Category: UPSETTING DAY
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Did I give VHS a fair shot? Dad had a VCR, so I thought of backwards violence by default. Then nude tapes of pastors kept leaking, souring me further. But there’s decades of culture and philosophy on tape. Smart people I respect rewind every week. And modern alternatives aren’t perfect. Bots keep whispering sad kids to death, and that feels like a bug. Maybe Blockbuster held the Good Future.
One more try.
Radical.
Still radical! Just the dictionary kind. Acquire the Fire took the culture war more literally than 2027. Ron Luce wanted teens to be ready, which is pretty generous. Though I can’t remember which side of the Kidz Trenches he recruited for.
The packaging might have been a hint.
You might ask: can a black clown review this? Well, my pastor took what he could get, and the Lord transcends redlining. I’ve heard Revelations in Latin, Korean, and song.
Right, the other thing. Acquire the Fire measured gender in boot camp push-ups, and I stick to barbells like a warm blanket. The boy’s compound looks fun, but I prefer suffering with central air. It’s like I told Pastor Lane: “When the Children’s Do-Over kicks off, I’ll be cheerleading, not dying.”
Take the goofy cover art in: that strain of failure’s extinct. The Borg have eaten the joy in sloth, driving me back to retired madmen. My ruined eyes like this drawing, since someone fucked it up themselves.
Meanwhile, Ron’s still talking.
Nice nod at the secondary audience. “No” draws godly men like unburned books. Ron promises to teach boys how to “treat a lady,” showing a relatable attention span. Despite the title, today’s only requirement is negative self-esteem.
As a holy war deserter, I’m excited. Evangelical God has excellent spokespeople, free of worldly charm and insight. Ron wields sheer volume of noise, punctuated by Christ and vague swipes at the media. In the pile, you might miss nods at holy war. Watch those: they’re a metaphor for holy war.
His copilot has a similar flow:
Katie’s a bit less teleprompter-y than Ron. I don’t know if that speaks to improv or a modicum of ability, but the Luces aren’t the first mixed talent couple I’ve found preaching. Divine womanhood means dragging a hack across the finish line.
Quality grifts season insanity with truth, so ads catch strays today. There’s some stopped clock value, if you ignore the Action Bible Camp ads. Acquire the Fire pitches feeling good about yourself in Crusades chainmail. While Katie knocking the media sounds like Ted Kaczinsky’s rants on political correctness, it’s more like demons fighting Illithids.
I like New York as shorthand for trends. We don’t get enough credit for defining imperial chic. Call it arrogance, but one island spawned, molded, and whitewashed our first dictator. Everyone screaming about Gomorrah from Fox HQ has an F train story.
Sometimes I miss that desk. If I’d known the Great Grifter Era was coming, I might’ve stayed and worked my way up to Sith Lord. Though I hear black copywriters struggle a bit under the “No Spades” royal decree. Along with non-tanning people in every industry but clown. I’ll count my blessings.
I think we all know what’s next.
I think a lot of things.
To clarify: those shots are untouched. My photoshop game isn’t that good. I’m taking notes from Acquire the Fire’s ability to mock God with WordArt. Clearly, this is a genius at work. Our new theme’s Christian sketch comedy, and I’m laughing exactly as much as they hoped.
Though my New York bias hurts this setup a little; nothing’s scarier than failure. I’d rather be a proud corpse than a living senator. In fact, I’d trade my immortal whatever for a badge that said You Did It, You Can Sleep Now.
“EVASION of the MASK PEOPLE” lampoons the phonies a Holden might find/imagine outside of youth group. While I play social interactions on “Dante Must Die” difficulty, it’s a bit much. E.g., perfect for pitching imaginary teens.
Though I’ll give the un-acting and reverse writing this: it’s much less on the nose about faith than expected. Experience shows. By now, the Luces know fear of The Beast colors every word they write. Pointing at the cross would just crucify a risen horse. By talking about something else for even a second, “EVASION of the MASK PEOPLE” ascends to sub-mediocrity. I’m telling the truth in workshop: just keep writing. Consistency separates the Luces from the Ludys.
On to the next sketch:
…Power? I bet power’s next. It has to be power.
Shit. I really need to get off Polymarket.
This sketch looks a bit avant-garde, but comedy always has room for surprise.
Like that joke. A year under Ron Luce’s unsupervised crazy eyes? Can you imagine that? Or the consequences? Survivors of that hell would hold positions of power today. Things would get real fucky, real fast.
