The Antisocial Network

"Walk back to your car," Dash's voice reminded him, and he slowly made his way to the car door, never looking up. He climbed in and slumped in his seat.

"You were great, Wes! I got some really good footage," Dash enthused, as she got in the passenger side. He started the engine and began driving out of his neighborhood and back downtown. "But there was no police officer . . ." he started.

"We don't need him," she breezed, "he wasn't in the shot. Besides, no one but you and Marlene know about him anyway." She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "That was amazing, Wes, you really got into . . ."

"Can we not talk right now?"

The pain in his voice was obvious, and she jerked her hand away abruptly. The rest of the drive back she mostly stared out the window, but once or twice she shot a furtive sideways glance in his direction. By the time they were back to the "Samuels Building," she'd made up her mind. "Park in the lot," she told him, and when he gave her a questioning look, she told him, "You're coming with me."

She led him up to her office and gestured for him to sit on the futon. Then she disappeared through a door and reappeared a minute later with two bottles of beer. She sat down with him and they drank in silence. When they finished, she grabbed two more bottles. Only after they'd drunk most of the second bottle did she try to talk to him.

"You really got into that, didn't you?" she asked.

He stared into the distance, then sighed. "Yeah, I guess I did. It all came back to me out there: the shock, the confusion, the despair. I guess I'd never really dealt with it all."

She nodded. "I'm sorry to put you through all that, Wes, but honestly, your reactions are going to have a real impact on the audience."

He took another sip and looked over at her. "I still don't see how any of this is going to help."

"I'm going to use that video to start you on the downhill slope of your story arc. Then I'm going to send you even lower. Only then can we bring all this back up to a happy ending."

His face took on a bitter expression. "So what you're promising me is blood, sweat and tears, huh?"

"Exactly," she beamed. "But just remember: it all worked out for the Brits in the end."

"Yeah, but only because they had America on their side."

She nodded and grinned even more broadly. "Yep, and you've got me on your side. It won't even be a fair fight." Then she stood up. "But the only way that can happen is if you get out of here now and let me do some work."

"Okay, Dash, I don't know why, but I've got faith in you." He stood too. "Anyway, thanks for the beer."

She stepped closer and, to his surprise, gave him a quick hug. "Hang in there, Wes. I know it's hard now, but it will get better, I promise."

As he drove back to the motel, he found he did feel a little more hopeful.

His good mood didn't last past the next morning. There was no sign of Edith Norton, but the grind of his daily work routine wore him down quickly. The only bright spot was the call from Dash at mid-afternoon. "Can you come over after work? I've got something I think you'll want to see."

With that to look forward to, the remaining two hours or so of work passed pretty quickly.

When he walked into Dash's office, she had him sit in one of the desk seats; then she twisted the big monitor around for him. "To understand what I'm doing, you're going to have to watch a little YouTube first," she explained. "Ever hear of 'Gossip Gertie's Back Fence'?"

"No. Should I have?"

"You definitely should. Right now, Gertie has one of the most popular channels on YouTube. Let me show you."

On the screen, an advertisement for beauty products came on, and Dash waited impatiently until she could skip ahead. When she did so, immediately the screen filled with an image of a middle-class back yard surrounded by a white picket fence. Some corny big band music provided ambiance. Emblazoned in the sky was "Gossip Gertie's Back Fence." Abruptly the scene switched to a set with a desk whose front was covered with the same white fencing. Behind it sat an improbably-dressed hostess wearing an obvious blonde wig in a 1950s-era style. Her clothes were the same vintage.

"Oh am I glad to see you!" the woman burst out in a shrill voice. "I'm Gossip Gertie and I just heard the juiciest gossip! Let me tell you all about it."

With that she began to recount a series of gossipy news items, human interest stories, fashion and beauty tips, product recommendations and more. Behind her, graphics and videos filled the screen, illustrating each segment.

After a few minutes Dash paused the program. "Okay, I think you get the idea. What do you think?"

"Is this a hobby for her?"

"Hobby? Dash scoffed. "This is her full-time job."

"She can make a living doing that?"

"Advertisers pay very well to get on successful shows on YouTube."

"How well?"

