I go to the mall to buy the latest clothes. Hot Topic. Albert and Crombie. Urban Outfit. G*p. I buy the fashion, the accessories, the footwear. I am reborn as a 19 year old in the United States and I am ready.
I go to the local attraction, a fake sitcom. For $10 you’d
buy a ticket into the Sitcom Experience, similar to the Escape Room craze,
though requiring less effort. The $10 would buy you seats to the audience of a
fake sitcom. You would watch the actors say the lines and laugh at all the
intonations, the improvisations, the nervousness. The actors would go through a
generic sitcom scenes and all the audience would laugh. And then the actors
would leave the stage, they'd join the audience, being replaced with fresh members of
the audience. Round and round it went, with particularly likeable/hateable
actors recurring now and then to standing ovations and light heckling. It was
the perfect hobby for the current generation, combining the narcissism of the
internet with the ironic deconstruction of media. The sitcom itself is
obviously a vehicle for upholding the status quo through audiences reacting to
the stalest situational juxtapositions you could imagine, a kind of fentanyl for people
who didn’t take drugs, and therefore lent themselves to fascism. The fake sitcom nights were how many local neo-hipsters
would celebrate the best years of their life, acting out the archetypes of
characters with names like Larry, Joey and Mary Albright, all instantly
recognisable in the evolution of Punch and Judy content. Entertainment slop was
big with people under the age of 25, the issue with marketing to this age
bracket was that they didn’t have enough money to buy the things advertised at
the shows. The next step was for audience members to go into debt, buying today
and paying back tomorrow. There was obviously no flaws in this model, Capital
was based entirely on the idea of credit and imaginary money, but as I watched
the young people buy a drink for $12, I can’t help but feel an element of
sorrow for the accrued debt this generation would generate because they wanted a drink when they left the house.
I storm out of the fake sitcom, marching off stage as my Ross Geller impression didn’t land.
“And that’s how I met your mother. So sue me already.” I said. The audience didn’t react. All night they had been laughing at every smirk, pause, gesture, joke, but when it was my turn, silence. A silence so big it seemed to rip apart the air between us. I repeated my line, got frustrated, and was now stood in the parking lot outside trying to smoke a bong and coughing again and again as the smoke lazily wafted from the top. Each cough seems to intensify the feeling from the weed, sending lines of non-colour around the edges of my eyes, lightning across the retinas, the sign of bad times ahead. I threw the bong to the floor, smashing it into a million pieces.
“Why don’t this generation have an American Pie or Superbad? Huh?” I say to the shape in the corner. It acknowledges me, looking deep into my eyes and I know they are my own.
Time passes. I realised I had moved, in both time and space and intoxication. My recent memory had entirely disappeared, like trying to remember a cartoon in a newspaper. It didn’t matter. I felt like this most evenings. Often, much worse. Yet I had found myself holding onto the side of a dumpster, my trousers were wet and I didn’t know where I was. I lurched towards the end of the alley, though the speeding traffic made me feel nervous. I backed down, back into the dust and noticed there was a party down the way. I remembered that I was there. On I walked.
The party was busy. The busyness of a party was the main sign it was good, due to the prospect that you had attended. To attend a party with less than five people could barely be called such, though this was like a party in a film. I blended amongst the crowd and tried to remember what I had taken. There was a bright light. A phone. It was recording an interview between a scrawny wretch with a mushroom cut and a goth.
“So…do you like apples? What’s your favourite apple?” he says, faux nervously, glancing at the camera.
“Yeah I like apples…I was actually thinking…you remind me of an apple.”
“Gulp.” He says. He actually said gulp.
“Uh…yeah?”
“Yeah, you’re crisp. Sweet. And something I want to…bite.”
“Oh…step on me, mommy.” He says. I run into the frame, barging between them.
“I’ll step on your face til you look like that cunt at the start of Irreversible.” I say, slurring, eyes rolling in my head.
“Uh…okay, that’s a red flag.”
“Irreversible? The new Sabrina Carpenter?”
“No, the fucking film you dick. The fucking fire extinguisher bit. Gasper Noe? No-eh. Know. What the fucks his name?”
“This is actually a private conversation.” Says the tiktok creep. I look at him in the eye then my vision starts shaking. I can’t focus on him.
It was at that point that I realised I had taken a large quantity of MDMA.
“Fuck. This is actually quite trippy, you know? I’m fucked me.” I said, holding my face. I think back to the summer of 2008, my first experience taking ecstasy, a house party not too different to this. In fact, now that I thought about it, it was the same house. I had been in this room before. Had I even left? I look round, rubbing my hand against the wall, asking my friend if this was real. I needed a drink. Looking round, I see somebody had been holding my drink for me.
“Cheers. I’m fucked me.” I say, standing next to them, taking a long pull from the bottle.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“What?”
“Give me my fucking drink back.” She says. I remembered it
was the goth from 2025. I take another drink, trying to remember what was going
on. My friend was somewhere. I needed to find him and we needed to go home. I
asked the goth where my friend was and she grabbed her drink back. The tiktokker
was now shouting at me as his friend filmed us both, the camera light still on.
I had mistook it for the sun before, but now realised I would be caught in tens
of thousands of pixels, the light shining perfectly onto my face and I was out
of my mind on drugs.I was going to be a meme.
“Can I ask you a question? Sir. Sir. Can I ask you a
question right now?” they said. I look at him and felt my jaw grind, seeming
to fix itself upwards. Was this jaw cramp? Was I a dinosaur?
“Mmmm?” I managed. What the fuck was happening. Where were the tunes.
“Why do you think its okay to just interrupt someone filming?”
“Where’s tunes? Somebody stick some fucking tunes on.”
“What?”
“Wha-…have you seen my mate?” I say. The camera was still filming. The people in the kitchen were all watching this play out. Somebody laughed.
“Here…who’s fucking laughing at me?” I say, looking round.
“Hey bud, do you need a glass of water?” says the tiktokker.
“War-der. Do doo wanna grab a glass of war-der? Do doo? Do, do, do. Proper fucked me. Eyyy?”
“I think you need to leave.” Says the tiktokker.
“Yeah, who are you?” says someone in the crowd.
“Fuck said that? Eh?” I say. I step towards the people and they move.
“Just get out of here. I’ll call you an Uber.”
“Look. I’m not leaving. Til you put some fucking tunes on. So fucking stick some tunes on. Now.” I say. The audience start whispering to each other. More people start jeering, getting their phones out too, catching this whole disaster from multiple angles. A muscle-bound hard nut appears at the door. I start dancing.
“Hey, waaay, we’re having a party are we? Wow, yeah, fucking great party. Stick some fucking tunes on then, eh? Go on then. Fucking go on then.” I say, leering close to the tiktokker, my lips pulled back and my eyes wild. He pushes me away. People start booing.
“Fuck all of you. That’s what I think. Here, before I go, listen to this.” I say, getting my phone out. I spend too long trying to find YouTube on my phone, mistyping song names a few times before finally finding Scooter – One (Always Hardcore). There was a five second advert for laundry detergent.
“Get lost!” someone shouts, but it no longer matters. Nothing ever mattered. The first guitar strings begin to play. The drums. The vocals. Then the bass. I’m dancing. I’m dancing to music I'm playing from my phone. I’m the oldest one at the party. I dance and start singing along as I exit the backdoor, back out onto the alley. It is night time and I am lost. A few punks were stood in a circle, the quick hiss of nitrous hitting a primordial response, I grab myself a balloon and hit the streets.