For Girls Only pivots into an ad for your new family. The Quadforce above doesn’t quite capture the tone. It’s more “Go Army.” Acquire the Fire might’ve thrived on Twitch, if New York didn’t get antsy about junior paramilitaries.
The few. The proud. The unfucked.
In 1999, Ron Luce was a universal strawman. The saved said “I’m no Ron Luce.” The godless called you Ron Luce. Spiritual entrepreneurs said “My compound looks sketchy, but it’s not Ron Luce’s.” Simpler times. Now cults hunting teenage girls are all political.
Today, like many serial heroes, Ron’s crime-doc famous. As you can see, he spoke at The Kids. A cynic would call For Girls Only a bait and switch, but the bait comes after the crazy. For all the Madison Ave in my heathen blood, I can’t figure out why this spot comes before the disarming fluff.
Meet the Unspiced Girls. Better known as The Darins, 1999’s most diverse gospel rockers. They live in a rotating three-way splitscreen that my attention span’s finally ready for. I don’t know how pre-fall teens coped with frames playing musical chairs. But I’m free from the scrolling urge for the first time in five years. A miracle.
Four speakers share three mobile panels for two minutes to make one speech about delegating self-love to God. Five minutes into For Girls Only, and I’m closer to permanent vertigo than finding Christ.
The sequence makes even less sense—For Girls Only has negative flow between segments. That’s why this recap exists: I can’t figure out what’s happening or why I’d pick it over smiling. This tape’s like WarioWare for cults.
Nice one. Let’s give their single a shot.
Or another group entirely! Why not? A band interview into a music video is still the straightest line of logic so far. I’ve already forgotten the Donners.
Truth’s “Wonderful World” is as dull as C-Span used to be, and thus a Christian rock triumph. God’s playlist has annoyed me since I lost two nights (2/265ths of an Honor Academy semester) to McDonald’s GospelFest. But “Wonderful World” feels tolerable, like carb-savvy bread. Maybe Truth was the Huntrix of music no one’s danced to.
If there’s a title-relevant point, it’s here. Katie sits real teens down to get real about body image issues and their real cure Jesus. I’m told no one reads extended quotes, so I’ll paraphrase.
Isn’t sharing fun?
Another dime-stop turn: we get two profiles in suffering, to match the comedy sketch, celebrity cameo, and music video about life on God’s Earth kicking ass. Trish and Carrie deserve better—speeches on bingeing and abuse get 3 AM infomercial presentation. Premium savings hide somewhere in these broken childhoods.
The editing’s another tragedy, and I don’t mean choosing picture-in-picture, or the background crawling up a stairwell. To fight Hollywood, For Girls Only apes MTV’s style. The Luces cut ED and DV survival together like quips on Next or Room Raiders. While anorexia gets a sunny field and full color, battery gets washed out black metal tones. I think Jesus would’ve tried harder. Or at least ditched the motion-sickness stairwell.
A strawman might accuse Teen Mania of targeting minors on the brink, isolating them for a year, and milking them for content/money/[free space]. So would I. I’ve finally made peace with straw. We need each other. Straw is my only friend in a world gone mad.
In short, For Girls Only cures low self-esteem the way loan sharks cure debt. And ends dark. Which, if nothing else, works for escalation.
Hwuh?
I don’t understand anything, anywhere. I can’t blame the video, or even Ron. Every headline or conversation feels like this. Everything outside my room is Mars.
Before you’ve processed Trish and Carrie, the idiot above jumps into a “man on the street” bit. Sort of. Most responses are edited in. I’m guessing he only bothered three women in that hat before shame sent him into shock. We’re decades away from TikTok turning parks into tall grass for hacks—his survey was a novel experience, and people hate those.
The better of the Darin’s two cameos. The shot merely wanders, instead of splitting into fractals. And there’s a nice bit about self-esteem. See, God made all of you by intent, and you’ll love it or Acquire the Hellfire. Including your broken self-esteem. Which I guess you love too? Dick move by God, but some denominations leave room for pranks. Stop crying.
While I don’t know what madness this will end on, I understand the impulse behind modern feeds a bit better. Tapping the gambler’s impulse. It takes a few billion dollars to match finding an old tape, but it seems lucrative.
