Once upon not so long ago, two women were ogling a man filming a workout video for social media. This man was a true specimen, with chiseled muscles, perfectly proportioned facial features, and deep blue eyes that drew in anyone who gazed into them for too long.
“Isn’t that Beau Adonis, the fitness influencer?” the first woman asked with stars in her eyes. Some people were attracted to beauty, some to fame. Beau Adonis had both.
“Sure is. He records here at least once a week,” the second woman said with a grimace. “But stay away from that guy. He’s trouble.”
Before the first woman could ask what kind of trouble Beau was, he started walking towards her. She nearly tripped on the treadmill.
“You’re in my shot,” Beau said.
“Excuse me?” asked the second woman.
“You’re in my shot,” he said again, pointing to his camera.
“Is that bad?” the first woman asked.
The second woman touched the first woman’s arm and scowled at Beau. “We were here first,” she said. “We’re not moving.”
Beau shrugged. “Alright, I just wanted to let you know.” He went back to recording his video with the women in the background, picking up a pair of huge dumbbells and starting to do curls.
“You wanna know the secret to getting arms like mine?” Beau said into the camera in his rich bass voice. “It ain’t some fancy protein shake or magic pill, I’ll tell you that much. You gotta eat right and put in the work, but honestly it really boils down to good ol’ fashioned genetics. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. Genetics. If you weren’t blessed with the right DNA, you can kiss those biceps goodbye, buddy.” He kissed his own bicep as he curled.
Beau relished his influence on the world as a social media icon. His beauty and physique were legendary. He was sought after as a brand ambassador for all sorts of products – men’s fitness products, clothing, protein shakes, meal prep, and more – and was lauded as the ultimate masculine role model.
His loyal fans fawned over every word Beau said. Every video, every post was amply liked and shared. But as his star rose, Beau was not content with mere popularity – he had to exert his dominance on his perceived rivals. He bombarded them with criticism that would in turn spark his fans to add their own vitriol. The more vociferous Beau became, the more his followers piled on.
Beau’s ego seemingly knew no bounds, and his charm was an irresistible force that he took full advantage of. Women threw themselves at him, sending lewd pictures to his DMs, hounding him IRL, and practically begging him to bless them with his attention. Beau conquested these women at his whim, sleeping with those he found attractive and slut-shaming the rest.
When Beau uploaded the video from the gym later that night, he didn’t think anything of it. It was like so many others he’d posted so many times before. But this one had a slight difference – one of the women in the background didn’t want to be seen in a Beau Adonis video, especially not when she was sweaty with her hair in a scrunchy. And this woman worked in marketing and knew a thing or two about social media algorithms.
She claimed she was filmed without her knowledge or permission. She claimed Beau was just trying to profit off of her image. She called for him to be #cancelled. Needless to say, her side of the story got a lot of attention.
In the aftermath of the video going viral, many people came to the defense of the woman. Beau did have a reputation as a womanizer. But Beau’s fans clapped back with equal zeal. For the next few weeks, things went back and forth. The story was at the top of the news cycle, with some adding to the #cancelled trend and others crying hypocrisy and discrimination against a beloved fitness icon. Things eventually blew over, but the whole experience of being challenged shook Beau. He feared his fame was not as secure as he once thought.
It was a soul-crushing existential crisis that drove Beau down an increasingly erratic and self-destructive path of seeking that elusive validation, no matter how ill-gotten or morally bankrupt.
One fateful night while doomscrolling comments that lampooned his latest video, comments he never would have seen in previous months, the tormented influencer was sent an anonymous DM pointing him to a notorious techno-witch who could supposedly weave algorithmic magic from the dark web. According to the message, this mysterious figure commanded complete control of social media back end functions, able to hack any platform and push user content in any direction desired. Intrigued but doubtful, Beau scoured the Internet for anything he could find on this social media hacker. He learned that she was called Eminence, but it was unclear whether this entity was a person or artificial intelligence. It was even more unclear whether her results were born from technology or actual magic.
