by Geoff Rodkey
claudaroo u guys I can’t believe this
claudaroo #6 just crossed 100,000 Blips
claudaroo over 1,200 followers now
sophie_k_nyc How many Blurts do you have left to post?
claudaroo Tons. 37 total. Have only released 11 so far
sophie_k_nyc this is amazing!!! U r going to win the bet!!!!
Parvanana OMG CODY AND CODY RB’D U!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
CLAUDIA
By the time I went to bed that night, #FurryMenace had been trending on the Blurt home screen for two hours, a couple of Blurt stars had RB’ed it, and I was up to over 1,500 followers.
James’s plan was working—I was actually starting to go viral. So right before Mom came in and made me put away my electronics for the night, I texted James to thank him.
CLAUDIA AND JAMES (text messages)
(CLAUDIA) Are you watching these numbers?
(JAMES) Banned.
From.
The.
Internet.
Right. Sorry. IT’S AMAZING!
#FurryMenace trending on home page!
Almost 100K for biggest Blurt!
1,600 followers!
And 20+ more Blurts to go?
Exactly
THANK YOU SO MUCH JAMES!!!!!! YOU ARE A ROCK STAR
Yes I am
I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT YOU
You really couldn’t
Just don’t tell anybody I was involved
I won’t. I promise
Unless somebody wants to make a film/TV deal
That’d be worth getting expelled over
OK
Congrats—u r going to be bigger than that kid who bit his brother’s finger
CLAUDIA
Speaking of brothers… while I was lying in bed dreaming of victory over the Fembots, Reese was spiraling down into a waking nightmare from which there was no escape.
And by “waking nightmare,” I mean the comment section of his Blurt page.
CHAPTER 15
REESE FALLS DOWN THE COMMENT HOLE
CLAUDIA
While I was gaining followers that week, Reese was losing them. Along with his mind.
REESE
It was all Mom’s fault. ’Cause she’s the one who kept telling me she was going to shut down my account if she found any bad language on my Blurt page.
But every time I deleted all the comments that had bad language, the trolls who wrote them just commented again with WORSE language!
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
342 comments [load more]
@urkelslovechild U @skronkmonster
@cantankrus !!!!!!!
@Beloser
@chizvard
@BrandonHandon Delete me agin and Ill you
CLAUDIA
Why didn’t you just block all their accounts?
REESE
I did! They kept coming back with different usernames!
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
52 comments [load more]
@Bewinner AWWWWW WIDDLE BABY BLOCK DA BAD MEN BWWAAAA
@Brandon_Handon block this @skronkmonster u
@revengeofurkel U CANT HANDUL THE TRUTH
@01chizvard hey @skronkmonster ur village called its missing an idiot
@cantankrus25 u r such a
REESE
It was seriously stressing me out. Like, I’d delete fifty comments, and an hour later, there’d be fifty more! It was totally cray.
So I asked Xander what we should do to get rid of the trolls. And he was like, “I’ma lay some smack down!”
And that just made it ten times worse. Especially when the trolls all started calling themselves “Skronkmonster.”
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
REESE
I freaked out and blocked all the usernames from “Skronkmonster_A” to “Skronkmonster_Z.” Ed. Note: except X (which was Xander) But then they started using numbers. And there was no way to block all the numbers. ’Cause numbers are infinite!
After that, all I could think about was how to stop the trolls. Wednesday afternoon, I had such a bad soccer practice that afterwards, Coach Unger wanted to know if everything was okay at home.
I seriously needed help. So I texted Dad for advice.
REESE AND DAD (text messages)
(REESE) Dad trolls keep flaming me in comments and I cant get rid of them what do I do???
(DAD) What are trolls?
And what’s flaming?
NM Ill ask mom
What’s NM?
REESE AND MOM (text messages)
(REESE) Mom thes trolls keep flaming me on Blurt how do I make them stop??
(MOM) Block their accounts
I did they just got new usernames
Try ignoring them. Maybe they will get bored and go away
I m ignoring them!!!!
I NEVER reply
It doesnt help
Also will u let me stop deleting swear words? I think its making them mad
NO. KEEP DELETING
REESE
That night, I deleted, like, a hundred comments and blocked everybody who wrote them. But they just kept commenting more under different names!
Then at 9:30, Mom came in and made me put away my electronics for the night.
CLAUDIA
Mom and Dad have a policy that we can’t go to sleep with any electronics Ed. Note: -laptops -phones -ipads -etc. in our bedrooms. This is because they don’t want us staying up all night online and/or going on the Internet before we even get out of bed in the morning.
REESE
So I put my laptop in the kitchen and went to bed. But while I was lying there, I thought, “If ignoring them and deleting them isn’t working… and Xander yelling at them didn’t work… maybe I should just try to talk to the trolls and ask them to be cool.”
