by Mars Dorian
He thought,
“The next babe better be premium both in body AND brains.”
16
The official message read,
“Congrats, Violet Gear, you’ve been selected to the Blogbuster. That makes you one out of over a hundred thousand applicants. You must feel pretty special now.”
Violet closed her eyes, smirked.
No, you should feel special now that I’m attending your show and give it some much needed star vlogger power.
Still, it was bien news. Maybe Roman Stax wasn’t so bad after all — at least he exuded taste when it came to his contestant selection. Violet moved towards her couch and sat down. It was time to share the message with her online community. She turned on the live video and filmed her confirmation message.
“Guess what mères and frères? The one and only Violet Gear has been accepted to the Blogbuster online show. And that means I’m one of only eight vloggers that got chosen.”
The comments poured in like a tidal wave.
“OMFG, Violet, you’ve done it, sis. You’re the best of the best. This show is already yours.”
“Wow, crazy. I don’t know what to say. Congrats, I guess.”
“I knew it, I always knew you were destined to do great things. Now the whole world will finally get to know the maverick known as Violet Gear.”
She read through all of them, which proved a challenge, because with three comments per second trickling in, her speed-reading was outmatched. But the feelgood messages set her soul on fire and kept her going. She glanced over at least a hundred more comments and felt like the sun on steroids. With over five hundred comments total after one hour, she received enough compliments to cream the ego and slip on it. But today, Violet took it in with arms wide open, all of it. The chances of getting accepted were slim to none. She competed with thousands and thousands of equally successful video bloggers and took the top spot by storm.
Because, Violet FTW.
All the work she put into building her community.
All the years she put into creating expensive vlogs and techwear.
All those millions of online views she accumulated, it went into this one application.
Blood, sweat and fears.
And all the supportive feedback could have made her day, if it wasn’t for that one, itsy-titsy, semi-jealous comment from a user called Ippysickx.
“You’re lucky you’re such an overnight success.”
It dampened Violet’s festive mood.
Overnight success?
Wrong, it was a ten year long overfight excess. But hey, let the jealous jeal, and the haters hate. Today, Violet had high hopes. With her style and expertise, she was a hot contender. Now all she needed was to know how the Blogbuster worked.
17
Bam checked his inbox. For the hundredth time today. According to the official site, the confirmation results were sent out today. So he scanned his inbox, looking for that one mail. His eyes glazed over the spam, the messages, till he stopped at one particular subject line. It read notification. Marked with a triple star, aka premium priority. Under it stood the Blogbuster brand logo, courtesy of Stax Media. This was it.
Bam swallowed and felt his heartbeat go bonkers. This was the mail he’d been waiting for.
E for excitement. He wiped his hands, felt the friction warming up the sweat between his palms. Bam opened the mail.
Dear Mr. Bam (is your surname ‘Bi’?)
The Blogbuster Admissions Council has reviewed your application. Unfortunately for you, we are unable to offer you a place in the show.
Although it seemed like a tough decision for the council, it wasn’t. Your low online subscriber and view counts simply couldn’t compete with other vloggers who were more ambitious than you. Stax Media is a beloved and epic online entertainment brand. It creates the best, and demands the best. To which you clearly not belong.
What a loss for you. You could have participated in the world’s greatest online show and potentially won the top content position at my renowned media empire. Sucks to be you now.
Do better next time,
Roman Stax, CEO of Blogbuster and Stax Media.
Bam groaned. If this was a physical paper, he’d blown it into acid. Low online subscriber count? He amassed almost thirty-five thousand subscribers, and at least two and half million views in total. How could this not suffice?
It must have been a mistake. It had to be. That’s why he checked the official Blogbuster channel and browsed through the winning applicants’ profiles. The first thing he noticed was that all of them were famous video bloggers. Famous as in, mega-uber-perversely-famous. He knew half of them and subscribed to at least two. The second thing he noticed was their abnormal view count. Especially that Asian girl with the violet streak in her hair, wearing an odd mix between black motorbike jacket and video game armor. She owned it.
Violet Garcia-Tang.
More known under her vlogger name and eponymous fashion label,
Violet Gear.
And her channel video count?
Over 123,000,000 views. Bam swallowed, repeated the number in his mind. A hundred twenty-three million views. This was madness. How could a vlogger attract so many? He entered her profile page and found out. Clicked on a recent video one called called ‘Epic fashion show fail’.
And for a second, he thought he landed on some B-movie video with crappy sci-fi elements. Flares shot through the air, people in military-inspired techwear waddled through an industrial complex. An explosion occurred and set one woman’s techwear on fire. She screamed until a guy blew it out with firefoam. The Asian vlogger girl entered the scene and accused the young woman of ruining the fashion show, the woman creamed with foam moaned about suing the vlogger, it went back and forth between the two hot heads, blahblah. Bam checked the view count, 57,622,152 million. Bangcrap, that video alone attracted more views than his entire channel. He facepalmed himself. Because he had to.
The Blogbuster ended for him before it even began.
