by Geoff Rodkey
It was very unpleasant.
JENS KUYPERS, Dutch soccer player/heartbreaker/amateur Blurt actor
The whole time, I am thinking, “Why does this take so long? A Blurt is two seconds!”
Nobody told to me that we are making thirty-seven of them.
Also, I did not like James screaming at me so much.
JAMES, professional crazy person/Blurt video director
You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
And I wasn’t fooling around. I had personally set out to create the most captivating, viral-ready Blurts of all time. My goal wasn’t just to pile up 30,000 followers on Claudia’s account—I wanted to create an episodic, short-form cinematic experience SO AMAZING it’d revolutionize the entire medium and change people’s ideas of what a Blurt could be forever.
So I don’t think you should be asking yourselves, “Did James scream at me?”
I think you should be asking, “Did James achieve his creative vision for the project, while getting the absolutely best performance possible out of me?”
And I think the Blurts speak for themselves.
CLAUDIA
The Blurts actually did turn out amazing. James created a whole story about a cute boy getting stalked by a deranged Flubby in Central Park, then broke it up into dozens of two-second Blurts. And some of them were HILARIOUS.
They were also weird and creepy. But in a good way.
JAMES
The official title of the piece was The Furry Menace. Stylistically, it was heavily influenced by the work of Italian director Dario Argento. Also, Road Runner cartoons.
CARMEN, disgruntled Ed. Note: “disgruntled” = angry/annoyed director
James is just completely full of himself. It’s like he thinks he’s Steven Spielberg.
JAMES
That’s ridiculous. I was aiming MUCH higher than Steven Spielberg. He just has to make one movie at a time. I made THIRTY-SEVEN Blurts—each one totally self-contained, but also telling one thirty-seventh of a larger story.
CLAUDIA
Carmen is very bitter about the whole situation. Because she thought SHE was going to be directing the Blurts, just like she directed my music video.
But when she showed up, James told her she could only direct “second unit.”
CARMEN
I still don’t know what that means. All I know is James is a monster. And two hours of him screaming was all I could handle. So I left early.
JAMES
It’s actually a real shame Carmen left early. We needed her to help keep the tourists out of the shots.
CLAUDIA
The tourists were a real problem. And not just because they kept wandering into the background of the shots.
It turns out that if you wear a Flubby costume anywhere in New York City, tourists will assume you’re there to take pictures with them.
And a lot of tourists don’t speak English. So when they’d come up to me and want to take a picture, it was VERY hard to explain to them that I wasn’t that kind of Flubby.
Eventually, I realized it was easier to just let them take the pictures.
The good news was that they paid me for them. So I made thirty dollars. I gave all of it to Jens, because I felt very guilty about getting him involved. And not just because the shoot took five hours, and James was screaming at him the whole time.
I also felt guilty because we found out even a fake baseball bat really hurts when someone beats you over the head with it.
JENS
I am thinking, “Okay, bat is just made from plastic. How much can it hurt?”
But the answer is, “A lot.” My head has pain for total three days after that.
JAMES
Hey, man—if you want to make great art, sometimes you have to suffer for it.
CHAPTER 13
REESE JUMPS THE SHARK
CLAUDIA
While I was getting yelled at wearing a Flubby costume in Central Park, Reese and Xander were taking their Blurt career to the next level.
Unfortunately for them, the next level was lower than their last level.
REESE
After we deleted the Rush Soda Blurt, Xander and I knew we had to post more content. My first Blurt was still getting Blips, but it was definitely slowing down a ton. And my followers were stuck around 25,000.
So we needed a totally awesome follow-up. I wanted to do something at LEAST twice as funny as jumping off a tower.
XANDER
So I was all, “Just make the tower twice as tall, yo!”
REESE
That seemed like a good idea. Ed. Note: (not a good idea) So we spent all Saturday morning building this REEAAAAALLLY tall tower on MetaWorld.
But it was so tall that when Xander’s avatar jumped off, it took four seconds to hit the ground. And Blurts are only two seconds long. So we couldn’t use it.
Then I thought, “What if I run into something really fast? Like a wall?” So then it’d be like the “SPLAAAT!” when we fell off the tower, except sideways.
So we tried running our avatars into walls. But it turns out you can’t run fast enough to splat against a wall. You just kinda hit the wall and go, “NNNGGGHHH.”
Then I thought, “What if I shoot myself out of a cannon?”
XANDER
Dat cannon idea was siiiiiiiick!
’Cept we needed a cannon.
REESE
It’s not like there’s cannons just lying around in MetaWorld. If you want one, you pretty much have to mod Ed. Note: mod = modify = create a custom object in MetaWorld it yourself. So you need to know how to code.
Which Xander and I were clueless about. So I asked Akash, ’cause he’s, like, a genius at computer stuff.
