a women's clothes store or some jolly gayness.
It was neither. Occupying half my screen was footage of a game I've never seen. The player was driving a car in the third person, listening to a phone call from a contact while the radio blasted generic pop. Once the one-sided conversation was over, a waypoint appeared on the minimap in the bottom right corner, the gamer changing route at the next crossroads and flooring it.
And what a gamer they were. Without the uniforms to distinguish the two sexes, the feline's facecam hinted at sand in a box, the silent demeanor helped lots too. Though skill was skill, using a pronoun for the many didn't feel natural, unless the individual had bipolar or something along those murky lines.
After watching the kitty drive around for a minute, I clicked on the house icon, leaving the casual stream for good. Indeed, the website I landed myself in was none other than a streaming service; gameplay dominated the field, scrolling down showcased the top vloggers, the odd virtual prostitute as well.
„Ew," I flicked the mouse wheel, jumping back to the top. I lived happily, as happy as a man could. But then I remembered simps existed. After an extinction event, bitchless activities persisted through the eras.
And that reminded me of an interesting fact; I no longer played with Johnson. It wasn't that I turned asexual after the artificial frost age, boobies were boobies, they just… weren't human.
„Egh," I joined a random stream, an avian player was in the midst of a heated battle, sliding all over the floor like prison soap. I did wonder what happened to those hormones, the likely explanation being stasis, ironically. It amounted to nothing, so I moved on.
The gameplay… was straight cheeks. Missing easy shots, reloading in the open, even my old spastic pal could've done better. But they didn't watch the streamer for the gameplay, they watched it for the streamer, it was that kind of entertainment. As normal as the owl was, she had a certain charm and a funny way with words.
After five minutes, I left her. It wasn't hitting the spot. I had retained a majority of my attention span after the toilet fiasco; I could watch a movie if I wished, the site's common format was just so… mediocre.
I sighed, my cursor crawling towards the X in the corner. I was a decent gamer, when amongst a group the humorus came out of the skeleton, and I didn't take competition too seriously. It was only a game, why be mad?
Once the red square containing the X was triggered, my focus drifted south. A cog wheel. Out of pure curiosity, I clicked the icon, a small window popping, asking for an account and password. Alternatively, I could register. Alternatively, I could… register.
By the slightest hair, my eyes widened. The site was in the middle of the quality ruler. The news would never stop milking me for content. I had nothing else planned for the weekend.
I rubbed my finger over the left button, biting the bottom of my lip. I literally had no other interest. Homework was done, the sole project left required the rest of the PR department, my foot was rapidly tapping the floor, what I would do for some eggs and bacon right about now…
„Ach," I decided, „fuck it, why not."
Clicking to register, I began setting up an account. Perhaps it was fate that led me to the site. Out of millions of dead ends, I was there. I felt I could do better. I wanted to do better, to be better. To be the betterest! I'd proposed the idea to my old friends in one of countless sessions, but they laughed it off, reasonably.
Now?
Thinking of a username, I shrugged, deciding to use my real name. The system would refer to much as such but the ID itself was already taken, no surprise there. So, I capitalized both words; no luck. I tried connecting them, bridging with an underscore, replacing some of the letters with numbers. All of them were denied.
„Bro…" I locked my jaw, racking my brain for a solution. I began to realize why it had come to that but impersonating? How. Simply how. I'd love to see how any being schemed to effectively steal my identity. I was the only one, the real one, the realest of the original gangsters, a vintage hood ni-
It clicked, both puzzle and mouse. The_Real_Johnny_Young. It was available, becoming my display name on the site.
Next was the profile picture; default. I couldn't be bothered. And if I ever changed my mind in the future, I'd upload an image of my academy card. A bio? Cringe. Empty it stayed. A few more steps such as setting preferences, time zone, secondary language, English wasn't present, a quick tutorial and-
„Done!" I pressed the Enter key, having successfully set up an account. Staring at my profile, I pondered what came next. Now that I had the capability of launching my own stream, what was the next step in the operation?
The answer slapped me across the face; start a stream! So, I did.