Whether it was code or sorcery, Beau wanted a way to eliminate the anxiety of his public persona, so he unleashed his legions of mindless fans to uncover the identity and location for this enigmatic witch. Wielding the full force of his platform reach like a blunt weapon, the arrogant influencer rained threats and intimidation tactics. But it wasn’t until a second anonymous DM that the elusive hacker’s location was finally revealed.
The lair of this shadowy figure turned out to be a run-down trailer in the woods. Eminence in name only, perhaps?
Beau arrived at the unpretentious doorstep, flanked by a pair of toilet bowls that served as flower pots. He was dubious and judgy from the start. How could someone who wielded the power Eminence claimed live in such squalor? Where was the glam, the bling? Beau knew this business was about flash and persona — so why was Eminence hiding out in a trailer in the woods?
He pounded on the flimsy aluminum door and was met by the stooped form of a dark-haired woman wearing a ragged black hoodie. The interior of the trailer was dimly lit, a claustrophobic space dominated by a multi-screen desk hookup and a pair of towering server stacks, flashing green and red LEDs blinking in asynchrony. Beau entered and dominated the space.
“So…the arrogant influencer comes to beg before my digital throne,” the woman croaked with thinly veiled condescension.
“Eminence, I presume?” Beau asked, his own gravelly tone radiating contempt. “I ain’t here to beg. I hear you’re a witch. You know what I want.”
“Tell me you see the irony of you coming to me for help,” Eminence said.
“Unless you want me to dox your ass and have every digital eyeball in the world looking in on what you do, I suggest we work out some kinda deal.”
“You want to be on top,” Eminence said. “The best.”
“Obviously.”
“I can help. I can make you everything you want and more.”
“I’m listening.”
“Keep listening,” she said. “There are consequences to what you seek. The gift I can give you acts as a mirror, reflecting back everything you put into it.”
“Like an algorithm amplifier,” Beau said.
“Yes…” the woman said, her smile showing crooked, tar-stained teeth. “I like that, an amplifier of algorithms.”
“How much?” Beau looked around at the high-tech equipment. “Money is no object.”
Eminence cackled, her face lit green from the glow of her screen. “The cost will be your soul.”
Beau smirked and shook his head. “Quit fucking around, witch. Tell me what it’s going to set me back.”
“What you pay will be up to you.”
“Like a pay-what-you-want kinda thing? That’s how I got ‘In Rainbows’ for free,” Beau laughed. “Alright, how about a hundy?” He pulled out a roll of bills and peeled off a hundred dollar bill, handing it to Eminence.
“Very well.” With a few deft keystrokes across an ethereal keyboard, Eminence conjured forth a dizzying kaleidoscope of refracting light and arcane coding sequences. Algorithms whirred to life, ingesting every selfie and video ever posted by Beau, systematically analyzing millions of data points of his digital persona, and crafting a reality bending filter that affixed itself to Beau’s soul.
“You will become what you desire,” Eminence said, “but on every new moon you will revert to your former self, giving you a chance to view what this pact has wrought without the veil of your persona.”
`“I don’t really know what that means,” Beau started to say, but the words caught in his throat. He fell to his knees and felt his clothes shrink tight against his skin. His heart pounded in his chest and his veins bulged. His vision scrambled and he heard ringing in his ears.
After a handful of minutes it was over. Beau stood up, and his head clunked against the ceiling of the trailer. He must be at least seven feet tall! Looking down, he saw pristinely sculptured anatomy in golden ratio proportions – massively swollen with thick cords of musculature beneath tanned, hairless skin. His chiseled facial features were eerily perfect, a strangely unnatural sneer frozen in place to convey utter dominance over any who witnessed its presence. He was masculinity personified.
A sadistic grin creased his features as he let loose a guttural roar, momentarily buoyed by feelings of delirious strength and conquest. Finally, that aching void inside that incessantly haunted him had been filled by a presence of such overwhelmingly virile power.
Beau was finally complete.
