Lily and Mitch stood out on the front porch, reveling in anticipation.
-Man Lily, if we got this famous in one night, this how big we’ll be next week!
-After we’ve been on TV a couple of times, I’m going to travel to Africa.
-You know someone who lives there?
-No, I just don’t want to be one of those celebrities always on magazine covers.
Lily wondered if Mitch was going to kiss her and later blame it on just being really excited. She’d let him get away with it too, she knew. She stopped talking to Mitch and let an awkward silence build. The perfect time for a kiss.
The silence continued. Mitch just looked at the stars above the house across the street. Should I just kiss him, thought Lily. Can I do that? Do I even want to? No, I guess not.
Lily took Mitch’s hand in her hand. Mitch smiled. Then he held up their hands in the air to pump once. Yeah, he exclaimed. Yeah! Let’s go see what the others are up to.
More than any e-audience, it was Blair that needed the group to do something new. During the hours of talking with her friends, Blair continually read posted comments, watched video responses and found blogs praising the video.
“The funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Freaking genius!”
“I can’t stop lol-ing!”
But then viewers on the website, and other websites, started analyzing it. Why was this video made? How was this made? Who are these people? Is there a point to the video and does there need to be? No matter the intentions, the video was like everything else created; that is, it said something about society. The video was sincerely liked; then a few people only liked it ironically. More akin to “Stuff On My Cat” then anything important.
The e-discussions and e-reviews tired the e-viewers. If one was still impressed by this video, they were too easy to impress. Running jokes that included “Fire,” “Shasta” or a “Dog Sneeze” became too easy. Then cliché. Then annoying.
“The dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Idiotic.”
“Frustratingly banal.”
Blair threw up just a little bit at 4 a.m. Like the praise of the video, the criticism was temporary, she knew. Eventually the video would mercifully enter a post-ironic phase but not for a while more. While her friends talked in the main room, Blair stayed on the computer. The gang went from being a normal, or even admirable, group of friends to--as one Internet expert described--“leaches of society.” They were smothered by their own popularity. Or smothered by their own unpopularity. Either way, they were smothered.
Everybody stopped getting phone calls from old friends. Lily got another text from Cassidy.
-[Sorry I have to bail. I can’t do lunch tomorrow after all.]
-[Lunch some other time?]
-[Maybe]
-[Okay]
Blair and her friends had become the worthless entertainment she prided herself in fighting. The worthless entertainment that was supposed to be beat back by the resurgence of avant-garde idealism. For years Blair felt like she was becoming a part of an artistic movement that could re-blend entertainment and enlightenment but now was on the verge of being the poster child for a techno-savvy, pop junk culture. This was unacceptable. Whether or not people knew her name or not was irrelevant, Blair knew she had a responsibility to her former and future e-fans, critics and self.
Seph saw any entertainment value of the gang’s theoretical next video as nothing more than sugarcoating for what they really needed to do. Great ideas are entertaining themselves and don’t need to be blunted with target audiences. Did The Prince have jokes? Did the Communist Manifesto need more pictures? Again, Seph could only think in generalities. Like Blair, he was boiling with ambition but also like Blair, he couldn’t grasp, or even see, what he was reaching for. Their vocabulary was too limited for the ideas they wanted to convey except to clarify where they disagreed.
-We can change the Internet forever, said Seph.
Seph knew he was stretching a little bit, but he also knew that was the only way to stir the blood of his peers. He needed people thinking big because he was thinking big.
Blair tried to get the group brainstorming together but ideas were missing or hoarded. Seph mentally separated the forthcoming possibilities and tried to decide which way to nudge the group. If they made another video, should they advertise it? Should they be answering their critics? How do we advertise an Internet video? This wasn’t like ordering a pizza, except that Seph quietly thought he was the most capable. But he also couldn’t eat an entire pizza by himself. Whether the group owed their popularity to being too average, too lucky, too unlucky or too unusual, Seph was going to make sure they all would make a statement about something.
Emmit somewhat understood Blair’s fear and Seph’s ambition without being told, but he had a different sense of responsibility. Emmit hated art house movies. He hated documentaries. They’re all too preachy and boring. Even that documentary about guys who street-raced cars that were on fire was kind of boring. He just watched movies to have fun. They didn’t need to be incredibly deep; in fact, if “themes” caused movies to have fewer jokes or explosions or robots, he didn’t want them to have themes. And it was the same thing for the Internet. The Internet was made for people to have fun. People find wacky videos, like “Fire, Shasta and a Dog Sneeze,” because they like laughing, not because they want to hear some political message.
Lily was further behind everybody than Emmit. She didn’t understand why the group needed to make anything at all. It was just something that happened. It was fun. They’ve done lots of fun things before. Besides, it was getting way too late to make another video. Actually, it was early by now. Way too early to make another video. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.
-Lightning strikes the Empire State Building dozens of times each year, Seph corrected.
-Is that true?
-Yes. So we need to be like the Empire State Building.
