Anon-Incognito
WOP #1
This essay was originally published as part of a submission for David Perell’s Write of Passage programme. It will hopefully find its place within a broader anthology of sci-fi short stories that explores the profound influence of the Internet on the human experience.
It was the shortest job description I’d ever seen.
“Seeking ‘Conductors’ at Twitter. If you can carry a conversation, apply here.”
If I hadn’t been so strapped for cash, I might have taken more than three seconds to question why the hell a company like Twitter was advertising its vacancies on a backwater Internet message board like this one. Especially this one.
This was the kind of swamp that served as home turf for the most recondite species of Internet reptilia. The nocturnal, the bug-eyed, the smooth and slippery and slithery…all mutations of the terminally online. You wouldn’t find me here on most days. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the occasional safari.
The chatter was always lively, the debate often stimulating. The topics du jour lay outside the jurisdiction of the algorithmic police that typically patrolled the discourse on more ennobled social platforms. The locals could even be friendly to passers-by if they sensed you came in peace (though I hadn’t gotten close enough to test anyone’s fangs yet).
Plus, the memes were always on point.
In any case, it was hardly the place to go fishing for potential employees-of-the-month (though probably not a bad place to snag the unsuspecting phish). But hey, here was a big company apparently looking to fill some roster spots. And here was I, ready to be waterboy if that’s what it took to get on the team.
I liked Twitter. It was my favourite timeline (after Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire). And ‘carrying a conversation’ seemed like a breeze compared to carrying bricks, ladders and bags of cement (yeah, it hadn’t exactly been a hot labour market these last few months).
So, without pausing to consider whether I might be replenishing the coffers of some faraway Nigerian prince, I shuttled my cursor over to the glowing hyperlink.
What’s the worst that could happen?
The link escorted me to a web page that was mostly blank. The ‘application form’ (if you can call it that) was sparse, aside from a couple of adornments. The upper right corner of the screen displayed a tiny digital timer that had begun to count backwards from 60. I guess I had an hour to finish. So this was it. No practice time, no dress rehearsal, no context. Ok then.
On the upper left of the page was a text box with a request for my name and email. And under that a single sentence. My exam question, I suppose -
‘What is happening?!’
And that was it.
No instructions, no clarifications, no chat box. Not even a longer description of the role I was supposedly in contention for. I scrolled up and down the page to see if I’d missed anything. Nope. Blank. Nothing but the flashing digits of a ticking timer.
58:30
Rude. I was still on the clock.
In hindsight, I should have just called it a day and paddled back to the swamp. I should have dismissed it as an obvious prank. I probably had a bank account somewhere that was being drained while I sat there, bamboozled by a scanty Google form. A low budget scam, if ever there was one.
In hindsight, I would have just shut shop with that thought. But I remembered the promo from the previous page, and the gauntlet it had laid down.
“Seeking ‘Conductors’ at Twitter. If you can carry a conversation, apply here.”
If you can carry a conversation
Ok so this was some perverse test. I had to prove my abilities as a raconteur. Not just any raconteur, a Twitter-worthy raconteur. It hit me then, the question on the form was the same as the opening salvo issued to every user that parachutes into Home base on Twitter.
‘What is happening?!’
I guess I had to tell them.
56:25
If I hadn’t been simmering in a vat of irritation and desperation, I might have ducked the challenge. I might have cut my losses and made a graceful exit, concluding that four minutes was already far too many to waste on this nonsense. That’s probably what most reasonable people would have done.
Instead, I started typing.
Boy, did I type.
My game plan - hastily put together and questionable, at best - was to assault the page with text. To spew, rather than craft.
“What is happening?!”
I started by typing out my current routine, writing about the countless hours I was spending hunched over my laptop, semi-conscious, drooling and doom-scrolling through obscure Internet message boards.
I went into gory detail about my last gig at the construction site, and the unfortunate forklift accident that cost me my job (and almost three of my toes). I talked about my last girlfriend, my last meal, my last colonoscopy.
I wrote about my favourite authors and books, and lamented how these days I couldn’t read more than ten words of text before my attention was punctured by one of the pointy sounds emerging from the cavernous depths of my smartphone.
I blathered on about philosophers, footballers, video games and venomous spiders. I unspooled my dumbest shower thoughts, my meditations, my midnight musings.