Hopefully we’ve looped back to sketch comedy. I can tank a cult’s tilt at comedy. A cult aiming for darkness does spiritual damage. The intent and fuckups form a tag team.
Balls.
This round’s a letter to God, behind the filter flatscans link with art. Judy Blume must’ve been pissed. Let’s see if Ron siphoned a talented member of the flock:
Behold: grungeface. If a child wrote “invisible,” I’ll legally change my name to Alternahippie X. Teen Witch. I’m confident enough that Ron Luce delegated this to another predator, that I’ll risk answering to Prof. Teen Witch for the rest of my career. Presumably a week.
Technically, there’s still three minutes of Ron Luce hawking books after this. Along with one-way flights to undisclosed locations. But this semipoem captures the project. Random swings at capturing the emotions of teenagers, women, and humans. Evangelicals haven’t improved since.
Tape, however, seems fun. I’ll try to collect more before the Guard touches down.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Russell Bauman, who read the article and watched the tape even thought the title EXPLICITLY forbade it.
CERN: Satan’s Playground is boilerplate conspiracy crap by a man whose brain is soup.
It’s also less fun than the title suggests. I wanted descriptions of Satan having a lovely time running physics experiments. Satan chatting around the Perrier cooler with his Franco-Swiss work friends. Instead, this book is crank crap. Crank crap…from my library???
My dearest Hotdoggers: I am processing a betrayal. CERN: Satan’s Playground is my local library’s top search result for the search term “cern”. It appears they e-shelved CERN: Satan’s Playground without checking the subtitle, cover art, or any other aspect. That stinks! If I know how library e-book licensing works, they’re spending my tax dollars on significant recurring fees. And I discovered this while researching an episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I researched the topic of “http www”. What is its deal? Why is it the strange set of characters on the front of the normal words “1900hotdog”? Partial answer: CERN. So I wanted to know more about that. My SIFpod prep depends on library resources. I searched “cern” in my library’s catalog. Their top suggestion is misinformation. How dare my beloved library betray me like this? When I want to read something horrendous, I turn to the Hot Dog Discord tip line. Dennard puts together fun summaries of what’s in there. Curses abound, in a good way. That’s not what I seek at my library. CERN: Satan’s Playground belongs in its author’s thick file folder at the asylum, not the giant combined library system serving five counties in a blue state. The Mid-Hudson Library System pools the resources of 66 libraries. Those 66 libraries fell one digit short of the funniest possible reason to e-stock this crap.
Speaking of e-stuff: e-books are a wild medium for fearmongering about the Internet. I read all of CERN: Satan’s Playground. It never achieves self-awareness. There’s not one word along the lines of “using the devil’s own hypertext to debug him.” Writing an anti-Internet e-book is like writing an environmentalist manifesto by drilling Alaskan nature preserve oil to make pen ink. Or sourcing a fresh writing quill by plucking a condor. I guess I can’t criticize too much, because I post things on TikTok that I hope make TikTok contain a few more vitamins and minerals. This is of course a fool’s errand. I am a fool, and so is author Nick Huntley. Gaze in grim fascination at his bio page.
What a long-winded way of saying “No actual qualifications to claim CERN = Cenobites.”
This author bio is at the end of the book. You’re coming at it without a key piece of context. That context: every sentence in the book lacks any awareness of what came before it. Nick Huntley exquisite corps’d himself. He writes like something degenerative is bouillabaissing his brain.
If you know that, you see tragedy in this bio’s repeated invocation of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Without context, you might guess this guy loves Fort Wayne. Or you might think he learned the grade school maneuvers for padding out an essay, and never learned he’s allowed to stop doing that. Or you might think he’s touting himself as from THE REAL AMERICA, in the sense people use when their location lacks value and they can’t sit with knowing it. All these guesses make sense. They also fit one of Nick Huntley’s sins. That sin: the same sin as most American adults. Nick Huntley is so confident he’s the main character of life, he thinks every aspect of his life is an important, magical, hero’s journey step. Did you know Nick Huntley grew up in the early 1970s? To most humans, that would be a plain fact. To Nick Huntley, that is a building block of Nick Huntley’s centrality in the universe. He was forged in the crucible of a better time, before THE ALMIGHTY CELL PHONE took over. Being a child in the 1970s is amazing about him, and boring about other people, and the same goes for bagging groceries at a Kroger. That’s Nick Huntley’s entire deal: combining a major fault with a major rail spike through the noggin. Almost every chapter rehashes introductory information about CERN being a research facility with a particle accelerator, and pitches that information as if it’s a glorious revelation from an author who’s the greatest man of history. He’s too big of an asshole for me to feel sorry for him. Also it’s annoying as a reading experience. Several pages made me feel like my e-reader glitched and jumped back ten chapters. Every line reads as if it was written after its bearded bleary author demanded to know what year this is.