"Let me put it this way: the host of a show that has a million subscribers can make a little over $50K a year."

He whistled. "$50,000? That's not bad."

She grinned at him. "Last year, Gossip Gertie's Back Fence averaged about 100 million subscribers."

"A hundred million? Wait, that would mean she's pulling in . . . $5 million a year!" He halted, his mind boggling at the total.

Dash came around the desk to sit on the other chair in front of the flatscreen. "So here's the deal: to be successful, a show like this requires a constant flow of content. Obviously, a lot of that comes from publicists, advertisers and product promoters, but Gertie's got to have more if she wants to keep all her subscribers. That's where people like me come in: from time to time I'll push a story her way I think she can use. If she likes it, her program carries a lot of weight in terms of influencing her audience. And that's what I'm going to do with your story: push it to her so we can get you the exposure."

"So why would she be interested in my story?"

"Simple," she said, "I'm going to make you the symbol of every heartless man who's ever cruelly dumped a wife or girlfriend."

"What? I'm the dump-ee, not the dump-er."

"Not in my version. Here's the footage I've put together, along with my proposed script for Gertie. Watch."

With that she clicked a file and the screen filled with a black-and-white Neighborhood Watch video like Dash's father had shown Wes. Only this time it was Wes' car that pulled into his driveway. Dash began to read. "How many of you girls out there have been dumped by a boyfriend or kicked out of your marriage by an unfeeling husband? How many of you have wished the shoe was on the other foot? Well here's a little revenge porn just for you."

On the screen Wes saw himself pounding on the door to no avail. "In Sacramento, California, the wife in the house obviously had a bellyful of her hubby, so she changed all the locks and kicked him out of the house."

The scene changed to a view from the sidewalk obviously shot by a hand-held camera. The footage started with a long shot, then zoomed in tight on the frustrated Wes. "Look at his expression: he can't believe his wife would ever do such a thing. And now watch this guy deflate when a process server hands him his divorce papers," Dash read. On the screen, Wes' face slumped in obvious dismay.

"And now for the grand finale," Dash read. "The humiliated hubby has to make the long walk of shame back to his car and out of her life. How sweet it is to see the guy have to suffer for once." On the screen, Wes' plodding shuffle down the walkway was almost painful to watch.

Dash looked up from her script to gauge Wes' reaction. She'd figured he wouldn't be happy, but she was taken aback by his expression. "That was about the most humiliating thing I've ever watched!" he blurted out. "Do we really have to do it like that?"

She patted his arm. "I'm sorry, Wes, but this is the only way."

He shook his head doubtfully. "Okay, if you say so. At least you didn't use any names. Hopefully, nobody will recognize me."

The young woman looked away and said nothing.

At work the next day, Wes' phone signaled a text from Dash late in the afternoon. It read: "You're live on Gertie. Buckle your seatbelt, the flight is about to get choppy."

For the last hour of the day, Wes kept one eye on his work and the other on the rest of the office, but he picked up no sign that anything was amiss. Edith Norton did glare at him when he left at 5:30, but there was nothing unusual about that. Relieved, he decided to swing by Dash's office for an update.

He found her in - she always seemed to be in - and asked for the latest.

"Gertie loved the piece," Dash told him happily. "She used it exactly like you saw yesterday - except it was her voice-over, not mine. More importantly, she told me she's already getting a big response." She gave him a wink. "I guess seeing an unfeeling male suffering for once is really gratifying to a lot of females out there."

"But that's not what I am," he protested.

"Yeah, but they don't know that. Anyway, it hasn't been that long and you're already starting to go viral all over the internet. Somebody on TikTok picked up a screen-grab of your face and sent it to her network, and now it's being recirculated like crazy. I'm also picking up posts from it on some of my Facebook accounts, which means it's really starting to gain momentum out there."

She saw the look of concern on his face. "But don't be too worried: your internet name is HH - for Humiliated Husband."

"Just the nickname I was hoping for," he muttered sarcastically. "Alright, so what comes next?"

"We're going to sit tight for another day to let this grow. Then we're going to Phase 2."

"Uh, what's Phase 2?"

"Oh," she said blithely, "that's where we turn you into a real bastard."

He shuddered. "Do we have to?"