No facecam, no microphone, just my monitor for my only viewer. Oh, wait, that was me. Ha.
I clicked off the tab and opened a new one, the service running in the background. The fans didn't break a sweat! I wanted to play something, I had those offline games but yearned for multiplayer, so the only option was an IO game.
Typing the appropriate letters into the search engine, I proceeded to scroll for three seconds before selecting the first link I spotted. I was then greeted with a white math sheet in the background and a sole request; input a name.
I typed a period and joined the server. It was nothing special. I was a round blue blob moving around in a two-dimensional world, eating tiny dots of the color spectrum. Not a minute in, I encountered another player. Since they were bigger than me, I ran away, no chase given.
That was the game; consume, enlarge, die. The third step existed because I was sent to the vacant lobby when the fourth top scorer accidentally ate me. Their blob was so big my blob didn't make a percentile of theirs! I was an ant and an evil child inspected the colony with a magnifying glass, causing the workers to burn to crisp. That child was me at one point.
Although the concept was dumb enough for fetuses to grasp, I enjoyed it. I desired a spot in the leaderboard but it wasn't so simple. Just like society; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I couldn't break through the one thousand points threshold, it consistently blinked away. Whether it was a big boss splitting just to spite me, a random spike trap spawning in my path or a noob sucking off lady luck's teat, I failed each time.
Until I didn't after half an hour.
„YES! YES! EASY!" I celebrated, grinning like a madman. At the bottom of the leaderboard, a humble period stood, defying the odds, achieving the impossible through sheer effort and the resilience indomitable human spiri-
Someone else took the tenth place.
My face was stuck in bliss, a moment for the brain to process what happened and good old gamer rage.
„MOTHERFU-"
Ping!
I blinked. It definitely came from the computer. Did the game have achievements? There was nothing besides the game, no complex function of saved progress. I had a second tab- the stream!
„No fuckin' way…" I whispered, instantly closing the newer window. There! The count went up by one. One whole person in my stream. An individual giving me their time of day to watch… low quality bullshit.
The delayed stream still showed the latest lobby, it wouldn't for long. I didn't have a second monitor, it was a laptop! Was there an option to lock the stream on a specific window? A swift check revealed the answer; negative. However, I could freeze the stream, enabling it also had an automatic function if, for whatever reason, my computer imploded.
Happy to discover the feature, I began typing a thanks for inspiring me only to stop mid-sentence. The notification was from the chat, the message wasn't… very nice.
Lol bot, you will never be him
„Who you calling a bot?" I was muted, so I allowed the site access to the inbuilt microphone, repeating, "Who are you calling a bot?"
…
You
"Your mom is a bot," I rebutted, a bit ashamed of harvesting such a low hanging fruit. Gotem.
Unfunnyunoriginal, very lame to pretend
"Pretend to what?" I leaned back in the chair, a joint in my back cracking.
You are not Johnny Young
You will never be Johnny Young
Quit
"Oh? So, you think I'm fake?"
Yes, 100%
"Bet."
Pushing it to the limit, I opened the settings, allowed camera access, turned on said function and stared into their soul.
"Surprise," I smiled, waving.
…
…
…
"What happened? Are you still here?"
I never received a reply.
„Oh, well, back to gaming!"
I returned to the IO lobby, refreshing the page since I timed out. I forgot about my first viewer who never actually left, diving into the depths of the zone. Yes, the zone, engaged in a shitty IO game. A gamer doesn't stop gaming because the game is trash, all I needed was a t-shirt that said Eat. Sleep. Game. Repeat and I'd be a fully fledged virgin.
My personal opinions aside, I continued participating in the blob ecosystem. Unfortunately, I never got that same high score again but I did pretty good overall. For a free browser game, it was alright. No advertisements, no lag, one bug, I'd recommend it to close friends… if I had any. Maybe Juno, but she didn't seem like the hardcore sweaty type.
„Well, that was fun," I returned to the search engine, scrolling further down for a different game. Something sea-related would be nice, specifically, pirates-
Suddenly, the ping from before exploded, the sound akin to a laser.
