Lacey

Chapter 6

August 3, 2023

It was Thursday afternoon. I completed the Music Refined editor application in the morning before work, so all I had to do was to submit it. Once I did that, I worked on editing a video. I hadn't uploaded to YouTube in forever and I was losing subscribers. What I didn't expect to see was an onslaught of hate comments.

Ladybugfan (2 hours ago): go fuck yourself.

Peterparking (3 hours ago): I'm sure you wouldn't go behind a rival editor's back to make fun of them watching a kid's show, Mr. Grammar Freak?

loverstanner (6 hours ago): What is with you and your obsession to make teenagers sob themselves to sleep over overblown mistakes

Coderguy (10 hours ago): Hello James hope you had fun breaking Lovergirl's heart

They were varied, but all had one thing in common: bringing up old drama. Some talked about my previous tendency to talk shit about publication editors. Others mentioned my needless roasting of a beginner writer's one small typo to the point of bringing them to tears. And that wasn't even getting into my relationship with Betty. Good lord, is that something I do not want to get into.

I didn't bother to go through all the comments. There were just too many. But I did check the video analytics. Lo and behold, many of these commenters were also former subscribers of mine. I also checked my Twitter analytics. My old controversies really still bit me in the ass.

Darian and I met up at the park later on. He was finished his voice work for the week and I needed a break from dealing with all the hate comments.

"How's it going, James?" asked Darian.

"Done with the Music Refined application," I told him, "which is nice."

"That's awesome!" a giddy Darian smiled.

We sat on a wooden bench close to the river.

"I guess," I adjusted my shirt. "But I'm not sure if I'll get in. Besides, people are still bringing up my old drama."

Darian sighed.

"Let's be real here," he pointed out. "You were pretty obnoxious last year. Even just a few months ago, there was still that whole argument where you got petty over a fanart of you with a streamer the artist didn't know you hated."

"That streamer was one of Augusta's lackeys," I said.

"It's not like he knew that," responded Darian.

I started feeling increasingly frustrated with my oblivious friend.

"If Noah did any sort of research, any Google search-" I nearly lashed out.

"This isn't easily searchable," said Darian. "The most Izzy publicly did was say she liked Augusta's art and hoped Augusta would find a good therapist. To an outsider, it's probably not a big deal."

"Fine," I calmed down.

Darian was right. There's a reason I had to apologize for my spat with Noah and backed down.

"Let's talk about something else!" exclaimed Darian.

"Like what?" I wondered.

"I read this article on the Guardian about this hilarious scambait that lasted five months," said Darian.

"Tell me more," I responded. I've always loved stories of good scambaits.

Darian began telling me the story. It all started with a man named John. John was an IT support guy tired of being single, so he went onto Tinder to have a little fun. Sure enough, he found a perfectly sculpted young woman named Brigid. Or so she presented as. John's next few DMs with her made it pretty clear she (if she was even a she) was just a scammer. From the instant desire to marry to a fascination with cryptocurrency, anyone with a functioning brain should have been able to figure out their bluff. This obviously included John.

Did John just block the fake profile and move on with his life? No. He was a very bored man and this alleged woman had a very checkered online dating record. John tried his hand at scambaiting. The guy gave them the most absurd of responses. When they told him he was a duke's son, he always corrected them to say he was the long-lost king. Whenever they told him to buy NFTs, he sent them videos about the dangers of NFTs.

John spent a lot of his free time wasting their time to prevent them from scamming others. But all perversely enjoyable things come to an end and so did this. After almost half a year of cat-and-mouse, Brigid gave up. They then nuked their Tinder profile.

After hearing about the story of John from Darian, I contemplated to myself: what if I could be like John? Find someone to try to scam me, and then turn that back around on them and write about it for clout. I could make hundreds of thousands. But how would I find that person anyhow? It seemed very time consuming. I had multiple jobs to work, not to mention a potential editor position that would take even more time.

All of the sudden, I started thinking of Lacey. In our last few in-server conversations, she seemed to like me a lot. She sent me a bunch of smiley face emojis after a joke I made and asked me questions about my favorite song lyrics.

A plan came to mind: manipulate her to do shady things and make myself out to be the victim. I dismissed the thought at first. She's just a nobody, I told myself. On the other hand, most scammers are nobodies anyways.

What would be the harm when she deserved it?

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