"Absolutely. Wes, you can't rise if you don't fall first."

"I don't think that's what Newton said."

"Yeah, but Sir Isaac didn't know about the internet."

He spent the rest of the evening in a gloomy mood, and it took him a while to get to sleep in his cramped motel room. As a result, he overslept and had to rush to get to work by starting time.

As he walked in the lobby, he noticed the receptionist glaring at him. When he headed down the corridor for his cubicle, he noticed her quickly pick up her phone to make a call. What was that all about? he wondered as he settled behind his desk.

The oddness only grew as the day wore on. It seemed to him that an unusual number of his fellow employees walked by his cubicle, and he could hear furtive comments and muffled laughter from time to time. Finally, just before lunchtime, his boss marched into his office.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Wes Hardaway, but it's starting to become a distraction in the office!"

"Edith, all I'm doing is working on the Wilson file."

"I'm talking about all that internet nonsense you've started. It's not very professional to spread your personal problems out there for the whole world to see."

"Ma'am, I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but I'll have this file ready for your review by 2:00 p.m. at the latest."

"Very well, but email it, don't bring it to me. The way you trudge around, it might take an hour for me to get it!" With that last barb she turned around and marched off, leaving Wes concerned.

If that computer-Neanderthal has seen me, that damned story must really be everywhere! he moaned.

For the rest of the day he kept his nose buried in his work, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. It didn't help. One time when he needed to use the restroom, he saw a group of colleagues standing in the hallway. From out of the knot of people, a summer intern nervously walked up to Wes after being shoved by someone in the group. "Mr. Hardaway, some of the others want me to ask you if your initials are 'H.H.'" As Wes stared at him in shock, the whole group burst into laughter, and Wes could only hurry away to the relative safety of the restroom.

When 5:00 p.m. finally came, Wes scurried out of the office, rushing past other workers to get to his car. Then he drove straight to the "Samuels Building" and hurried up to see Dash.

"What have you done to me?" he demanded when she let him in. "I've been catching hell all day long. All the employees know it's me, even my boss!"

"I'm not surprised," she replied easily. "Wes, you've achieved something very rare: you've become a meme."

"A what?"

"A meme, an image on the internet that people associate with an idea or emotion. That clip of you walking away in humiliation has already been picked up and used thousands of times. Wes, you're the poster boy for a male humiliated by a female."

He sank into a chair, holding his head in his hands. Dash went over and knelt in front of him. "Wes, I have to warn you: it's going to get worse, a lot worse. Tomorrow, Gertie is going to reveal that you were served with an order of protection. You know what people are going to think then."

When he groaned out loud, she took his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. "I know this is going to be really hard on you. But I promise you, the lower you fall now, the higher you'll fly when it's all over. You just have to be strong now. Can you do it?"

"Oh, God, Dash, I'll try. I don't really have any other option now, do I?"

Marlene

A little before noon the next day, Jack Mackenzie wheeled his silver BMW into the driveway of the Hardaway house and parked it in the garage. After making sure the garage door was closed, he let himself into the house and went looking for his lover.

When he found Marlene, she was sitting at her computer, a frown on her face. "Have you seen this?" she demanded, pointing at the screen where Gertie Gossip was showing Wes making his now infamous retreat down the front walk. "How in the hell did they get that film?"

He looked over her shoulder and chuckled. "Probably one of your neighbors was out walking and took it with her cellphone." He began to rub her shoulders. "But who cares? The truth is this makes Wes look like a complete idiot, while you look smart to get rid of him."

"I guess you're right," she nodded, "but I can't help feeling a little sorry for the poor schmuck. Look at the pain on his face."

Mackinzie slid his hands down the front of her blouse and began to undo the buttons. "I'm looking at something a whole lot more interesting than your soon-to-be ex-husband's face." He pulled the blouse open and began to fondle her breasts, Marlene purred like a contented cat. "Mmmm, you're right: I think we can find something more fun to do than watching some stupid show on the internet. Get down here on your knees and give me the attention I deserve."

"Yes, Mistress," he said, and hastily dropped to the floor and began using his fingers and lips to worship her.