18
Big reveal night. It marked the start of the Blogbuster event.
Roman Stax stretched out in the back of his crimson limousine and sipped Champagne. And when he sipped Champagne, it was the real deal, flown over from the Champagne region in France, not that urine-flavored sparkling imitation they sold for pittance.
Anyways, he clinked glasses with Lucy, or was it Laci, and stared into her body-hugging, figure-flattering bombshell dress. He lifted his glance and stared into her arctic blue pupils.
“Your eyes sparkle more than my Champagne.”
She chuckled and touched his shoulder. It made him all fluffy down under.
“Are you nervous?”
She chuckled even more and touched a lower part of his body. Purr.
He shrugged.
“Let’s call it excitement. I’m curious to see how the audience will respond to today’s announcement.”
He sighed and stretched his neck. Three years of daily hustle went into this project, it better deliver, given the fortune and technology it cost him.
“Don’t worry,” Laci said and placed her ringed fingers on his lap.
“Everything you touch seems to turn to credits, this project will be no exception.”
Stax put on a faint smile, felt how Laci’s hand wandered along his lap, closing in on his crutch. He liked where this was going, and she smiled, because she knew.
“You’re such an overachiever, Roman, very classic-chauvinist.”
She clinked her glass to his and took a nip.
He grinned.
“Heh, you have to be, in this world.”
Stax turned back to the display in front and stared at the vlogger profiles. Looked at Violet Gear’s image.
“Seriously, if you wake up in the morning and you don’t believe you can be the most epic human being on the planet, you’re wasting oxygen.”
Laci touched his chin and turned it towards hers.
“I hope I’m not wasting y
our oxygen.”
He smiled.
“Impossible.”
She moved in for the kiss, because he allowed her to. When both were a breath away, an impact shook up the limousine, rattled the seats, made the Champagne glasses spill all over Roman’s five million credit suit.
“What the hell?”
He knocked on the bulletproof glass that separated him from the driver.
“What happened?”
The driver turned around, spoke with a faint french accent.
“Something crashed into our trunk, sir.”
“And I thought Santa Clause came knocking. Who is it?”
The driver shook his head. Useless. Laci took out a napkin and wiped Roman’s suit. He moved his finger towards the side door and motioned for the driver. Laci grabbed his arm and squeezed it.
“Plz stay inside, it may be an assassination attempt.”
Roman sighed, leaned back into his seat, pondered. He had enemies galore in the battlefield of business. Maybe one of them was standing in front of his limo right now.
Bad.
So he pulled up the display in front and checked the footage of the limo cameras that recorded the outside. He saw a silhouette moving up from the ground, towards the limousine. Roman grabbed the repeater pistol from the secret stash under his seat and opened the door.
No one messed with Roman Stax.
No one messed with him and walked away unscathed.
With a limp, maybe.
Outside the car, he saw the silhouette waddling towards him. Roman released the safety lock and pointed at the figure.
“Buddy, you just made the biggest mistake of your life. Do you know who I am?”
The guy who crashed into the trunk straightened up and smiled.
“Oh, I know, Mr. Stax. The real question is, do you know who I am?”
Roman squinted his eyes, tried to recognize the stranger’s facial details. It was hard, especially under the dim street lights.
“Come a bit closer and I will.”
The guy did and even pulled up his hoodie to reveal his face. Short-trimmed hair and a blood-soaked bandaid on his nose were the first features that stood out. Roman frowned, but kept his pistol pointed at the guy.
“Nah, doesn’t ring a bit.”
Whoever that guy was, he was no assassin. He carried no visible gun, only a strange blue/green vest with a skull shoulder plate over the right arm. Looked more like a cosplayer than a killer, but nowadays, you never knew. Frustrated geeks of yesterday were the killers of today.
“Stand where you are, or I’ll rip a bullet through your membrane,” Roman said.
The guy stopped, held up his hands and said,
“This is going to be my best crash vid ever.”
Roman snorted, glanced to his side, saw a couple of bystanders emerging from the dark, pointing their devices at him. One of them, a girl with curly hair, said,
“This is going to get viral, Bam.”
Bam, with the boyish smile, in front of Stax, staring into the barrel of his gun, smiled.
“I hope so.”
19
Roman adjusted his gun’s aim.
“Bam? Bam, Bam, the name does sound familiar.”
“It should, I was one of the vlogging applicants for your Blogbuster show.”
Roman raised his eyebrow.
“Son, an army of wannabes applied for my show. And the fact that I don’t remember your face means you lacked serious ooomph.”
Bam grunted. His whole vlogging career was about ooomph, and bang, and dash. And other impactful sound effects. How could he NOT stand out with his crash videos? It didn’t matter, not anymore. Still, he said,
“My name’s Bam. I crashed into that drone. It went viral.”
Stax nodded and smiled for the first time. He kept his pistol pointed at Bam though.
“Now I get what this is about. You’re pissed because I rejected you. You crashed into my limo because you sought out cold revenge.”
Bam shook his head.
“Nah, I just wanted to call you out on your BS.”