-And…get struck by lightning?
-Every pattern started with a single incident.
Though not complaining, Blair noticed she hadn’t heard anything from Mitch in the other room for the last couple of hours. She asked for confirmation that he was still alive and received it. Mitch had taken a midnight nap and was now hungry. Let’s go get some breakfast burritos, he said. This suggestion was met with a level of enthusiasm that would have rivaled a suggestion that they all go eat a bucket of mud from the zoo. Mitch’s argument that he was starving didn’t increase anybody’s interest, though Lily felt slightly more sympathetic. Also, what happened to the party we were supposed to throw?
-We’ll throw a party some other time.
-Hey, John Belushi, it was too short notice anyway.
-Nothing’s too short.
-You better hope that’s what she said.
-Oh dang!
Mitch grumbled, then his stomach grumbled louder. Can I just eat something here, he asked. Emmit admitted he didn’t have much food in the house, secretly thankful that it was true. But apparently Mitch was dying of starvation so Emmit told Mitch to look around if he wanted to. While Mitch rumbled about in the kitchen, Emmit once again turned on the news and saw that Senator Stonewater had provoked the ire of some of his younger constituents. On a late-night radio talk show, Stonewater took some time off of lampooning President Burke’s “Heidi-ous Policies” and answered the DJ’s questions about young people. One of which being his thoughts on the YouTube sensation, “Fire, Shasta and a Dog Sneeze.”
Lily, Seph and Blair came over to the TV to see the senator’s response. Surprising everybody, the senator had actually seen the video. Disappointing everybody, he said, “If random incompetence is all we ask from young people nowadays, I don’t know why so many politicians are concerned with whether or not they vote.”
Lily was flattered the senator knew who she was. Politics was an irregular fixture in her life and she was happy enough to have it that way. Once during a grade school field trip Lily had met the governor but was pretty sure the state had a new governor by now. Emmit wished Stonewater had said more. The senator could have suggested the friends should get their own TV show or something. Maybe a movie deal. Blair saw her fears as a randomly incompetent video artist solidified. There was no debate on the show; the senator had spoken a fact. She also realized she forgot where she last put the video camera but felt like this was a bad time to ask anybody. Seph felt abandoned by the system the senator represented. A system that was being torn apart by the ambition of complete ideological control. Seph spent some time trying to find a clever way to reverse the senator’s words but nothing came to him quickly, or ever.
The twenty-four news anchors then went on to talk about a kid who taught his pet hamster to do a back flip. Emmit wanted to turn off the TV but had no idea what anybody else wanted. His chance to act evaporated quickly, though, as a distant and blunt boom lightly sounded and all the electricity in the room disappeared.
-Is the power out?
-No, Y2K was just a few years late. Yes, the power is out.
-Good thing we’re not in outer space, or we’d probably die.
-Thank you, Mitch.
For the next amount of indefinite and almost infinite time, the group sat in collective and meditative peace occasionally struggling to find conversation but usually not trying at all. They talked about movies and music at first. Then later talked about going on a vacation together, maybe. Everybody agreed they could use a break but nobody wanted to lock down the details.
Blair looked out the window, and saw the house across the street was tinted pink. It looked nice, she should have brought her camera. Seph tried to make eye contact with Blair but gave up and looked where she was looking. With the window facing west, they had received the celestial news later than the duplex neighbor: the sun was rising. The night that aged Blair years was finally over.
The power came back on but somehow it felt slower coming back than when it had left. Mitch quickly went back into the kitchen to re-search for food. A few minutes later, he walked back in the silent but people-filled room with a makeshift breakfast burrito. Like everybody, he was a little confused as to their status or statuses, collectively and individually. Are we still famous, he asked.
-I think we’re the crossword answers, Blair answered.
-What?
-Yesterday’s news, Seph translated.
-Oh.
Knowing they had lost their opportunity by taking all night to come up with another Internet sensation, Seph rubbed his throbbing forehead, his brain trying to escape his skull. Blair suggested everybody go somewhere outside, since they rarely saw sunrises anymore. Also, she could pick up and bring her SLR, making Seph shoot up.
-Dammit, Blair. No.
-What?
-That’s the problem. There’s no point to just taking random pictures.
-It’s fun, Seph.
-A senator just called us randomly incompetent.
-Exactly. It was Senator…Senator Whoever. It wasn’t me so stop being angry.
-No. Angry is good. A senator.
Seph taped his fingers on a nearby table for a moment. A senator. Blair and the others waited on Seph. How about an apology, Seph?
-Not good enough.
-You can just say it.
-It needs to be public.
-What?
Then true inspiration struck. I’ll see you guys later, he said, leaving without needing reciprocal farewells. Blair began to think Seph would never apologize. It was then that Emmit noticed, but did not understand, Mitch’s homemade breakfast burrito. What kind of breakfast burrito is that?
-Oh this? It’s just a hotdog I microwaved and wrapped in a tortilla shell. Pretty good.
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