Qualityland

THE MASTER OF THE SHITSTORM

The morning after his leap into the public eye, Peter is woken by a message from Sandra Admin. It reads: “You’re famous! Wow! I ‘listened to soft rock’ with a real star! ;-)”

Nobody congratulates Peter for having risen four levels overnight. Peter picks up his QualityPad and, still lying in his bunk bed, checks his Everybody profile. He suddenly has 524,288 Everybuddies. Before the program, he had just eight. Peter gets up when he hears voices coming from his kitchen-cum-bathroom. Romeo is sitting there, arguing with Calliope and Pink.

“What in God’s name are you all doing up here?” asks Peter.

“We decided,” says Pink, “that there was no point to the secrecy now that our Casanova machine is a TV star.”

“I see. You decided, did you?”

“You are the subject of controversial discussion on the net, benefactor,” says Calliope.

“And what are people saying?”

“Tian Temp wrote: ‘I think I have Peter’s problem too.’ Melissa Sex-Worker wrote: ‘It’s the criminal foreigners’ fault. They’re hacking the profiles of us QualityPeople.’ Cynthia Mechatronics-Engineer wrote…”

“Stop, stop,” cries Peter. “Just give me a summary, please.”

“Oh, of course,” says Calliope. “Twenty-five point six percent of people are of the opinion that you’re right. Fifty-one point two percent haven’t completely understood what it was about. And the rest, well…”

“The rest think you’re a simpleton,” says Pink. “A whining nincompoop.”

“I was trying to put it more diplomatically…” says Calliope.

“It’s fine,” says Peter.

“In any case, you certainly made sure that, from now on, every loser who can’t get his life in order will simply claim he has Peter’s Problem,” says Pink.

“Well, with some of them I’m sure that’s the case,” says Peter. He shakes a portion of cornflakes coated in FaSaSu into a bowl and pours low-fat milk over it.

“Do you realize that your breakfast is a contradiction in itself?” asks Romeo.

“I would even go so far as to say that this breakfast is a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with human society,” says Pink.

“Hey!” retorts Peter. “No one invited you lot into my kitchen. One more word about my breakfast, and you can all go back down to the cellar!”

He sits and checks his Everybody profile. New comments are coming in quicker than he can read them.

Lars House-Husband says: “And now the weather report. Toward midday, a shitstorm will make its way up from QualityCity! We advise all employees of TheShop to stay in their offices and keep the windows and doors closed.”

Natalie Hairdresser says: “I received the dolphin vibrator too! I think it’s amazing!”

Frank Freelancer comments: “I simply don’t understand why people feel the need to comment on all manner of shit!”

Peter puts his QualityPad aside. “I’m feeling this unpleasant pressure to say something intelligent. And I’d like to guide the shitstorm in the right direction. Preferably so that all the shit rains down directly over Henryk Engineer.”

“The most ridiculous thing about your breakfast is the low-fat milk,” says Romeo. “As if that could…”

“That’s it, out!” shouts Peter. “Down to the cellar!”

Once all the machines have made their exit, Peter tips his breakfast down the toilet. He decides to go out for breakfast, in order to celebrate his success. A decision that he soon regrets.

A few years ago, Peter saw a very famous person from the film industry standing in front of the window display of a sex shop. Naturally, he immediately took out his QualityPad in order to take a photo. To his surprise, the device informed him: “You don’t have the necessary clearance to photograph this person. The breach will be reported.” Peter then tried to trick the QualityPad by taking a selfie, in which the very famous person from the film industry was only visible in the background. And it worked. He now had a photo of himself, grinning moronically in a shopping street. But there was nobody in the background. He looked around to make sure that the very famous person from the film industry was still gawping at the display window of the sex shop. And they were. But on the photo there was nobody in front of the window display. All that could be made out was a small blur. He later read in a blog that the picture ban was a privilege enjoyed by high-leveled people. The article was entitled: “I am the Lord your God. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above.” It also said that an even higher level enabled them to protect the rights to their own name; it would then be replaced in all unauthorized books, articles, or news items by an extremely vague description, for example “a very famous person from the film industry.” Peter still remembers all of this very clearly. What Peter unfortunately no longer remembers is the product which can be seen in the selfie, displayed smack-bang in the middle of the sex shop window. A pink dolphin vibrator.

Peter has barely stepped out onto the street before he realizes that—even though he now has a small claim to fame—all kinds of people are still able to take photos of him, and are doing so constantly.

“Nobody,” he asks, “from what level can I forbid people from taking photos of me?”

“Level 64,” says Nobody.

“Nuts. I guess that could take a while,” mutters Peter.

“The probability that you will ever reach this level is only…”

“Standby,” says Peter.

After he has been stopped for the fourth time by someone wanting to take a selfie with him, he changes his plans, quickly buys a breakfast pizza, and slinks back to his used-goods store.

On arrival, he checks his Everybody profile and reads the latest comments.

Jayla Jobless says: “I applied for ninety-nine jobs and wasn’t invited to even one interview! As a test, I sent out the hundredth application with my name, my address, and my sex changed. I immediately got an interview. I think I have Peter’s Problem too…”

Darth Convention-Organizer writes: “We, the People’s front of Judea, brackets, officials, end brackets, do hereby convey our sincere fraternal and sisterly greetings to you, Brian, on this, the occasion of your martyrdom.”

Peter finally wants to speak out. As he can’t think of anything better, he simply posts a picture of the dolphin vibrator and writes: “The system says I want this, but I don’t.” In doing so, he unleashes an absolute flood of images. People from all walks of life start to post items from their possession, furnished with the text line: “The system says I want this, but I don’t.” Peter sees photos of internet-enabled shoelace-tying machines, massage rollers for fasciae, tear-off calendars with wrongly attributed quotes, kale chips, and broccoli. Somebody posts the trailer for the latest Jennifer Aniston comedy with Peter’s sentence and gets 262,144 kisses in two hours.

Things really kick off when one woman comes up with the idea of posting a photo of her husband: “The system says I want this, but I don’t.” This becomes the latest hype, posting pictures of one’s partner with this sentence. “IDontWantThis” becomes Everybody’s TopTopic. A photo of Conrad Cook and John of Us, tagged with Peter’s sentence, becomes the most frequently shared post of the morning. By midday, Peter already has 1,048,576 Everybuddies. He posts: “I demand to speak with Henryk Engineer in person!”

Feeling euphoric, he goes to eat. He’s done it. He’s unleashed a shitstorm that even Henryk Engineer, the CEO of the world’s most popular online retailer, won’t be able to ignore.