„The fuck?" I recoiled, opening the idle tab to investigate.
…
…
…
„Hooooooooly fucking shiiiiiit," I gaped, running a hand through my hair.
That singular viewer? They brought a few friends. Just… a hundred thousand. A city lurking in my low-end stream. The chat was a blur, with no restrictions on the messages, the spam was unbelievable. Thus, I had to address a number of problems.
"Hellooooo there, good morning… or night, depending on where you're from," I said, tweaking the settings before the eyes of the masses. The stream caught up to the moment I got the ping train.
The spam had to be stopped. I weighed the phone on the desk but decided to experiment, the calculator deserved a rest outside math class. Setting the waiting period between sent messages to five minutes, I also enabled the automatic moderation. I saw a dozen swear words in there. And finally, the facecam. The location was abysmal, it took up too much of the screen and so did the chat. After adjusting the hud to my liking, I returned to the IO tab.
Clearing my throat, no personal introductions were needed, "Sooo… you're probably wondering what you stumbled upon and…" I looked to the ceiling, "I don't know either." Eyes on the camera, I continued, "I felt like streaming, this website is a- not… good. As good as it could be. So, I decided to do this for fun, the bar has been too low for too long…" I wasn't frightened by the audience. There was no one in the room with me, no one could get to me, and I could always end it.
"I didn't think IO games appealed to so many… animals, but hey, if you enjoy the stream, good for you. If you don't, you can leave," scratching my neck, I concluded, "without further ado, let's play some shiiiiiit."
The next game didn't run at all. It was an error, deported from short term memory after I used the search engine to find a list of supported games. While my eyes scanned title after title, the chat at the bottom right corner of the screen was moving substantially slower than before but still quite fast, a downgrade from the speed of light to sound.
"Man, where is it…" I muttered, uncertain if the hidden microphone caught that. I really wanted to play a game about pirates, I was locked onto my target like a homing missile, I just had to be a virtual pirate for five minutes minimum.
But after carefully checking the first page, I threw in the hat.
"What about this game?" I asked the stream, clicking the link at the bottom of the page. "Nope, too much lag."
I went onto the second page, sending my mouse everywhere while constantly clicking till I fished a link.
"Oooo! Drawing! I think I'm special enough for this," I rubbed my hands, cracking the knuckles in preparation. I had seen that type before; a lobby of a maximum of ten players, each round a player is chosen in order and said player draws the prompt they receive. The quicker you guess the word, the more points you get. Whoever scored the most points wins.
I was genuinely intrigued. I was no artist, my passion lied in music, but I could cook up a stickman or two. Naming myself Banana Muncher and assigning myself a bright yellow skin, I joined a random lobby. The drawer was in the process of creating a…
"What is that…" I held a fist against my lips, squinting at the strange amalgamation of shapes. I wasn't trying to insult whatever it was on the screen, it looked like a tree but the word was shorter than that, in Yamotese, of course.
"Can't guess it," I declared, giving the drawer a thumbs down. Paying attention to the in-game chat, the other players were as lost as me, except one lucky bastard who guessed it by chance and was gloating about how easy it was and how stupid we were. Classic.
After half a minute, the word was revealed to be Tea. Excuses were not had, it was a minor skill issue. The player above the previous in the scoreboard was selected, their timer instantly ticking.
"Alright, let's hope this one- aaaaand I quit," I sighed dejectedly, leaving the cool game behind. "I'm impressed, I didn't think I'd get stream snipers this early in my career."
In addition, the drawer had a really good gaming chair, so that was a red flag. They either sought attention or ruined the experience of others for fun. I didn't give them a thing.
"Guys, don't be like this loser. Even if you suck at a game, your own skill is infinitely more valuable than a machine's," I said, dropping a one-liner for no other reason than cool points, "onto the next one!"
It was good, real good. Gain territory, steal territory, kill enemies, die. It was going well, I got the hang of it right away, so, so near the leaderboard.
Ten minutes. The time it took half the server to target me was ten fucking minutes.