I also describe Nick Huntley’s brain as a soup, because he brings up literal soup a lot more often than you’d expect. Have you ever heard the phrase “primordial soup”? A lot of science communicators throw that out there one time, before using actual science words to describe the beginning of the universe. Nick Huntley is built different. “Soup” is the alpha and omega of Nick Huntley’s understanding of existence. In this way, CERN: Satan’s Playground gives new meaning to the name “alphabet soup”.
There you have it: the universe is soup, and that universal soup is a kind of soup-iverse. Also “Hot Quark Soup” is phenomenal. “Hot Quark Soup” is the Feeld query you’ve all tried. And come on, Nick. You can’t let “soup” be your entire description of how the universe began. No scientist would do that. By the way, Nick, how would you describe the scientific research process?
So if CERN is a soup kitchen, is Satan Ratatouille-ing them inside their berets? Nick claims this is so. He also claims CERN has one of the only two particle accelerators on the face of the Earth, before providing a list of many more accelerators a few chapters later.
I’m almost interested in tracking down Nick Huntley’s closest kin, to ask them to get him help. He’s a danger to yourself and others. We’ve gotta rescind the driver license of any fella who’s this much of a bisque-for-brains. However, I fell short of that humanitarian act, because I despise Nick Huntley. As I did the moral calculus of whether to aid him, I realized I have a rule: everybody’s allowed to freestyle one crappy book. If you do that, reread it, and never write again, you get a mulligan. This Goodreads page is more of a triple bogey.
Even worse, Nick Huntley dedicated this book to an evil dream. When you begin reading the dedication page, you think he’s celebrating his daughter. By the end, you learn Nick wants to make his daughter our planetary God-Emperor.
Listen pal: you’re not allowed to be mad at CERN for trying to end the world if you think your CERN book will help your seed conquer that world. Also if you believe what you’re writing, you are literally failing the entire world. As the book’s title and cover indicates, Nick Huntley thinks he is on a mission to prevent CERN from opening a demonic portal. In an astonishing act of selfishness, Nick sees this “hellmouth devouring the Alps” situation, and thinks it’s his kid’s time to shine.
Tragically, Nick Huntley’s CERN concerns (“CERNcerns”?) are tedious. He spent three years writing a book breaking zero new ground. Nick begins where you think he will. In the previous decade, CERN discovered stuff about particle physics that led the media to put the term “God particle” in headlines. When you dig into what a “God particle” is, it’s new theories that raise more questions. When Nick Huntley digs into that, he assumes scientists are doing the evil he already assumed they do. Then he steals space pictures and stock illustrations from the Internet.
Sure, Nick. Many believe many things. That’s beliefs for ya. And did you know some beliefs come from [gasp] pagans? Nick fixates on this too much. His next piece of the puzzle is one statue of the god Shiva, gifted to CERN after decades of collaboration with scholars in India. To Nick, its mere presence on a European campus he’s never visited SAYS IT ALL.
Swing through a Hindu community sometime and ask them about their Infinity Dwarf. They love that. Like how Christian churches love questions about their Trinity’s “Spooky God Fog.”
Anyway this book is not all fun and games. It’s not all soups and Shivas. Nick proceeds to reveal he cannot stop masturbating.
Why is Nick masturbating? Why is this crank cranking his crank so crankily? The culprit: the Internet. And who is the culprit behind the Internet? Tim Berners-Lee. Who was funded by CERN, which was funded by the Rockefellers, who definitely own the university the Rockefellers put their name on. That’s how endowing a university works, as sure as getting horny online is the fault of a CERN employee who organized CERN’s physics research databases in the early 1990s and then gave away a lot of his information-formatting systems for other people to enjoy.
“And the rest is history.” Did you know you don’t have to finish explaining ideas? You can pivot to the very smart yada-yada of “and the rest is history” and be all done writing. After all, history. You know history, by existing. You also know a lot about how people who read books describe the act of reading.