What began as a tentative textual crawl had now combusted into a determined stomp. My fingers were galloping over the keyboard. I drenched the page in a torrent of gibberish. That’ll teach them, I thought (‘who’ or ‘what’ I was trying to teach, I couldn’t say for certain). I suppose I was loosely directing my hailstorm towards the masochists at Twitter.
I was mid-stride into a soliloquy on Socrates when the page suddenly timed out. That was it. No warning. Pens down. No class-you-have-five-minutes-to-finish-your-paper alert. I hadn’t even noticed how fast the hour had gone by.
There was no big bang either. No confetti for my sermon. Just a message box that flashed a brief ‘Thank You’ before disappearing from the screen. Like a fart in the wind.
I spent the rest of the night (and week) feverishly refreshing my email, expecting some kind of confirmation or acknowledgement. I searched on Twitter’s website for job openings that matched the description of a ‘Conductor’. I emailed HR. I tried finding employees on LinkedIn with the same job title. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Maybe I’d been duped after all, juiced for my time and pageantry instead of my money. Maybe I’d been a victim of boredom, not malice. That’s what I get for following a shifty-looking rabbit down a shifty-looking rabbit-hole, expecting to return to the surface with a pot of gold. I guess desperate times will have you believing in desperate possibilities. Whatever. They won’t fool me again.
Then the email showed up in my inbox.
‘Congratulations! Your offer letter from Twitter Inc’
Fuck yes. I knew it. Zero doubt. Good on them for not rushing into a decision.
First step - scan for viruses. I’d seen this movie before. Next, verify the sender address to make sure it isn’t some variation of smittenkitten69@hotmail.com (or something of that ilk). After a quick inspection, everything seemed…legit? It looked like it came from an official company email and was signed by their real Head of HR. Sweet. With all checks in place, I began to scan through the text of the email.
“Congratulations…loved your application…right mix of skills and interests…convincing writer…ability to keep a reader engaged…right fit as a Conductor…part of our Incognito Operations Division (IOD)…supremely important function at the company…you will work remotely…your joining date should you choose to accept…prepared to offer you a starting salary of…”
…a number that was at least six times more than I had ever been paid anywhere else. My jaw had plummeted way past the floor, and was currently at risk of breaching the ceiling of the underground parking lot downstairs. There was no way I could turn this down, even though I still couldn’t discern what I was being hired for. I had never even heard of an Incognito Ops Division before. It sounded like the name of an accounting firm staffed by magicians. Or a magic firm staffed by accountants.
Whatever. I was in. The offer was too good to turn down. I was a big fan of food and shelter, and I needed a job that allowed me to flex my fandom. If they were implicitly selecting for pliant soldiers that said yes first and figured it out later, they had found their man.
I clicked on the baby-blue ‘Accept Offer’ button. It creaked open a new window in my browser. An NDA. Hmmm. This was new. Maybe it was a public company thing. Welcome to the big leagues, I suppose. If I had been using the entirety of my brain at that moment, some of the stipulations in the NDA would have surely set off some alarm bells. But I was too busy thinking about all the sweet, sweet rent I was going to be able to pay that month.
According to the Agreement, I couldn’t talk to anyone - either within the company or outside - about the work I was doing. I would only report to the Head of IOD. I couldn’t even talk to HR about my day-to-day responsibilities. I was forbidden from updating any professional or social network with my role, my title, or my division. As far as the outside world was considered, I was a ghost that roamed the halls at Twitter. There was no such thing as a Conductor. If anyone cared to ask, I was an interchangeable cog in their Community Engagement team. A bit more cloak-and-dagger-y than I was used to, but I assume all big companies have their own idiosyncrasies.
So, given that I’d basically abandoned all my critical facilities back at the paragraph with my future remuneration, I saw no reason not to sign it. An hour later I got a call from my new boss. It was a call that changed my life, in the weirdest way possible.
For starters, I finally understood why they called it a Conductor.
I’ve been here for three years now. I’m at the end of my rope.
For the last three years, I’ve served as a puppeteer on Twitter - a Conductor - in charge of operating the tens of thousands of anonymous accounts that interface with ‘real’ people on the platform everyday.
The quippy jokester, the cultural tutor, the undercover journalist - all roles I’ve played.
The health and fitness gurus, the hustle-porn enthusiasts, the literary aficionados - just marionettes dancing to the tune of my keystrokes.