Roman frowned.
“What BS?”
“The whole talk about looking for passionate peeps who made stuff happen instead of just talking about it. In reality, you are just looking for vloggers with insanely high view numbers. It has nothing to do with commitment to making extraordinary videos or being uber-passionate. It’s just about the numbers.”
He paused, watched Roman’s mouth for a reply, but it didn’t come, not yet. So he continued.
“Well, let’s see how many numbers I attract once I upload this video here, right with you, pointing the gun at my face. I’m sure it’s going to attract at least a million or more.”
Roman saw the people on the sidewalk filming this drama he didn’t want to be a part of.
“Very well,” he said, stepped back into his limo and closed the door. Through the darkened window, he saw Bam waving back at him with a grim, grim face. Roman turned to his driver.
“Let’s go. My presence is awaited.”
And the lady to his left, Laci, who had been watching the whole scene from the limo’s inside, said,
“You’re not serious, are you?”
Roman shrugged. Laci squinted.
“You’re going to let him go? Just like that?”
Roman delayed his answer. He changed into another outfit. The only thing better than a five million credit suit were three five million credit suits. The chauffeur took the fifteen meter long limo back to the main road and continued the journey to the premiere. Roman put the gun back under his secret stash and leaned back into his hand-knitted seat cover and sighed.
“I know this guy.”
Laci’s eyes almost fell out.
“You do?”
“Well, not personally. I usually don’t hang around with poorly dressed low-achievers. I know him from our selection process. He’s one of the vloggers who applied for the Blogbuster.”
He turned to her.
“I rejected his application.”
“Why?”
“Too few subscribers. Definitely less than five million. Not even a million, I think.”
“So, not as good as the vloggers that I picked?” she said.
“Girl, your two vloggers are brilliant. High numbers and gonzo personality. This guy is low on views and high on loco.”
Laci looked down, stared at her glitzy high heels.
“So he was out for revenge?”
“Yeah, but I think he wanted to a make a statement. His entire video channel is based on crashing into things, and crashing into the guy’s limousine who flipped him off probably turns him on. Jeez, what a troll.”
Roman cracked his finger.
“He’s got a smudge of creativity, and definitely some attitude, I give him that.”
He moved closer to his date.
“But when the premiere’s over tonight, I’m going to sue this loser back to the ice age.”
20
Premiere night.
The crimson limousine squealed its tires on the wet street. Roman Stax pranced out and stood at the edge of the red carpet. A thunderstorm of lightning illuminated the night sky around him. Thousands of people waited in line and clapped towards his direction. At least thirty cameras maneuvered around to record his arrival in pixel-perfect dimensions. What a bummer, Roman said to himself. Thirty cameras aren’t enough to capture his perfect angles, but that was going to change once he revealed today’s announcement.
Laci joined him at his right side, told him which blog reporters he should go to. A bit of chitchat and interviewing before the big presentation. Roman cringed during chitchat, but even he needed to play the social game once in a while. Besides, it was all part of the plan.
Laci said,
“Here’s Suan Shen, editor-in-chief of the daily Techplosion.”
Roman nodded and approached the woman.
“Mr. Stax, your announcement has gone viral across the n
etworks, although no one knows for sure what your show is actually about. What can you tell us about the contestants?”
“You know, I think we have a great roster of vloggers. A 3D printing gun maverick, a fitness obsessed health girl, a controversial trickster slash comedian and a hi-tech clothes designer. Not to mention the DIY TwinBuilds and the psycho-logic Elli Mental. They are all explosive individuals that the audience will love. Or hate.”
The reporter smiled.
“So, is it true that you just selected them based on their video profile view counts?”
“Obviously, that was a major criteria point. We want luminaries that bring their own audiences to our show. But just as important as their views are their personalities. I wanted to invite passionate go-getters that do whatever it takes to win the Blogbuster.”
The reporter nodded. Roman wanted to start chitchatting with the next reporter in line, but a voice took him out of the moment.
“What are you going to do about the new Bam video?”
Roman frowned and turned around. A guy in suit was looking at him from the third row.
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you seen it? Millions already have.”
The reporter smiled, as if he was happy over the fact he was one step ahead of Roman. Stax thought about the incident that had just occurred about a half an hour before. Nah, it couldn’t be, not that fast.
But then the reporter showed him the video. Stax saw a shaky view of his limousine, saw Bam crashing into its trunk, the limo stopping, saw himself walking out with the repeater pistol aimed at Bam. It was already online. And with it, thousands of inflammatory comments down below the vid. Not to mention the view count.
“Over three and half million people have watched it within the last thirty-one minutes,” the reporter said with a smirk.
And for a sec, Roman’s ever-glowing smile made way to a stoneface. Was this going to ruin his image? Nah, he didn’t do wrong. The guy crashed into his limo, he was the perpetrator. Roman took out the gun to protect himself. And he didn’t even shoot. So it was all good in the hood, at least on the legal side.
“Mr. Stax?”
He felt a pinch from Laci who motioned him to go on.