“Remember,” Eminence said from behind her keyboard, “you asked for this.”
Beau laughed and shoved his way out of the dank trailer. He wanted to head to the gym or maybe a club. Somewhere where he could be seen and do some kind of post. He pulled out his phone and admired himself again before climbing into his car.
Beau couldn’t wait to use his newfound power, so as he drove he dictated a Chirp post.
“Masculinity is power,” he said in his booming voice. “If any of you pussies and faggots doubt that, come at me!” He snapped a pic of his massive bicep to go with the Chirp and posted it. It started getting engagement almost immediately, but since he was driving he couldn’t check them. He was confident it was his fans backing him up.
At a stoplight, he snapped a selfie of his new perfect smile, illuminated by the red light. He posted to Instabook, knowing he didn’t need any filters now. “Suck it you snaggletoothed rejects,” he wrote.
He was giddy with his newfound power, and as he drove on he heard the notifications rack up. Beau laughed out loud, drunk on power.
Snapping the phone into the cradle, he hit record on a video, pushing the feed live straight to FlixFlux.
“To all those bitches who tried to cancel me, I’m coming for you. I ain’t gonna let you hide behind your fake morals and outrage. Alphas like me are here to rule the world. Get used to it.”
He pulled up in the parking lot of his gym and checked his feeds. Ready for overwhelming adoration, he was shocked at what he saw. Instead of endless streams of fanboys pumping their fists at his epic content, he found most of the commentary was negative and judgmental.
“This guy has lost it.”
“A sad display of testosterone.”
“Get off the ‘roids, meathead.”
“I’m sad to say I used to follow this douchebag.”
Where were his throngs of fans? Where were his boys?
“Bitches be bitchin tonight, I guess,” Beau responded after scrolling through more and more negative comments. He wanted to show some people up on the weights, to exert his dominance. As he walked in the gym, he saw it was filled with the usual crowd of after work office types, dad bods, and gym rats.
“This’ll be too easy,” Beau said to himself.
He went straight for the free weights, loading up heavy and pushing in on some dude doing a fitness video.
“Wanna see a real man do curls?” he said, wielding 180 pound dumbbells like they were feather weights. “You gotta get the pump going, my man. None of that pansy shit. Do you even lift, bro?” The guy apologized to his audience and shut off his video.
“What’s your problem, man?”
“My problem? You’re the pussy that came up in here with nothing to show.”
“Not everyone out there is a fanatic. I’m teaching people proper form.”
“Proper form,” Beau laughed. “My dick has proper form.”
“You’re disgusting,” a woman said.
“Come over here with that mouth,” Beau retorted.
About then, the staff came over and tried to get Beau to leave, but he wasn’t done yet. He shoved one of the gym staff and sent him flying into a rack of weights. From there, the evening descended into a brawl that ended with Beau being escorted out by the police and more than one person injured.
The whole thing had been filmed by a woman with a pretty solid FlixFlux following. Of course, it went viral.
Beau fought back, posting comments and response videos, expressing his outrage and anger and explaining why he was right. But everything he did seemed to make things worse. At the end of the month, Beau couldn’t believe what he had become. The more hate he spewed, the more grotesque his caricatured form became, until he was an unrecognizable monster – online and in real life.
He became something akin to a feral dog violently lashing out at any perceived slight or challenge to his dominance. His posts degenerated into toxic misogyny, doxxing frenzies against critics, and indiscriminate cruelty all in vain pursuit of recapturing that ephemeral validation fix.
No matter how much carnal success he flaunted or how grandiosely he postured, that artifice of online masculinity could no longer elevate him beyond his deep pit of emptiness and self-hatred. Each digital monument to exaggerated male ego only excavated deeper recesses of internal anguish until it finally consumed what little soul remained.
In his darkest hours shrouded beneath a cloak of newfound anonymity, the hollow influencer took to roaming the digital underbelly of closed incel forums and terrorizing disaffected young men already primed to embrace his scorched gospel of toxic rage. And though his words delivered them comfort through relatability, they ultimately rang as hollow as the insatiable void yawning inside himself.
