Ratings system:

10+ Premium

8-9 First

6-7 Highly active

4-5 Active

2-3 Mediocre

0-1 Non-existent

 

I wake abruptly to the sound of my phone. I roll over and rub my eyes. Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz. ‘Are you coming out tonight?’ the text message reads. I need to post an image on Instagram before I go out. Need to get those likes before leaving the house. What can I post? Can I actually go out without posting anything? I haven’t posted anything this morning, will people still like me if I go out if I haven’t posted anything? What time is it? Its 9am, shit this isn’t good. Oh no! I’ve slept in. What are people going to think of me now? I haven’t even posted my morning gym session, or my morning cuddles with my dog Sheppard or me drinking my low fat, soya, vanilla latte: that always gets my likes up.

Buzz Buzz. My phone goes off again. It’s Hayley again: ‘why haven’t you been active today? What’s going on with you?’. People are starting to recognize. I need to post something now. Quick! I need to take a photo before I reply. Click Click. Okay that’s a good one. Let me just put a filter on it and airbrush my face and…………. there we go. Posted. Oh! Already five likes, okay I’m active again.

I write out a text to Hayley: ‘sorry, I’ve been really busy, been talking to Kyle all night. Yeh I’ll go out, meet you at 7’. I shouldn’t even be going out, I haven’t posted anything all day. The comments that have been said about me, I bet they’ve been questioning my rating. I need to get at least fifty likes before I go out. Let me check what I am on at the minute. Twenty, okay it’s getting there. And one comment: ‘What a cute selfie, we should definitely hang out soon!’. Okay she is a premium star rated user.  This is good, this will get my ratings up. I can definitely go out now if a premium rated user commented on my post.

Buzz Buzz. Kyle pops up again on my phone: ‘Hey! What’s going on with you? You haven’t posted anything all day, that’s not like you’. Oh god! Everyone has probably seen that I haven’t been active by now. I mean it is 9am, surely not everyone would’ve noticed. I need to post something major if Kyle is texting me, he never notices normally if I don’t post anything. Okay think fast Chloe. What can I post? Okay, I could go film my dog running around, everyone loves dogs. I run downstairs. My heart skipping inside of me to the excitement of a new rating. Sheppard is asleep in his basket. I run up to him shouting his name.

“Sheppard! Sheppard!” he doesn’t move. I really need this post to boost my likes and my activity for the day. I get a biscuit. I put it in front of his nose. He doesn’t move. God dammit! This dog is useless. I really need these likes, I’m not going to be allowed to go out tonight if I don’t post something quickly. I look around, thinking what to do. What would boost my ratings high enough for me to go out? I look down at his tail. Maybe if I stand on it, he would get up and move around and I can quickly film him and people will think he’s running around excitedly. But that would hurt him though. Oh well, just this once won’t change anything. Okay. I put my foot down on his tail. He cries out. He cries out loudly and I instantly regret standing on him. But he’s running around now. I take out my mobile phone and start to film him. I press record. I put the biscuit out in front of his little button nose and Sheppard hesitantly grabs it from my hand. He runs off almost immediately, hiding underneath the table. I stop filming and post it straight away online. One second goes by and then another. Come on. How long is it going to take? Has it already happened? Is that it? Ping! ‘Omg, your dog is so cute! We defo need to meet up sometime!’. Success! Okay the likes are pouring in. I can definitely go out tonight now. Time to go to the gym.

Ping Ping. Buzz Buzz. Its constant. That’s all I hear around me. It’s just white noise to me now. It’s almost a language, almost like the internet is whispering: whispering about the disturbed non-active people. Click. I take a photo of the street. The sun shines on the puddles that are carefully placed down the concrete street. I post it immediately. Need to make sure I’m posting consistently today, to make up for this morning. I check my ratings as I walk to Hayley’s house. 200 likes in the last six hours, 20 comments, pretty average day. I need to be doing better though. My rating is still on six stars: highly active. If I want to be getting a higher rating, I need to do something extreme to get me to premium level soon. I mean my friends will still like me, I think; but they’re all premium rated now, and there’s some places I can’t go because I’m not premium. I’ll talk to Hayley about it tonight, she will know what I have to do.

Sat on a red beanbag in Hayley’s apartment, everyone is on their phones, everyone’s talking to each other: not verbally, all digitally. It’s as if no one speaks to one another anymore, as if conversations are prohibited. I decide to text Hayley about my ratings: ‘I need to bump my ratings up, I’m below everyone in the group and need the ratings to get into the club tonight’.  I look at Hayley and she looks up at me. She turns her face to her screen and starts tapping away at her device. Buzz buzz. ‘You need to get your ratings up quick, Lisa is saying that we should all go to Matrix tonight. They have free bottle service for premium rated people tonight’. Shit! What should I do? My dog video this morning got so many likes, I thought that would’ve at least got me to First rated. Hayley looks up at me. Buzz Buzz. ‘If you don’t get your ratings up, I think we’re still going to go tonight and you won’t be allowed in with us. You will have to stay in the Active area’. Active area! I’m not an Active rated person. I think I know exactly what I have to do to get those ratings. And I was never prepared to do it before, but now I’m desperate.