"Mmmm, you are a good boy," she murmured. Too bad Wes wasn't into submission, she thought to herself. Then her lover's tongue found her spot and she stopped thinking altogether.

Wes

The next day actually started off a little better for Wes. He still drew stares as he went into work, but the novelty of his situation seemed to have worn off. I can get through this, he decided.

But his comparative equanimity was disrupted mid-morning when he got another text from Dash. "Gertie Part 2 is up. You're the lede. Stay cool."

Fearfully he clicked on YouTube and found the Gossip Gertie channel. After impatiently waiting through the commercial and the show intro, he watched in fascinated horror as the YouTube influencer began to destroy his life.

As the sequence of him pounding on his front door ran in the background, Gertie solemnly intoned, "By now you've all seen my segment on the Humiliated Hubby. But now his story has taken another, darker turn." The scene switched to the process server handing Wes his papers. "It turns out it wasn't just divorce papers that HH was handed. The real bombshell is what else Hubby got: a Restraining Order!" An official looking paper appeared, filling the screen. The only legible words at the top were Order of Protection. "And that's not all," Gertie went on. "This order requires our Humiliated Hubby to keep at least 200 yards away from his wife at all times! It doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess what must have going on to require that kind of protection. No word yet on whether any charges have been filed, but we'll keep an eye on that. All we can say to the wife for now is we hope you're safe. And all we can say to Humiliated Hubby is good riddance, and we hope you get what's coming to you - along with all the other wife-beaters out there!"

Oh my God! Gertie might as well have put a bounty on my head! I've got to get out of here.

Ordinarily there was a recognizable level of background noise in his office: people talking on phones, office machines humming, people walking down the passageways. But the sound Wes now heard outside his cubicle was more like a low, menacing growl. That stopped him cold.

He looked up to see several co-workers talking to each other, shaking their heads and casting accusatory glances his way. He kept checking every few minutes, hoping to see an opening when he could slip out unnoticed. It never came; instead, the crowd seemed to be growing. He tried to bury himself in his work, but people kept walking by the entrance to his cubicle and muttering insults under their breath that he was obviously supposed to overhear.

Suddenly, the noise quieted and the crowd parted as Edith Norton stalked into his cube. "Mr. Hardaway, I warned you the other day about unprofessional behavior adversely affecting our office. Ordinarily, your personal life is your business, but not when it extends to beating your wife!"

"But I've never even touched Marlene!" he blurted out.

"Then why did she feel it necessary to seek court-ordered protection?" the woman demanded. "Why do you have to remain 200 yards away from her at all time or risk arrest?"

"Well, I really don't know why . . ."

"Enough!" she shouted, startling him. "This company has a zero-tolerance policy on spousal abuse, Mr. Hardaway. You'd know that if you spent less time surfing the internet and more time reading the employee manual. Regardless, ignorance of company policy is no excuse. You are hereby dismissed. You are no longer an employee of this firm, effective immediately."

Wes' mouth fell open. "But . . ."

She wouldn't let him finish. "You will be paid for your work to date, and you'll receive a separate check for two weeks' pay as severance. Now I need you to depart the premises immediately. Leave everything behind but your jacket and go. If you have any personal belongings, they will be shipped to you in due course. Ralph, here, will escort you out." She nodded and the burly security guard stepped into the cubicle. "Mr. Hardaway, we're not going to have any trouble, are we?"

Wes was in shock. He shook his head and then allowed the guard to take his arm and lead him away. Behind him, the murmur of voices grew louder.

When he got in his car, he slumped behind the wheel in a daze. A sharp rap on the window made him look up to see Ralph gesturing toward the exit to the parking lot. Wes started the engine and slowly drove off. He had no idea where he was going, but a short time later he found himself at the Samuels Building.

Now anger began to replace the shock of his dismissal, and he rushed up to Dash's office. Bursting through the door without knocking, he stalked over to the startled woman's desk and yelled, "Well I hope you're satisfied. Your little story arc has just gotten me fired!"

"They fired you? Why?"

"Because they have a zero-tolerance for spousal abuse."

She looked at him carefully. "That's the reason?"

"Oh, yes. Hatchet-face Norton just canned my ass for wife-beating. They're going to mail me my severance pay."