Action (DNF)

Chapter 25: Twitter

George POV

Wilbur insisted that he was the one who cleaned up after dinner, picking up the plates, cutlery, and glasses. He rinsed them all in the sink before putting them in the dishwasher as I got comfortable on the couch with my phone. I opened it and looked at the background, which was the picture of Wilbur and I from this morning.

In the past couple hours he also told me a list of apps to download, the total list including Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and a couple others that were all sitting on the screen in front of me. Each had colourful logos and simple imagery to make them identifiable. I had also gotten a couple of games which Wilbur said would be fun.

Besides the downloads that he had told me about, and the time that I called Clay, I had not done anything with my phone yet. I knew next to nothing about what I was meant to do with my phone now that I had it, or anything about how long the battery would last if I did do anything.

I must admit that it felt a little embarrassing to know that I knew less than a seven year old did when it came to this kind of stuff. Maybe it would be better if I just gave it up. There seemed to be so much I’d need to know. Wilbur said that he had wanted a new phone, maybe I could give him this one.

“Okay so are you ready to set up your new social media accounts?” The brunette asked as he moved to sit next to me on the couch.
“I’m not sure.” I responded. “Is this even the right thing to do? Everyone always says that the internet is terrible.”

“The internet is fine.” Wilbur reassured. “There are some assholes that are on it, but that’s just like everything else.” He noticed my cautious expression and then his face fell. “But if you don’t want to then we don’t have to do anything.” After a moment of thinking it over I shook my head to decline.

“No, I will do this. You saw what people were saying about me and Clay there. I want to be able to stick up for Clay when they say something mean about him. He doesn’t deserve it.” I stated, using that as my reasoning. Wilbur gave a nod before motioning for me to open one of the apps.

After looking over it I started off with Twitter, since that was the one that Wilbur had shown me earlier. It came up with a screen asking me whether I wanted to sign up or log in. Since I wasn’t a total idiot, I clocked ‘sign up’ without prompting from my best friend.

It asked me to create a username and come up with a password. I glanced over at Wilbur before just entering my name for the username. After all that was simple enough. Wilbur had often ranted about things that had happened online, or stupid internet names that people will live to regret with time. There was no way I could regret my own name.

But apparently there were other George Davidson’s on the internet though, and Wilbur suggested that I come up with something different, something more original. ‘Like what?’ I questioned, not able to come up with anything.
“How about Georgenotfound?” Wilbur suggested, typing the name in to let me see.

I shrugged. “Maybe, but why that? It’s kinda weird.” I stated, although I figured it might be some kind of online code, or a movie character from something that Wilbur watched.
“Georgenotfound. It’s like the code 404, which means ‘page not found’. Maybe it doesn’t exist or just can’t load or whatever.” Wilbur explained, which didn’t explain anything to me at all.

The brunette seemed to notice what I meant and so he explained it again, dumbing it down further for me. “It means that you look something up on the internet and if the internet can’t find it then it will say ‘error: 404, page not found’. Your username is basically saying that you don’t exist, just as a joke.”

“Oh, alright then.” I spoke softly, deciding to ignore it but subtly liking the name that he had suggested. I typed it in and then came up with a password, it was the name of the bar that I worked at since I thought that nobody would think that trying that. Then I added my email, something that Wilbur had helped me make earlier in the day.

“Done,” I eventually hummed, and he smiled at me when he realised I took the name that he had suggested. “Now what?” I asked.
“Well now you need to have a profile picture.” He said happily. “So you can take a photo, or just get one offline, or I could see what photos of the two of us for me to send to you.”

This was the part that confused me, profiles. I’ve seen them before when watching over Wilbur’s shoulder as he scrolled through Twitter or Instagram and there was a wide range of things. I’ve seen landscapes, pets, celebrities or fictional characters they liked, themselves, their children, and propaganda posts. It was strange and I wondered what I was meant to do.

“What kind of profile should I do then? I don’t want it to be something stupid.” I huffed, trying to come up with an idea, before noticing that Wilbur had already grabbed his phone.
“I have a photo of you from the bar one night.” Wilbur commented as he quickly flicked through a bunch of photos. “It’s the night we were told to dress up for the bosses party.”

“Oh I remember that.” I nodded, before smiling fondly as I noticed the picture he had. It had me standing at the bar smiling at Wilbur with his camera. I was wearing a white dress shirt, black jeans, and a navy striped sleeveless vest. I thought it made me look neat, however Wilbur always described that image as attractive, and insisted I use it if everI made a dating profile.

“Is that seriously the one that you want me to use?” I questioned, glancing over my picture. “Do you have any others?”
“You look good in this one.” Wilbur commented. “I’ll send it to you.”

“Fine.” I sighed, even though I did agree that it was a good photo and that it might be nice for a profile. After a few minutes I had received the picture from him, set it as my profile and finished setting up my account.

“It looks great George.” The brunette hummed as he looked over my shoulder, before I heard a pinging noise from my phone. “And now I can say that I am your first follower.”
“I’ll follow you back then,” I smiled. “Then I could try and find Clay’s account.”
“He will follow you back if you do.” Wilbur stated. “Then a bunch of his followers will follow you.”

“How many people does he have following him?” I questioned while going to a search bar and typing in his name.
“He has several thousand.” Wilbur informed me, just as I found the blond’s account to confirm his words.

“Wow…” I murmured, scrolling down through some of the blond’s most recent posts. Without even thinking I pressed the follow button before turning to smile at Wilbur. “There, what is next?”
“How about we set up an Instagram profile?” He asked.
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1259 words