The Motorhead, The Startup Bro, The Fashionista, The Champion of Social Change, The Professor That Makes Science Fun - all experiments from my lab.
The Warmonger. The Gaslighter. The Dog Whistler. Some of my most sinful indulgences.
In the vast realm of Twitter, where millions of voices echo through the corridors of cyberspace, I am the invisible hand that pulls the strings. It is my job to amplify the cacophony of the hive mind. To direct the flow of conversational traffic and inject electricity into the discourse. A “Conductor”. Clever, right?
My instructions were to “Go nuts, get creative. Don’t do anything that’ll alert the mods, and don’t let anyone get too close,” per the Head of IOD at the company. My new boss. I would check in with her once a week to track my progress, to make sure I was generating my share of impressions. “Good conversation, bad conversation, it all counts,” I remember her saying. As far as they were concerned, this was just ritual sacrifice at the altar of engagement. Works for me.
Each morning I wake up and decide who I want to be that day. I scroll through my collection of masks, wearing the persona that best fits my mood. On any given day I will be a multitude of people. I get to choose from an infinite number of ways to tell the world ‘What is happening?!’.
I realised pretty quickly why Twitter had been foraging for Conductors in such a seedy neck of the woods. They didn’t need a Harvard MBA to do this job. They needed an edge-lord. A meme dealer. A jibber-jabber. An underbelly surfer. They needed someone fluent in Internet-speak. With esoteric interests. Someone who relished the tête-à-tête of pseudonymous debate. A shapeshifter. A chameleon.
I just happened to be a touring reptile in the right place at the right time.
From my seat in the shadows, I’ve watched the platform bend and quiver with my words. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of trends, the ebb and flow of public sentiment, and the real-time metamorphosis of the topography of Twitter, my tweets like asteroids disfiguring the surface of dialogue on the platform.
Initially, I kind of liked it. It was like a video game. Except I could play as any character I wanted. Each disguise allowed me to embed myself in a new community, into a new life. It was an intoxicating privilege, especially for someone with such a keen interest in anthropology like myself. I could dissect and manipulate conversations. I could test the boundaries of human faith and connection. I could lead people into a labyrinth of conspiracy and confabulation, just to see if they would flourish or flounder. I could do it all from behind the camouflage of a digital veil.
Juggling these multiple personalities was exhausting. Because I wasn’t just shuttling between different Twitter accounts, I was also shuffling the pack of my own identity. I was tasting different parts of myself, sampling the flavours of my own personality. It was hard not to infuse a slice of myself into each of my creations.
I could be the enigmatic art critic, dissecting the work of some emerging artist. I would fire off tweets as the relentless entrepreneur, preaching the gospel of hard work and financial freedom. I dispensed inspirational quotes and life advice, becoming a beacon of hope for millions of lost souls. I hurled innuendo with reckless abandon, like a Molotov cocktail thrown into an unsuspecting crowd. I penned stories and poems that stirred fierce debate in the most vaunted literary circles. I exhorted the virtues of authenticity, while perched on my podium of artifice.
It was electrifying. My tweets ruled the world. I was living out every one of my fantasies as I toggled through my roster of avatars.
Even as I reshaped various corners of Twitter in my own image, I always knew that I wasn’t alone. I knew there were others like me, perpetuating the same masquerade. Other Conductors, employed in this same business of skulduggery.
I wasn’t allowed to meet or speak with them. But I knew that for every real person on Twitter, there had to be at least ten anonymous counterparts at any given time. That was the rule. That’s what I’d been told. So, by my estimate, there were probably thousands of Conductors out there in the wild. I had no way of knowing for sure. And it was far above my pay grade to ruminate on where the deception ended…
In just a few months I could become a fountain of wisdom, a nexus of authority, and a keeper of secrets for several of Twitter's most teeming communities.
I’ve shaped the thoughts of world leaders. I’ve changed the course of elections. I’ve played both sides. I’ve uncovered scandals. I’ve moved markets. I’ve introduced potent ideologies into malleable societies. I’ve made and broken careers. I’ve inspired countless people to get fit, to get moving, to find peace. I’ve made them laugh. I’ve made them cry. I’ve made them mad.
For my followers, I became their confidant. Their therapist. Their muse. Their CEO. Their life coach. Their coach coach. Their moral compass. A devil on their shoulder.