So I snuck out to the kitchen and got my laptop from where Mom left it. I was just going to write one little message. But then it turned into a whole thing.
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
134 comments [load more]
@Skronkmonster hey other skronkmonsters can u be chill i m just trying to make some fun Blurts if u dont like it thats cool then y not just ignore it? Im not hurting anyone n I dont want to fight anybody
@Skronkmonster_05 awwwwww is sad skronkmonster sad?
@Skronkmonster_32 poor widdle baby
@Skronkmonster_414 u r the worst @skronkmonster
@Skronkmonster y would u say that????? U don’t no me at all
@Skronkmonster_909 ur Blurts r lame
@Skronkmonster ok fine so dont watch them
@Skronkmonster_909 n u copied off BewBewBoy
@Skronkmonster not on purpos we deleted that one
@jenna_in_FL @skronkmonster I THINK U R AWESUM JUST IGNORE THESE H8RS
@Skronkmonster thx @jenna_in_FL!!!
@Skronkmonster_909 sock puppet
@izzymarbles U R THE BEST @skronkmonster KEEP POSTING
@Skronkmonster thx @izzymarbles!
@Skronkmonster_32 wut happened did preskool just let out
REESE
When other people started sticking up for me, I was like, “This is awesome! They’re like troll fighters! I have a troll-fighting army!”
So they started ripping the trolls with me, and the trolls ripped us back, and a bunch of people got into it, and then somebody started talking about politics, and it got mad confusing, and it just kept going on and on, and then before I knew it Mom was at my bedroom door in her pajamas, yelling “WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP AT THIS HOUR?”
And that’s when I realized it was 3:00am.
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
2,113 comments Ed. Note: OMG this is INSANE number of comments [load more]
@jenna_in_FL 1st avengers movie was way better
@Skronkmonster_414 ur just ignorunt
@Skronkmonster g2g
CLAUDIA
After that, Mom and Dad decided Reese needed a break from Blurt. So they took away all his electronics for at lea
st a week.
REESE
I was actually kind of glad they did it. Being on Blurt was really starting to grumpf Ed. Note: not sure what this means (“stress”? “burn”?) me out. After I got off it, I just wanted to, like, go outside and sit on a rock and stare at trees for a while.
But when Xander found out, he got totally skronked.
XANDER
I’s all, “You can’t punk out on me, bruh! I’m fixin’ to drop a MAD Blurt! We gonna blow the roof off this mutha!”
REESE
Xander had this idea for a new Blurt he was really hyped about. When I told him I couldn’t go online and post it, he said he’d do it himself if I just gave him my Blurt password.
CLAUDIA
But you didn’t give it to him, right? Because Mom and Dad have been telling us for YEARS to NEVER give our passwords to ANYBODY.
REESE
Yeah… Mom and Dad were right. That was really good advice.
I seriously wish I’d taken it.
CHAPTER 16
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
CLAUDIA
When I found out at breakfast on Thursday that Mom and Dad had kicked Reese off the Internet for a week, I felt bad for my brother. Not only was his dream of being a Blurt star crumbling into dust, but after staying up all night fighting trolls, he looked like he’d been run over by a truck.
REESE
I did NOT feel good at breakfast that day. I thought I was going to pass out into my cereal.
CLAUDIA
Bet-wise, I wasn’t sure if Reese’s situation was good or bad for me. On the one hand, it meant he couldn’t post any more Blurts that might go viral. But on the other hand, he also couldn’t post any more Blurts that’d drive his followers away like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
Either way, though, I was feeling good about my odds. I’d gotten almost 600 more followers overnight, and my best Blurts hadn’t even posted yet.
I was especially excited about #13, which I was going to put up right after school.
When I got to school, there was serious buzz in the cafeteria about The Furry Menace.
SOPHIE
It was like that first morning after Reese’s Blurt posted. EVERYBODY was watching your Blurts. And they loved them!
JENS
My friends say to me things like, “DOOOOOD, these Blurts are off a hook!”
And the pain on my head was gone by then. So I start to think, “After all, maybe this was good to do.”
JAMES
I was really tempted to out myself as the director. It was so annoying having to listen to people talk about how crazy your imaginary cousin was. That was MY crazy!
CLAUDIA
The absolutely best part of that morning was watching Athena and the Fembots react to the Blurts.
PARVATI
Can I just say, it was HILARIOUS when Athena accused you of cheating?
She was like, “You can’t post Blurts that aren’t you!”
And you were like, “That’s me in the Flubby costume!”
And she was like, “YOU CAN’T BE A FLUBBY!”
