CHAPTER 7
REESE GOES VIRAL
CLAUDIA
In math class, Ms. Santiago taught us about something called “exponential growth.” Basically, when something grows exponentially, at first it seems like it’s only growing KIND OF fast… then it starts growing REALLY fast… and then it basically skyrockets into outer space.
This is pretty much what happened with Reese’s Blurt. By noon that day, he was up to 5,000 Blips and 45 followers.
Which was a LOT more than he’d had when I made the bet with Athena. So the Fembots taunted me about it all through lunch.
SOPHIE
They were SO annoying. Ling Chen made up some song like, “You’re soooo doooooomed.…” Ed. Note: to the tune of “You’re So Vain” (which I’d never heard before) (it’s not a bad song) (except now it reminds me of Fembots) (so I hate it) And then all the Fembots kept singing it over and over.
REESE
All my friends at lunch were like, “Dude, you’re blowing up!”
And Xander was all, “Half dem followers iz MINE, yo!”
XANDER
I wuz ROBBED! You done recorded that clip from MY account, yo! You couldn’ta done it without me!
WYATT
What about me? It was my avatar Reese jumped on!
XANDER
Step off, Y-Train. Ed. Note: Xander’s nickname for Wyatt You wuz just meat. We coulda Hulk-smashed any fool.
REESE
I felt like Xander had a point. I mean, we’d built the whole tower together. And I couldn’t have made the Blurt without him.
But it’s not like you can just give somebody half your followers. So instead, I told him if he wanted, we could be a team. And the next time we did a Blurt, we’d post it from his account, so he’d get followers, too.
Plus, if I didn’t post any more stuff on my own account, it’d be easier for you Ed. Note: (that is, me) (Claudia) to win the bet.
CLAUDIA
I was hoping Reese’s numbers would tail off after lunch, but the opposite happened. By the time school ended, he was up to 8,000 Blips and 65 followers.
Which was terrifying.
REESE
On the bus home, you were like, “Reese, you HAVE to stop people from following you!”
But I was like, “I can’t! If I set my account to private, Athena will see it and you’ll automatically lose!” And there was basically no other way to stop people from following me.
Besides, I was psyched. I was getting Reblurts every minute! From people I didn’t even know!
CLAUDIA
Reese was 10% worried for me that I’d lose the bet with Athena and 90% thrilled that his Blurt was getting so much attention.
And I was 10% happy for him, 5% annoyed that something so stupid was that popular, and 85% FREAKING THE HECK OUT that I was going to lose the bet and have to post a completely humiliating Blurt of myself.
It already seemed like there was a very good chance Reese would end up with more than 208 followers. Which meant I was going to have to do a LOT more Blurting to boost my followers.
So as soon as I got home, I asked our after-school sitter, Ashley, to help me decide which of my songs I should release as a follow-up to “Windmill.”
Ashley majored in Musical Theater when she was in college, which is why she was an excellent person to ask for musical advice. It’s also why she’s still our after-school sitter even though she’s twenty-five years old and has a college degree.
ASHLEY O’ROURKE, after-school sitter
Claude, can you do me a solid and write in your book that if anybody who reads it is a theater, film, TV, or webisode producer, they should check out my reel on MeVid and/or come to my upcoming showcase at the People’s Republic of Dance in Chelsea?
CLAUDIA
Absolutely, Ash. You’re going to be a star someday! Your one-woman show was AMAZING.
ASHLEY
Thanks, Claude! Also, please tell people I’m available mornings and weekends for babysitting. I’m good with all ages! Especially babies. I’m like a ninja at getting them to nap.
CLAUDIA
Back to the story: I was in my bedroom with Ashley, playing one of my songs for her, when we heard the screams coming from Reese’s room. Ed. Note: “Deleted (aka The Swipe Left Song)”
REESE
BewBewBoy’s the most famous MetaWorlder ever. I’ve been watching his videos since I was ten. He’s got, like, thirty million followers on MeVid. And twenty million on Blurt.
AND HE REBLURTED ME!!! TO TWENTY MILLION PEOPLE!!!
And THAT’S when everything went insta-cray.
ASHLEY
Reese was screaming so loud, I thought he’d chopped his finger off or something.
And as his caregiver, that DEFINITELY would’ve been on me.
So I ran to his bedroom. And it turned out he was screaming because he’d just gotten 100,000 Blips in ten seconds.
CLAUDIA
I’m not personally responsible if Reese chops his fingers off, so I was a little slower to get up than Ashley was. And in the five extra seconds it took me to get to Reese’s room, he got another 50,000 Blips.
He was staring at the Blip counter on his page and screaming “THIS IS AMAZING!” and “AAAAAAAHHH!!!” over and over again.
REESE
It was NUTS!!!! I was getting, like, ten thousand Blips a second!
CLAUDIA
He was also getting a couple of new followers every second. Which, if you do the math, meant that every two minutes, he was adding as many followers as I had in my whole account.
I was not actually doing the math just then. Because I was too busy having a panic attack on the living room couch.
At least, I think it was a panic attack. My heart was going “THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP,” and I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I was going to pass out.
ASHLEY
The whole situation was super stressful. I was trying to get you to lie on the couch and breathe into a paper bag, AND I was trying to get Reese to quit screaming, AND I was trying to make dinner and fold the laundry. Ed. Note: Ashley not good at multi-tasking
CLAUDIA
The paper bag was very helpful. But only because it was SO TOTALLY USELESS that I used my phone to google “paper bag breathe panic attack” so I could try to figure out why anybody would EVER think that’d be helpful.
And reading about panic attacks online distracted me from my actual panic attack long enough that I eventually settled down.
Reese, however, did NOT settle down. He pretty much only stopped screaming long enough to text Mom and Dad when he hit 1,000,000 Blips.
REESE AND MOM/DAD (Text messages copied from Reese’s phone)
CLAUDIA
By the time Mom got home from work, Reese had almost 5,000,000 Blips and over 5,000 followers.
Which was so huge that Mom couldn’t bring herself to make Reese delete his account even though he’d lied about his age to create it. (Which, tbh, pretty much everybody does. So if you ask me, Mom was overreacting.)
But she did get herself a Blurt account so she could keep an eye on us.
MOM AND DAD (text messages)
REESE
I was crazy amped. I couldn’t even sleep that night. ’Cause I was FAMOUS!
CLAUDIA
I couldn’t sleep, either. ’Cause I was DOOMED. At the rate my “Windmill” Blurts had gotten me followers, if I wanted to catch up to Reese, I was going to have to write, record, and shoot videos for 1,000 songs.
And by the next morning, it was more like 2,000 songs.