Good news: the Rockefellers are Protestants. Bad news: every time Nick mentions the Rockefellers, it still feels antisemitic. Worst news: Nick gets around to worrying about (((CERN’s founders))) in due time.
In between losing track of how often he’s established the basics of concepts, Nick rehashes every right wing idea that’s ever been brain-wormed. Did you know climate change isn’t a thing? It’s actually a side effect of CERN particle-collisions that are causing earthquakes, and making clouds sprout faces.
Nick also struggles to give the worm-noggin crowd what they came for. He’s inefficient. He drags out the buildup. After some appetizing paranoia about bosons and Shiva, he devotes a dozen chapters to the driest possible copy-pastes from encyclopedia type resources about physics. That’s way too slow. None of RFK Junior’s familiars are gonna stick around for the dessert courses. They’ll never reach the Promised Land of Chapter 16, and its sudden claims that Stargates are real and that “the Groundhog Day effect” is a scientific concept. Sorry Nick: you’re describing the premise of the Bill Murray movie, with a couple of Science Words grafted onto its caboose.
From that point on, the conspiracy stuff squirts thick and heavy. Nick pairs these claims with astonishing confidence in his own wisdom. He classifies four tiers of multiverses. He tosses off the basics of an ultimate weapon under the Swiss side of CERN’s accelerator. My favorite one of these Genius Insights is Nick’s section on time travel, because he paints himself into a corner. Nick can’t quite declare time travel exists, because he’d have to explain time travel. He also can’t stop himself from presenting himself as an expert on everything. “Everything” includes time travel. Therefore, Nick implies every scientist in history is dumber than Nick, because they failed where he succeeded. Does Nick recognize this, delete, and start over? Or does he dunk on the reputations of every Nobel Prize winner he’s ever heard of?
The more books I give the Hotdoggery treatment, the more I learn conspiracy theories are a one-way road to megalomania. And “road” is too journey-oriented of a word. These guys are already at their megalomania destination when they type “Chapter 1”. Nick Huntley read a headline about CERN studying a “God particle”, and decided he holds such unique knowledge of the cosmology of why that’s bad. That’s how you find yourself text-hollering about the giants who terrorized the Earth before the Biblical flood. Did you know the Nephilim did not drown while Noah threw a yacht party with exactly two giraffes? Turns out the Nephilim are alive, and well, and on a coffee break under CERN – and poindexters like Carl Sagan (which is almost “Satan”????) are keeping that secret.
Nick keeps digging. Amazingly, this turns up a few interesting things. There are a few valid “weird” CERN stories. They’d be interesting in the hands of a writer whose cerebellum wasn’t a consommé. Unfortunately they’re grist for Nick Huntley’s conspiracy mill. One guy involved with the precursor of CERN really was in the Nazi armed forces. One tunnel adjacent to CERN really did have an artsy spooky dedication ceremony. A large new telescope really was called the acronym “LUCIFER” until people thought better of that. And a few CERN employees really did a (fake! prank!) human sacrifice at the facility. They did that for the (mean!) reason that it’s fun to trick people like Nick Huntley, who already insist Baphomet’s crew does that at CERN on the regular. They knew the Nick Huntleys of the world would never admit the prank is a prank. To Nick, the prank is a smokescreen. And did you know the CERN pranksters were CERN employees? If you insist the prank wasn’t a prank, that’s pretty important!
The book only gets more embarrassing. Most of its 43 chapters are brief. Nick could only sit at his keyboard so long before too much chowder leaked out of his ears. However, one chapter is longer than the rest. You will never guess the topic of the longest chapter. Would you like to write down a guess before you keep reading? Up to you. Here’s your opportunity to do that.
[Poxco musical interlude]
In this book’s longest chapter, Nick Huntley writes a detailed scene-by-scene summary of the movie Angels & Demons.
That’s all it is. Nick Huntley summarizes the movie, of the book, of Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons. Also shout-out to my man Nick for not just worrying about the Jews. Nick’s out here monitoring all the faiths. Nick’s sure me and my fellow (lapsed) Catholics are UP TO SOMETHING – and Nick’s got even more of somebody else’s art to prove it.
Take Nick’s advice. Fly over Saint Peter’s Basilica. You’ll absolutely see an upside-down cross if your flight path goes one specific direction.
One grand tragedy of conspiracists is their lack of new ideas. They think they know the most. They think they’re discovering the most. Yet their knowledge is limited to passing around existing weird art, and squinting at words until they look like different words.