AKASH
So it’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m sitting at home binge-watching Captain Impossible episodes when your brother messages me on ClickChat.
CLICKCHAT POSTS (PRIVATE CHAT)
Skronkmonster Ed. Note: Reese Hey Akash wt up r u there?
AmigoGod Ed. Note: Akash y
Skronkmonster Can u build me a cannon????
AmigoGod I’m assuming you mean a MetaWorld cannon and not a real one? Or is there some kind of civil war going on in your apartment building?
Skronkmonster yah sorry MW canon
Skronkmonster not real one
Skronkmonster want to shoot myelf out of it for a Blurt
AmigoGod Sure. Fifty bucks
Skronkmonster R u serius???????
Skronkmonster Thats cray
AmigoGod You’re right. Fifty’s way too low. Make it a hundred
[Skronkmonster has invited Skronkmonster_X to the chat]
Skronkmonster_X Ed. Note: Xander YO AK-47 Ed. Note: Xander’s nickname for Akash WUT DISH ISH BOUT U OVERCHARGN???
AmigoGod Hello, Mrs. Skronkmonster! How’s married life?
Skronkmonster_X NOT FUNNY YO
Skronkmonster_X WE NEED A CANON STAT
AmigoGod If Xander’s involved, it’ll be two hundred
Skronkmonster_X DON’T MAKE ME SMACK DA TASTE OUTTA YO MOUF
AmigoGod Three hundred
Skronkmonster can u log off X?
Skronkmonster_X THESE COLORS DONT RUN
[Skronkmonster has blocked Skronkmonster_X from the chat]
AmigoGod Smart move
Skronkmonster Can u pleeeeeeeeeez build it? I dont have money but its super impartnt
AmigoGod I’ll do it for 20% of your revenues and a chocolate cigar Ed. Note: Akash’s favorite snack food from Hot & Crusty
Skronkmonster Are revenus money
AmigoGod Yes, but there won’t be any. Because you’re clueless. But bring me a chocolate cigar in the next 90 minutes and I’ll build you a cannon
REESE
So Akash built us this awesome cannon.
AKASH
I didn’t actually build it. I downloaded it from a freeware site. It took thirty seconds. But I got those idiots to deliver a chocolate cigar to my door
for free! Which really improved my Captain Impossible marathon.
REESE
Making a Blurt with the cannon wasn’t as easy as we thought. ’Cause number one, it takes a LOT longer than two seconds to load yourself into a cannon and fire it.
And number two, when you shoot yourself out of a cannon, it doesn’t, like, launch you into the air. It just blows your whole body to bits.
But not in a funny way. A sad way.
Then Xander had a total brainstorm.
XANDER
I wuz all, “Just stand there and blow your head off!” Ed. Note: Xander “brainstorm” = “cloudy with occasional drizzle”
REESE
So I put my head in front of the cannon barrel and blew it off. And THAT was hilarious!
So we Blurted it. And we were like, “This is going to be huge!”
And it turned out it WAS huge… when BewBewBoy posted the exact same Blurt two years ago.
And then I guess a gazillion other people copied it.
So by the time we did it, blowing your head off with a cannon on Blurt wasn’t cool anymore. It was just lame. And we got flamed pretty bad in the comments.
XANDER
Dem comments was COLD, yo!
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
5 comments Ed. Note: used to be 100+ comments, but Reese had to delete the ones w/swearing
@gabbyreads omg so lame
@shadowmike BewBewBoy shuld sue them
@MissyDeMeaner
@everythingIlike it was funny the first 700000000 times I saw it
@cantankrus UNFOLLOW
REESE
The worst part wasn’t even the haters in the comments. It was that after we posted it, I lost 1,000 followers. And I freaked. I was like, “People are leaving! We gotta post something else STAT!”
But all we had was the super-tall tower thing. Which was four seconds. So we split it into two Blurts and posted both of them.
And then we lost 3,000 more followers. ’Cause everybody hated them. People in the comments were all, “They jumped the shark!”
@DannysInVegas wow @Skronkmonster done jumped the shark
@clevercooky aaaaand we’ve jumped the shark
@Wereworlder sad shark is sad. “Y U JUMP ME?”
I didn’t even know what “jump the shark” meant. So I had to look it up. And it was NOT good.
CLAUDIA
If you think about it, this was actually impressive. Most TV shows don’t jump the shark until after a hundred episodes. Reese and Xander did it after just one Blurt.
CHAPTER 14
THE FURRY MENACE SAVES MY LIFE
CLAUDIA
By the time we went back to school on Monday, Reese had fallen from his Saturday-morning peak of 25,000 followers all the way down to 21,000.
Which was encouraging… but still 20,800 followers more than I had. So I was pretty desperate to start posting the Furry Menace Blurts. I’d been bugging James to let me get started ever since we’d finished shooting in Central Park on Saturday.