Beau was laid bare.
He woke up one morning and looked in the mirror, shocked to see he had reverted back to his old self. Maybe the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe he hadn’t said and done the things he thought he had. It had all happened in such a blur – maybe it hadn’t been real.
But those hopes were soon dashed against the rocky shore of reality. As he logged onto his accounts, he saw his follower counts had dwindled to fractions of what they had been. There were still a few fanboys rooting for him, but most of them were laying low. And worse, he’d received emails from many of his sponsors who had dropped him. He was at rock bottom, brought low by circumstance.
Beau decided to do something he thought he’d never have to do.
He took a shower and combed his hair. He put on a nice shirt and pulled out his best camera and lighting package. And then he hit record.
“Guys, I… messed up. I’m not sure what has gotten into me over the last few weeks, but I want to apologize to all of you out there. I know I have a huge responsibility and a lot of you look up to me like a mentor or example – and when our idols fall, it’s tough, you know. Hard to watch. I want to say sorry to all the bros and ladies I shamed. I used my platform to tear other people down instead of raising them up, and that was wrong. I’m gonna turn over a new leaf. Have a new beginning. I’ve still got a lot to give, world, so I hope you can help me be a better dude.” He was practically crying by the end. An apology directly from the heart.
Beau didn’t add any filters. He didn’t edit the video in the slightest. He just posted it to all of his feeds. Each and every one of them. He hoped it would be enough. He hoped he could recover from his crash and burn. He’d be bigger and better than ever!
In his wildest dreams, he couldn’t have imagined the response that he got. It came fast and heavy, raining down from social media heaven.
And the only word that could describe it was unrelenting.
Instead of a wash of emotion and acceptance, of applause and appreciation for his heartfelt apology, what he got was venom. Comment after comment from all corners ridiculing him, calling him a fake, saying it was too little too late. He was called a wimp, a weasel, a sell out, and desperate from the usual suspects, but even more shocking was that he was accused of attempting to be “woke” by people who normally would be his supporters. They called out his shift in appearance, claiming he was using filters to look bigger and more perfect than he was.
It ground Beau into the dust. He wallowed in the backlash for the next two days until there was only one thing left for him to do. Summoning his remaining inner strength, he returned to the trailer where this nightmare had begun. It was her fault. That witch had cursed him, and he would make her reverse the damage she’d done… or else.
Beau pounded on the flimsy door. Eminence answered with a devious grin.
“How the mighty have fallen,” she said. “Come to beg for your life back?”
“Yes,” Beau said, ashamed of himself. He pushed his way into the trailer, no longer taking up all the space.
Eminence laughed in his face, a cackling laughter that was filled with hatred and evil joy. She had dethroned the man, taken everything from him, and she reveled in his pain.
“You’re a fool, Beau. I told you this would happen.”
“I just wanted to be strong, powerful.”
“True strength comes from within, and on the inside, you’re empty, aren’t you? You’re a pathetic man, and it was almost too easy to make you do this to yourself.”
“Reverse whatever you did,” he said, “and I promise to change. I’ll be better. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“What’s done is done. And your time is up!”
Beau felt himself transforming then, reverting back to the monstrous creature Eminence had turned him into. The thing that he had made that much worse with his own actions. His head brushed the ceiling and his muscles strained against his clothes, tearing them in places. Rage filled him, then, and as he shifted, Eminence laughed and laughed.
Beau changed from perfect masculine form to angry slavering monster.
He snapped, reaching out his massive hands and grabbing Eminence by the throat.
He squeezed, watching her eyes bulge out, shock plain on her face.
He choked the life out of the witch, pouring all the rage from the last few weeks into his grip.
When she was dead, he left the body lying amid the flashing lights of the computers.
Beau dropped his phone to the ground and left the trailer, wandering off into the night.
He never posted to his feeds, and was never heard from again.
And everyone else lived that much happier ever after.