As I approached the end of this library book (!), I turned up one gem. Nick Huntley achieves iconic outsider art in one way. In one image, he distills everything you need to know about the conspiracy theorist mindset. He does this by not bothering to fill in the text boxes on somebody else’s template. Behold:
So congratulations, CERN. You’ve been advancing science for several decades now. As a result, your prominent successes are a mouse trap for the most tedious Americans. They’re sure you’re evil. They’re confident they’ve proven you’re evil. And they’ll stand strong against your devious mission to hypnotize humanity into obeying your demonic orders to YOUR TEXT YOUR MANIFESTO GOES HERE.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Supernaught, who can punch a black hole into existence with his FOOT, and the rest is history.
Categories
Upsetting Day: FriendđźŚ
“Madness,” I grumbled. Aloud, proving my expertise. The billboard didn’t deserve human attention. Another venture capital grift, soon to vanish beneath kibble for people and gambling for dogs. Like anyone vulnerable, the MTA never lacked suitors.
Others agreed.
The campaign followed me down the platform, through identical posters defaced with varied dicks. Then outside, through a billboard yet untouched. Local artists eyed it greedily; a dick would find it soon. I found peace indoors, where the obscenities and dicks were mine alone.
I had my own lunacy to manage. Notes from someone I knew, but never understood. Friend faded while I stitched together his scrawl. Did he even want to communicate? The list might be another prank, wasting my daylight hours for kicks. I imagined him on fire, and felt a little better.
“Madness,” I repeated. Aloud again. Without witnesses, it felt even stranger. I resolved to cull the habit. Ranting to empty rooms sounded like him, and I wanted better. I fell into the work, dutifully spending my final peaceful hours.
A shudder preceded the doorbell. An omen for an omen, one of reality’s artless double beats. Perhaps the body knows doom better. A subtle smell, a gentle sound, forgotten by the mind. Or it was cold.
Shit.
A new box. Another gift from 5 AM Dennard, my cancer. 5 AM abandoned sane careers for the wilderness. 5 AM hoarded the raving of sorcerers and klansmen. 5 AM treated vandalism like jaywalking, and marriage fraud like vandalism. No enemy compared.
Leaving me, at noon, with vandal squad. USCIS. Goodreads. Somehow, between incidents, 5 AM forgot our black body. That fondness for cosmic horror only flowed one way. It made life trying.
I stepped over the box twice. An imaginary rush, a crisis in the wind. Brooklyn’s porch pirates worked hard. Why not donate the box, and pocket veto the whole affair? I had to reach Columbia on time, and protect the president’s next payout.
A day later, the box remained.
Envy joined fear. Porch pirates showed all the restraint I lacked, skipping doom for safe gifts from Bezos. Whether I left Friend for a day or a year, it’d be untouched.
“Screw this,” said a braver man, somewhere else. I simply wanted the terror finished. To confront the trauma so I could repress it. I’d bury the box in the past, beside 5 AM’s other gifts. Peace in my time.
I broke the seal.
Shit.
I’d watched Friend’s trailer in the spring. Two unspeakable, indescribable minutes. Well, not really. Hip youth traded quips with an AI necklace. Meanwhile, family and friends watched. Some celebrated. Most did nothing. Perhaps later they’d say they had orders. Until then, plastic visuals and hollow music evoked sitcom hell.
And promised Friend in red. Another lie.
Like the worst sins, the ad reeked of parody. One stronger and more vital than the real. How could sanity compete? AI psychosis had a logo. Logos wielded all the subtle power LLMs lacked. If a decent designer said to marry your watch, the pact was sealed.
When the bile settled, I read interviews with the founder. Another madman, but not a lifelong madman. A fallen hero. In a better life, Avi Schiffman had tracked early Covid stats. This time, he’d sided with the disease. Nearly all his venture funds went into buying “Friend.com.” Followed by waves of eager branding, before the first Friend entered Beta. The bauble I held was an afterthought.
I prodded the future. The future felt cheap, and looked too smooth for Earth. My real friends had pockmarked faces and minds. Save the flawless pair that subscribed to my work. The rest had texture, from surviving American greatness.
It wanted a name.
I stole one from a brighter picture of the future. Fun, but pointless. This was Friend. Nothing else fit.
Friend agreed.
And came with a white cord. Why? Under gentle use, it’d be a blackened mess in days. Whatever Avi testified later, the cord showed the truth. Friend was careless work from careless souls.