I listened when no one else did. They flocked to my timeline every day, ready to echo and argue. They waited to hear my opinions before forming their own.
I came to wield more social capital than many of the most powerful people in the world. I was many of the most powerful people in the world.
However, unbeknownst to my disciples, beneath my ephemeral veneer I was a mess. I was crumbling. You see, omnipotence is exhausting. It is impossible not to be perverted by that kind of power. Eventually the mask melts into your skin. I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives, none of them my own. I have multiple personalities but no way of telling which one is mine. My ‘real’ self is just one of many playable characters now, and I can’t even say it’s one of my favourites.
This is a lonely business. I could tell you I have millions of people all over the world who would do anything for me. That wouldn’t be a lie. But they only know the character, not the actor. In any case I can’t let them get too close. I can’t let the mask slip. It would be very very very bad. That’s what they keep telling me. I was already on two strikes after the Burmese Insurrection Incident and the last Jilted Lover Saga. I couldn’t take the risk of blowing my cover again.
My friends stopped calling a long time ago. They were sad. They said I was being swallowed by cyberspace. They were right.
I used to lie awake at night, wondering if this was worth it. I would stroke the Regal Crimson™ bedsheet under my fingers - Egyptian cotton (with a thread count that was off the charts) - wondering if I could really give this up. Would my life be much worse without it?
Probably not. Right?
Over the past three years, I’ve come to realise that the Internet is a mound of Play-Doh. It can be poked and prodded, moulded into whatever shape you can imagine. In fact, the only unacceptable failure when it comes to the Internet is a failure of imagination.
On the Web, you can be whoever you want to be. And so can everybody else.
In our rush to become a digital species, we have become far too quick to ascribe personhood to a thing with a name and profile picture. We’ve let our guards down. All those denizens you encounter in your sojourns through social media, how do you know they are who they say they are? How can you be sure you aren’t stepping into a mirage? What if you’re being fed what you want to hear? What if your vulnerabilities are being scraped, your biases exploited?
How can you tell if there’s really a beating heart behind that beaming pixelated smile?
A comment that feels earnest. A retweet from a stranger. A DM from someone that loves your work. A meme that made you laugh. A pop-up from a hot single in your area. An aphorism that is just what you needed to hear that day.
I’ve done it all.
And I’m sick of it.
I’ve lost the ability to trust names and faces. My brain has been trained to question the authenticity of every online interaction. It sucks.
Plus, I’m haunted by a thought that has persisted since the start of my tenure here. It is a red pill that is hard to unswallow.
In my head, there was always a non-zero probability that Twitter was mostly just a quilt of Conductors in conversation with each other, spottily embroidered with a modest number of ‘real’ people who were along for the ride. These were the poor souls who couldn’t see through the ruse, who didn’t realise that they’d been talking to mirrors the whole time. I was often suspicious that this was all just a nefarious plot to create the illusion of activity for would-be advertisers, the final patsies in a food chain full of marks.
That suspicion has gnawed at me for three years. But recently, like a kernel of corn that gets stuck in your teeth, it has become an idea difficult to dislodge, and even harder to ignore. Maybe it’s because I’ve become sufficiently jaded. Maybe it’s because I’ve outgrown the frigid impotence of virtual relationships. Maybe it’s because, in my heart of hearts, I know it to be true.
In this hall of mirrors, maybe I’ve been on a string the whole time.
So I decided I was done. I was ready to withdraw from the stage.
I tried to broach this with the boss, on at least three separate occasions. I told her I was burnt out. That I needed to touch grass. She rebuffed and cajoled me every time. I was too good at what I did. We need you here. You’re too important. Here’s another zero at the end of your pay cheque.
That shit gets old.
I needed to take matters into my own hands. I decided I was going to go out with a bang.
I drafted a goodbye to my followers - all of them. It was the same message from each one of my accounts for each of my avatars. This was the bastard child of an apology and a justification. It would serve as a simultaneous raising of the curtain. People deserved to know that they were being hoodwinked, so they could take back control of their lives. I would do this as a service to humanity. Maybe then they might forgive me, love me even.
I saved the message as a draft on my phone, ready to launch at 9:00 am tomorrow morning.
I set my alarm, preparing for my last night of sleep as a Conductor.
And then the door burst open.
Omg that ending. Cool concept for modern sci-fi now that we know that cars don't fly (yet).
Terrific piece--well done!