CARMEN
So you took out the rules Toby typed up and you were like, “I don’t see anything in here about Flubbies.”
And the whole cafeteria was like, “You lose, Athena!”
The look on her face after that was SO GREAT.
CLAUDIA
Athena was so furious that she and the other Fembots spent the rest of the day trying to shame me for looking overweight in the Flubby costume.
ATHENA
Excuse me, but I was just stating a fact. I mean, it’s, like, BEYOND obvious you don’t care about your appearance. But tbh? That costume was NOT flattering. You looked like a blue cow.
PARVATI
Ugh! I hate Athena so much. When she and Meredith and Ling “moo’d” at you after third period? DISGUSTING.
CLAUDIA
It really was. But it also felt like a victory. Athena was clearly lashing out because she was worried she was going to lose the bet.
Also, FYI, that costume was padded. But even if it wasn’t, no one should EVER have to feel uncomfortable in their own body. Even a Flubby body. Making people feel bad about the way they look is just totally wrong and evil.
But the Flubby-shaming just made me even more psyched to come home after school and post more Blurts. When I checked the app from my phone on the bus home from school, I was at 2,600 followers, and The Furry Menace #6 had racked up over 150,000 Blips.
Considering how awesome and hilarious Blurts #13–16 were, I felt sure my numbers were about to take off like a rocket. I was so excited that when I got home, I didn’t even stop in the kitchen for a snack. I went straight to my bedroom to post The Furry Menace #13 from my laptop.
And that’s when I realized something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.
Blurts #1 through 12 had all disappeared from my page. In their place was this ugly black box:
ASHLEY
I seriously have NEVER heard a human being scream that loud in my life. I was in the kitchen when I heard you, and all I could think was, “Claude has DEFINITELY cut off all her fingers. Or maybe her whole hand.”
CLAUDIA
By the time Ashley got to my bedroom, I’d found the notice from Blurt Legal in my Direct Messages:
@BLURTLEGAL TO @CLAUDAROO (Blurt Direct Message)
ATTENTION
We have received a trademark infringement complaint regarding a Blurt(s) you posted, as follows:
Complaint from Children’s Television Laboratory regarding inappropriate use of trademarked content FLUBBY™ CHARACTER COSTUME
Further incidents of trademark infringement will result in the deletion of your account. Please delete any Blurts for which you have not obtained the necessary rights and refrain from posting future Blurts containing unlicensed material.
If your Blurt(s) has been misrepresented, you may submit a counter-notification. Be aware that under section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, willful misrepresentation may expose you to civil liability for damages suffered by the rights holder.
The Blurt Legal Department
CLAUDIA
The first thing I did was contact a lawyer.
CLAUDIA AND DAD (text messages)
(CLAUDIA) DAD MAJOR EMERGENCY PLS CHECK YR EMAIL ASAP
(DAD) Are you ok??????
HAVING PANIC ATTACK
CHECK EMAIL
Breathe into a paper bag
THAT DOESN’T WORK
CHECK YR EMAIL!!!
Just did
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
CAN I STILL POST MY BLURTS?
Calling you now
CLAUDIA
When he called, Dad was VERY kind and supportive. Which I realize was not easy, because I was basically a hot mess. And it took him a while to calm me down.
So as a parent, he was totally awesome.
But as a lawyer, I was VERY disappointed in him.
Because what I really needed him to do was to sue somebody and/or get a judge to issue a court order so I could keep posting Furry Menace Blurts.
And he basically took the Children’s Television Laboratory’s side.
ERIC S. TAPPER (aka “DAD”), father/lawyer of Claudia
The law’s the law, kiddo. And let me tell you, the Children’s Television Lab is AGGRESSIVE in protecting their trademarks. If they don’t want Flubby™ Ed. Note: TM = trademark (Dad says to be on legal safe side, I have to use this when talking about Flubby™ from now on) going on a crazy homicidal rampage, he’s not going. End of story.
But I have to say—as a parent, I’m incredibly proud of you. There aren’t too many 12-year-olds out there who’ve gotten a cease and desist order from a major corporation. That’s a real accomplishment.
CLAUDIA
Thanks, Dad. Sorry about all the crying in the middle of your work day.
DAD
Don’t sweat it, kiddo. That’s what I’m here for.
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CHAPTER 17
NEVER GIVE YOUR PASSWORD TO XANDER Ed. Note: (OR ANYBODY) (BUT ESPECIALLY XANDER)
CLAUDIA
While the Children’s Television Lab was ruining my entire Blurt strategy, Xander was busy ruining Reese’s entire life.
REESE
He didn’t ruin my WHOLE life. Just some parts of it.
CLAUDIA
Whatever. You still shouldn’t have given him your Blurt password.