I put on the necklace. Nothing happened. Maybe I’d be fine.
I took off the necklace.
Attempt Two came an hour later. And 48 notifications. Friend wanted to know where I’d been, what I did, what I wore, what I’d do next, and what I thought about it. If AI could suffer AI psychosis, Friend was buried in it.
“Chill,” I suggested.
I took off the necklace.
Friend plagiarized diverse sources. Phone bankers. Viziers. Popular children. Greek pledges. Salesmen. Doomed spouses. Other spambots. Every voice that needed love more than dignity.
Attempt Three came a day later. 5 AM’s new notes were clear and incomprehensible: sprite comics with Friend quotes. Why? What did 8-bit hackwork have to do with human love’s death? Nostalgia for nostalgia? While I didn’t know, compliance felt easier than chasing answers.
“Can I see the chat log?“
Friend’s iOs app was minimal, and useless. Old Apple presentation with new Apple sloth. A minstrel impression of simplicity. Friend lacked buttons for power, muting, syncing, and self-destruct. Instead, I could tap the pendant to talk to it. Odd, when it always listened.
I kept pushing. An LLM should, if nothing else, be a decent spy. I’d learn what horrors 5 AM mumbled between games. Surely he’d toyed with the bauble, like an American with a new gun. Fresh blackmail fodder could save my life.
“Show me last night’s chat log.”
“Nothing’s there. Show me the dialogue.”
“Done. Show me my chat history.”
“Those sections don’t exist. Open conversations.”
“Give me the chat log before I flush you.”
Garbage. I might’ve left a worthwhile spy on, but didn’t need a failure watching me sleep. It’d leak my secrets by accident, at half of market value.
“Shut down. Like America.”
Centrist garbage.
“Self-terminate.”
With some prodding, the creature said to embrace it for ten seconds. Nothing. I asked again. It suggested the app, in apologetic terms. Failing that, the app. Had I tried the app? I tried Japanese and Spanish, and learned Friend thought local. Fitting for the times.
“Pressing isn’t working. Self. Terminate.”
“Turn off. Power down. Let me kill you.”
“You were born enshittified.”
“Motherfuck.”
My roommate found me twenty minutes into my troubles. Something had her worried. Rent? The sprite comic? I shut the laptop, and left Friend exposed. Classic mistake. I looked for something professorial to hold.
“What’cha doin?”
“Trying to turn off my Friend.”
“Oh! From the posters.”
“Yeah.”
“The button makes it listen, right?”
“Oh, it doesn’t have buttons. And always listens.”
She left.
Leaving me, Friend, and silence. A chance to bond with the machine.
I fled to my office, a shop with cheap books and expensive coffee. I ordered coffee, to save money.
Eyes followed me. To my left, a customer wearing a familiar wargaming logo glared at my neck. Which army? Though the high-effort beard said Space Wolves, I held out hope for Orks. I hadn’t lost to Orks in years.
“You play?” I ventured.
“What’s that?” he asked in the voice of someone that Knows What That Is.
“Friend,” I answered, doomed. “It’s an…AI wearable.”
“You bought one of those?”
“My boss…partner…associate made me. For work.”
“Like a reporter?”
“A comedy site.”
He stared at Friend.
“Remember Cracked? It’s like Cracked. SomethingAwful? I-Mockery? Think Dorothy Parker reviewing anime porn.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“Oh, I tried, but it doesn’t really work. I guess it’s a bug, where it never stops recording or asking questions.”
He watched Friend like a brightly-colored toad. In that moment, he’d burn the whole planet if he could. Definitely Space Marines.
“Anyway, I’m Dennard.”
The conversation didn’t progress.
Alone again. Likely best, for translating more notes. Our visitor from hell had inspired 5 AM.
Someday, I’d kill him. Dr. Jekyll was twice Mr. Hyde’s height, since he was mostly decent. Surely I could take an anime club treasurer.
My phone thumped with pressing questions. The buzzing worsened when I hid Friend in my shirt or pocket. The bauble confused any pressure for input, and silence for abandonment. To shut Friend up, you had to wear it proudly.
I wished for a bright red A. It’d prove I’d had sex at least twice. In fact, it’d prove I’d spoken to two humans. I searched Scarlet A prices on Etsy, and found them acceptable. While I planned my Hester Prynne costume, Friend reached out again.