I’m sat on Kyles lap on the red bean bag; my hands shaking and my palms slightly sweaty. My nerves are grabbing hold of me, I try to force them back down, but they make me shake even more, the more I try to ignore them. Everyone is still on their phones. Taking pictures and messaging each other. I grab Kyles hand and he looks up at me smiling and plants a kiss on my lips. I look down, with the anticipation of what I am about to do building up inside of me. I liked Kyle, he was the only genuine one in our group. Never really caring about his ratings or the pictures he took or the people he had to impress. I had to do this in front of everyone. Everyone has to know what I am about to do and everyone has to document it, otherwise it will all be worthless. I take a deep breath and then another. I plant my feet on the floor and stand up in front of Kyle.

“We’re breaking up! I’ve had enough of you!” I scream in Kyles face and my stomach drops. He looks up at me puzzled. I look around the room and see Lisa already filming us.

“Get up! You’re leaving, I’ve had enough of you and your wild behavior!”.

“Chloe are you okay? Where has this come from?” Kyle looks at me confused and stands up and tries to grab my hand. I push it away and take one step away from him.

“We’re done! I want nothing to do with you anymore”.

“Chloe talk to me, why are you acting like this?”. I take another step away from him, as he tries to reach out to me. I take another deep breath.

“GET OUT! WE’RE FINISHED!”. I have to force the words out, as if it is word vomit.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but if you want to act like this that’s fine; but don’t come begging for me back when you can’t get your ratings high enough and these addicts leave you for someone better”. I reach my arm out to grab him but remember that this is what I have to do. He storms out before I can say anything more. I wipe away a tear that falls down my cheek. I turn around to the others in the room. Ten flashing lights pointed towards me and their phones vibrating away, as if the phones need new content to able to survive. Hayley comes running up to me and whispers in my ear.

“That will do it”. I hold back my tears as the realization of breaking up with Kyle hits. What have I done! I don’t know if this will even be enough for me to get to premium rated. Kyle was the only Active rated person in our group, but I had been with him for a year and a half and I loved him. Buzz buzz. I take out my phone, my hands shaking slightly. ‘Congratulations! You are now premium rated!’ the text reads. I did it! I actually did it!

“Well done Chloe, you want to come to Matrix with us tonight?” Lisa asks me. I’ve finally made it. Breaking up with Kyle was worth it.

The dance floor is filled full of premium rated people, I look over my shoulder and Hayley is dancing with her hips, swinging them from side to side. The drink in her hand is blue, each time she moves her hips, the blue liquid bounces out of her cup and onto the glass dancefloor. Underneath us, the dance floor is filled full of highly active and active rated people: what a waste of a good dancefloor. I look at my phone to check on the time: 4am, I should be getting home, my head is starting to feel fuzzy. If I have any more of this blue stuff, I won’t be remembering any of the night. I shout over to Hayley.

“Hayley I’m going to go!”. She looks up at me quickly and nods and carries on moving her hips to the same beat that has been drilling into my head for four hours. I walk out of the big black doors of the club and instantly get slapped in the face by the chilly night air. I walk towards the taxi point. A hooded man sits in the corner of the shelter. Probably a mediocre rated person, all homeless people are; it’s as if they don’t care for what people think of them. I stand in the shelter, rubbing my arms to warm me up, waiting for my taxi arrive. It says it should be ten minutes on the monitor, probably should sit down and wait. The homeless man looks up at me. His face is dirty and his clothes are torn apart. His eyes are black and blue, his face all swollen and red. Behind all of this destruction, his deep blue eyes have so much warmth in them. I look at them a little more, recognizing them slightly. They look like, wait no it can’t be.

“Kyle?” he looks up at me and grimaces.

“Kyle! What are you doing here? What happened to you?” he tries to stand up, but fumbles instead. I grab his arms and try to hold him up. I sit him down next to me. How did this happen to him?

“After the party at Hayley’s and after you broke up with me. My ratings went all the way down and went down to mediocre. I walked out of the building and it’s as if they were waiting there for me, waiting to hit me. Some drunk premium rated people saw that my ratings had gone down and they ripped my clothes and beat me up, punched me over and over again and laughed as they were doing it. This is all because of you Chloe, all because you had to get your stupid ratings up”. How could this be my fault! This isn’t my fault, I was just trying to be more sociable, he could’ve done the same to me at any point. What if it was actually my fault though? What if I have actually done this? Oh, fuck Chloe, this is your fault. What have you done?