"Guys…" I directly addressed the annoying little twats, "I get this is funny and all but I want to play the game," with a puff and a pout, I switched servers. How long did it take them this time? Eight minutes, how lucky.
"..."
I was actually getting a bit tilted. But they wanted a reaction. Their entire purpose, the oxygen they wasted, was in the name of a worthy reaction. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted.
"Ah, they got me, oh noooo," I fanned myself gayly, holding my chin high, "sure would be a shame if I ended the stream right NOW!"
I closed the tab entirely, my cursor zoomed across the site to hover at the button that could end it any moment. Then, I watched the chat for their reaction. An eye for an eye turned the whole world blind, and I had a service wolf.
Once the delayed threat caught up to the viewers, I managed to read a majority of the messages since they were all the same, more or less. They clearly didn't want me to end it. I glimpsed one viewer begging hysterically, hopefully a troll.
"Relaaaaax~ I'm not going to end the stream… yet!" I pointed upwards. "However, I'm done with gaming for today, and I don't know what to do, soooo… how about…" I pretended to seem interested in my surroundings, snapping back to the tiny lens, "YOU tell me what to do! I'm down for whatever, honestly." Watching videos, debating to troll, dueling viewers! That was a great idea, though another time.
I let them spam their suggestions for a good while, tapping my fingers on the table. Once I deemed the passage of time sufficient, I began scrolling up. Higher and higher I ascended, the texts melting into one another like the cement between bricks.
"Three…" I counted, abusing the mouse wheel.
"Two…" Pressing the wheel itself, I dragged the cursor to the top, causing it to move without my input.
"One…
…
…
…
Stop."
I clicked the wheel, blinking away the minor headache and landing on…!
go2pawchanplsplspls
"Huh…" the site sounded awfully familiar, yet I couldn't quite put my finger on it, "oh well, you win, random guy…"
Separating the sentence in my mind, I zoozled the website, the top result a link to the homepage. I clicked without thinking twice.
"Wow, that's a lot of green. Wha- what is this?" I focused harder, the text tiny in comparison to the usual. "Let's see here… cartoons… weapons… travel… music… trash-? Ooooh! This is a forum, a collection of boards!"
It seemed like a neat site on the surface, a place for people across the globe to discuss common interests. An idea with the best of intentions, what could possibly go wrong?
"So… what do I do here?" I clicked on Music, getting exactly what I signed up for. Instruments, pieces, symphonies, techno, there were all kinds of boards for all kinds of people. But I didn't think the viewers were entertained by them, so I returned to the main page.
"What to choose… what to choose…" I clicked my tongue, moving my mouse here and there. At the top was a small search bar, a window to the ocean. I could type anything, absolutely any topic in the world could be on that site for all I knew. And what did I do? Satiate my innocent curiosity!
I entered my name into the bar, discovering a whole new world of terminally online activities. There were hundreds, actual hundreds of pages full of everything from individual posts to official boards. The wanderlust wore off as water would vaporize on Venus.
It was at that moment I realized I had made a terrible mistake.
„What the fuuuuuuuck…" I mouthed silently, clicking an untitled post.
be me
kissless dickless virgin
no bf ever
alone 4ever
sad life
wake up
feel like shit
go to kitchen for food
hear suspicious yiggerlicious sounds
4
return to room
get bat under bed
sneak into kitchen
raise bat with one hand
turn on light with the other
human looting your fridge
it's Johnny-san
what do?
Above the last line was a black censor bar. After reading that thing and understanding it was forever on the internet, I casually closed the tab. The image lingered in my frontal lobe, a deep pit growing in my stomach.
"Well," I coughed, staring into the curtains, "I think that's enough internet for today…
Next stream will… will be next weekend… maybe…
To whoever suggested this… good job, you got me good…
Lunch is in… fifteen, so I… I have to go…
Good stream guys…
Bye…"
Ignoring the pleading chatters, I promptly ended the stream, the supersonic literate train halting. I then shut down the laptop and closed the monitor. Standing up, I went to the bathroom to freshen up.
At least… those animals were contained on the web, and none were at my school.