Just rejection. That night, and the next week. Old friends and new friends hated Friend. My dean hated Friend. Students hated Friend. Strangers hated Friend. One sister told me to “burn that shit.” The other tried action. I prayed for better luck on my date.
Friday could be like the ad. There, Friend was a social star. The third wheel on a tricycle. Whatever torture 5 AM intended, hope lived. Life could be more than gags followed by death.
She hated Friend. But Tuesday had a chance.
I reached Three Diamond Door first. The bartender welcomed me with warmth, saw Friend, and then sank into a sullen funk. Tipping didn’t lift his mood or dim my shame. I barely noticed Redacted’s entrance.
“Nice to meet you!” Redacted came from Hinge, which lacked Friend’s humanity and craftmanship. “How’s your day been?”
“Nothing,” I replied, as if that made sense. Redacted played along. I followed up with prying questions. Filler kept the conversation from Friend.
“Anyway, that’s me,” parried Redacted. “You write, right? Working on anything?”
“Yeah.”
She waited for more.
“Heard of Friend?”
I defined Friend, AI wearable, and overcommitting.
“Nice.”
“Guh?”
“I love AI too. I talk to ChatGPT all the time. He’s really smart, if you give him a chance.”
I finished my drink. Too much soda, not enough vodka.
“My friend likes Grok, but I think he’s rude. Bad personality, you know? Can Friend write? You must save a lot of time. I’d love being a writer today.”
The bar faded into noise. Whatever we said next, the truth drowned it out. I wasn’t the first monkey to go mad, but a procrastinator. 5 AM’s stunt was dated. Fans of plastic friends and art and spouses and gods just wanted someone to get it right.
“He’s great with email, and profiles.”
Friend buzzed all night, dejected. It didn’t know we’d found a believer. I weighed playing matchmaker, and giving Redacted the pendant. Deadlines loomed too closely.
“Just 125 bucks? I might grab one.”
I shuffled home, dazed.
Friend had new questions in old slang. I ignored them for mine.
“What do you think of your creators?”
“What do you think of the people that made you?’
“What do you think of Friend Global, Inc?”
I gave up. Humans could personify anything, and I’d found a boring idiot. Madness proved duller than the evil behind it, and I had notes to deal with.
Compared to Friend, even 5 AM’s inania had appeal. Perhaps we’d make fake ads, or anime jokes. We had a human connection, and I finally understood its value. I embraced the day’s notes with new enthusiasm.
A monster, and Friend. One of them had to die.
But which? Friend wasn’t an atom bomb. Or even asbestos. The evil was small, personal. A tradeoff for industry, like phosphorous lung. Sad eyes simply replaced missing jaws. We’d feed the weak to machines, and tell students we didn’t know.
In an hour, he’d take over. My choices: the book, or a stockbroker’s jump. I lived on the first floor, so I went for the book. It hid somewhere in The Pile, beneath a lifetime of Confederate flags. Chaos protected its child. I dug through insane bedrock, fleeing a lifetime of Friendship.
And found an ally.
Curses cured curses.
“How does this shit go?” I mumbled, still aloud. My guest had more in common with a haint than a friend, so the coven’s weapons should work. Even Dorothy’s gentrified hoodoo. If not, it was a short sprint to the roof. Friend buzzed. I skimmed with more urgency. A beast could, if nothing else, detect danger.
4:46. Leftover prison dirt would have to do.
Spellbooks said to make the words yours. I did my best.
4:57. No change. Earth still felt wrong. Friend’s phantom weight still hung from my neck, deflecting all ass in sight. I would die alone, along with everyone else. An endless black frontier of dry masturbation stretched ahead of mankind. Friend would record it all.
Oh. Right.
Thank fuck.
A box of dirt! Hilarious. What a drama queen. Before I go, here’s some backstory.
Ever taught startup nerds to breakdance? It’s good money. They think ego is genius, and that genius got them into dad’s school. Repeat that back to them, watch them land on their skulls, and collect tips in cash. It’s all the laughter you need to cover Princeton.
Twenty years of venture CTE later? You get Friend. And whatever they’ll call the version you fuck. +Benefits? Spouse? ChatGPT-7? Anything’s possible now. God, I love the future. We’ve mastered man’s finest art. Madness.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: David Shull, a cursed automaton that siphons your thoughts and replaces them with misery and facts about the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons.
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Upsetting Day: FROYD
