It’d be several days before he saw any income from the massive influx of his rising rank and many new content views. He checked the comments and his excitement was tempered somewhat by the reactions. Despite his many new followers, a good percentage of the comments were less than flattering.
-Where do you get off riding in on your high horse you freak watcher?
-How do you become the judge of us?
-By what right do you sit back and tell us anything while you creep our content, fuckhead?
The variety of insults and demands for him to defend his position continued onwards for several pages. A massive amount of comments for a single feed post. He would have to go to the top 10,000 users to find similar levels of content replies, albeit only within the lower ranks. Between likes and comments, the top 1000SP users would generate hundreds of thousands of replies. Not to mention the literal millions on the top 100. He could easily imagine Roy and Amelia’s postings to range in the hundreds of millions. Calmed slightly by his thoughtful comparisons, Duncan focussed in on the positive replies.
-A new voice from the watcher is welcomed
-The fresh perspective of Duncan is a delight
-I was genuinely moved and couldn’t help but to consider my own reactions and posts!
He briefly considered recording a post reply to all the comments then disregarded it. He didn’t want to be drawn into a back and forth. He wasn’t even certain how much income would be generated by his meteoric rise in rank. Duncan decided to bring himself down to Earth by working for a while.
His workstation felt like home all of a sudden. He quickly edited together an SP9’s post about their new kitten named Emerald. Then a SP5’s comments about Duncan himself. It was not flattering but he did his job. After several hours and many glances at his personal rank and constant checking of new remarks he couldn’t help himself. The cam swung up, defying gravity and settling itself in the same wide angled shot of Duncan. He made no effort to correct himself, keeping his slightly gym mussed hair and relaxed posture.
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‘Hi Everyone, this is your Cutman. Well, I guess I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t overwhelmed. I have been called horrific things and praised mightily. I am trying to remain unaffected. I know this flare up in my popularity is likely temporary but I feel I should at least make some effort to continue this. Today I cut together a cat’s arrival and several videos from within my local area calling me various things. Some like I said running me down and calling me names. For the record, I am not in judgement. I am simply highlighting what I witness. Some of you praised me, again I am just telling you what I see. There is nothing heroic or demonising in what I do. After all, I did just tell you someone got a cat. I came across a recording from a SP7 today. He lost his aunt in the quake recently. He’d posted about it over the past few days. For the record, it hadn’t won him an increase due to sympathy likes. His baseline hasn’t increased from his 650 followers from the last two weeks. Today’s post, however was centred on his reaction to the Roy/Amelia announcement. He gave us a cheery well wishing response to their happy news. He expressed a seemingly genuine excitement. I’ll admit, the cynic in me looked for the tell-tale or even obvious signs his post wasn’t genuine. Instead he turned to a friend that was out of shot and spoke to them. The friend, clearly a cynic too, scoffed at him for his video, asking how he could give a shit after losing a family member so recently. The man simply blinked and said he felt lucky to live in a world where he could share the joy of others when he was sad. He went on to say that he felt a tiny part of Roy and Amelia’s world, that he had watched them for so long they felt like family too. I wanted very much to leave all this together but that’s not a cutman’s job. We have guidelines as you all know, you’ve seen the results of our work in what we allow to be posted and the times permitted. So I cut it to the moment he’d finished with his best wishes and left it at that. The most important moment caught candidly, with only the sad profile of this man, poorly caught with bad lighting and a shitty angle need to be cropped out. Make what you want of it. I’m not going to draw any conclusions for you or offer opinions. I leave that to you if you’re seeing this.’ He drew a half breath then spoke again to finish the video, ‘I am your Cutman, I’ll be honest for all of you.’ Then Duncan shut off the recording.
Hours later and a reflective mood had consumed the rest of his day. Duncan swallowed ashes off his cube and stared at the night newcasters discussing things that no longer seemed to hold his attention. Duncan had minimised his personal SP counter after posting his video, which had gone up unedited again. He felt like a bit of a hypocrite, talking about cutting down footage then not cutting his own. Then a thought surfaced. A memory of an impish grin and a promised meeting. He chided himself for his too high expectations, which of course resulted in his hopes rising higher. ‘Sleep you damned tool’ he told himself. He didn’t bother to fold out the couch. Laying there with his eyes on his darkened ceiling, Duncan wondered for the first time if he’d been sleeping this whole time.