CLAUDIA AND JAMES (text messages)
(CLAUDIA) Hi! Are the Blurts done yet?
(JAMES) Most of them. Doing some post-production
Can you send me the first ones so I can post?
Will put them on thumb drive and bring to school tomorrow
Can’t you just email them?
What part of “I’m banned from the Internet” don’t you understand?
Oh, right. Sorry!
While you’re waiting, you should join other social networks
Then you can cross-post to drive more traffic
Great idea. Which sites should I join?
Right now I am only on ClickChat and Blurt
Join Flippy, Blather, Bloop, GrabBag, Readr, Shout, and Kimchi
Are all those real?
Yes
I just checked out Kimchi and, ummm… it’s in Korean
Sign up anyway. Use Google translate
Srsly?
Trust me. Furry Menace will go over HUGE in Korea
CLAUDIA
I joined all the sites James told me to join, including Kimchi.
At least, I THINK I joined Kimchi. When I put the confirmation email I got through Google Translate, it said, “Congratulations! You can use the brine close. If you can be used to set, press here.”
So I’m not totally sure what my status is over there.
Then I linked all the sites to Blurt so they’d cross-post whenever I Blurted. But since I didn’t get the thumb drive with all the Blurts from James until Monday morning, I had to wait until after school that day to start posting.
There were eleven days left in the bet, so James put me on a four-Blurt-a-day schedule. He also told me when to post, what hashtags to use, which Blurt stars to tag in the comments, and how to lie Ed. Note: official story: my weird cousin asked me and Jens to help with his student film to people so nobody would know he had anything to do with it.
JAMES
Speaking as an artist, not being able to take credit for my work was very painful.
But not as painful as getting expelled would’ve been if Vice Principal Bevan caught me going online.
And I figured I could always reveal my identity after the school year ended and The Furry Menace had become a massive global phenomenon.
CLAUDIA
I posted the first four Blurts every two hours between 3:30 and 9:30pm on Monday. And for a massive global phenomenon, they got off to a very slow start.
In fact, it was such a slow start that on Tuesday morning, I had to hide out in the library again before school to avoid getting laughed at by the Fembots.
And when I passed them in the hallway before second period and Athena yelled, “Nice try, Claudia! Lamest Blurts EVER!” I got a horrible sick feeling in my stomach because I thought she might be right.
I was so worried that—since some of the Blurts were much funnier than others—I asked James if we should rethink the strategy and release the funniest ones first.
JAMES
That was ridiculous. Would you ask Herman Melville to shuffle chapters of Moby-Dick around to get to the whale faster?
CLAUDIA
I don’t know. I’ve never read Moby-Dick.
JAMES
You wouldn’t like it. There’s no cute boys.
CLAUDIA
That is very sexist, James.
Anyway, by the end of school on Tuesday, the first four Blurts were picking up steam. They each had over 8,000 Blips, and I’d gotten seventy-five new followers.
And when I released Blurts #5–8 that night, The Furry Menace really started to get some traction.
PARVATI
Can I just say, number 6 was my personal favorite? It was like a scene from an actual movie.
WYATT
Those first four Blurts were just weird. I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. I was like, “Reese, did your sister have a mental breakdown or something?”
But then when the next four came out and the Flubby started chasing Jens, I was like, “Wait a minute—this is actually INSANELY COOL.”
JENS
At the first, I didn’t watch them. Because I did not have the Blurt account.
And also my head was still hurting from the bat. So I just wanted to forget whole thing.
But then after soccer practice Tuesday, there was new Blurts, and Wyatt shows everybody them on his phone. And the whole team is saying, “This is great!”
So I make a Blurt account to watch. And almost right away I get fifty followers!
CLAUDIA
By Wednesday after school, six of the eight Blurts had over 40,000 Blips, #6 had 60,000 Blips, and I was closing in on 1,000 followers.
Then I released #9–12, and things REALLY started to take off.
It was so exciting that I basically got zero homework done that whole night.
CLICKCHAT POSTS (PRIVATE CHAT)
Parvanana OMG @claudaroo HAVE U SEEN UR NUMBERS????
clauda
roo I can’t stop staring at them
claudaroo It is srsly addictive
claudaroo Blurt #10 got to 25,000 in just 2 hrs!!!
c_2_the_g tbh I hate James but these are really good. Crazy fun to watch
sophie_k_nyc OMG CHECK OUT THE BLURT HOME SCREEN STAT
Parvanana AAAAAAAAAH! @claudaroo U R TRENDING!!!!
Parvanana #FURRYMENACE FTW!!!!! Drop dat !!!
c_2_the_g THAT IS SO AWESOME!! CONGRATS!!!!
