Jeff tries not to delve too deeply into the hell that is Twitter. He enjoys interacting with fans and reading their uplifting messages, he loves watching silly edits and watching people go crazy over a simple virtual exchange between him and his cast members. It's a shame people lose their humanity when they crawl behind their computer screen, insults and discriminatory comments flying from their fingers as if hate was their first language. These days, Jeff stays away from Twitter, but being present on social media is part of his job description, so he tweets something every few days and interacts with cast members regularly to keep everyone happy.
When you opened Twitter this morning to its perfunctory scrolling of social media, you immediately noticed that something was wrong. His timeline isn't as exciting because he doesn't follow a lot of people, but sometimes he checks fandom tags to see what everyone is obsessed with. When the page finished loading, there were no cute drawings or funny memes. There were lots of barcode photos with worrying messages like "Let's only send positive messages now!" and "Timeline Cleanup: What's Your Favorite Barcode?" and "We need to support barcode through this!". Jeff frowned and sat up in bed, panic hammering in his heart. Did something happen during the night? would not bethatSeriously, otherwise I would have heard about it by now.
Jeff typed the barcode name into the search bar and had to go through hundreds of support messages before he got to the cause. Her heart sank as she slowly scrolled through the tweets. People said nasty things about Barcode and made fun of it, purposefully taking bad pictures to point out flaws in its appearance. There seemed to be no reason for the sudden hatred, nothing Barcode had said or done to encourage them beyond simply existing. After reading a few tweets, Jeff closed the app and his mood deteriorated considerably.
It's been on Jeff's mind all day. After nearly ten years in the entertainment industry, he is no stranger to hateful comments. They used to pester him when he was an artist desperately struggling for validation, but now that he's secured his place in the music scene, he knows better than to pay any attention to them. These comments come from unhappy people who can't stand to see others happy. Jeff just doesn't know if Barcode has figured it out yet.
Jeff is mindlessly playing guitar when the doorbell rings. He looks at the clock on the computer screen and gets up from his chair. Thinking about those horrible hate tweets made time pass. He had planned to go to the store to buy coconut water and snacks for Barcode, who he had invited a few days earlier for a casual jam session. Now he feels like a lousy host for forgetting him, even though Barcode is more than happy with some juice and a piece of fruit.
As he walks to the front door, Jeff briefly wonders what state of emotional turmoil he is in with Barcode. There's no way he didn't see the tweets; his phone is practically glued to his hand. Jeff has already prepared a short speech that he hopes will encourage Barcode to focus only on positive feedback. They were supposed to cook together tonight, but takeout does a much better job of cheering her up than a vegetable stir-fry.
When Jeff opens the door, he's met with a typical barcode smile. Jeff hesitates. He expected sadness and melancholy.
"Hey!" Barcode says, picking up his guitar case. Her smile drops slightly when she sees Jeff's surprised expression. "Did you forget I was coming today?"
Jeff quickly recovers, stepping aside to let Barcode in. "No! No Of course not. Come in. How are you?
"I'm fine! Excited to finally be making music again, I've been really busy lately."
"Yes?" Jeff tries to look for any underlying sadness or discomfort, but if there is one, Barcode is doing a great job of hiding it. "That's good. I haven't forgottenyoubut I forgot to buy snacks.”
"Oh, that's good! I'll get some water, please." Barcode puts his shoes on at the door and heads straight for his home office, his briefcase banging against the walls. "Oops, sorry! Your wall is fine!"
A few minutes later, Jeff finds Barcode sitting in his rickety chair. She places two bottles of water and a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table and collapses onto the small couch she's pushed against the wall. It's not a big studio, but there's more than enough space for two people.
"Hey, my favorite!" Barcode says quietly, picking up a cookie and nibbling off bits. He chews while playing the guitar and banging his head.
“Why did you take your guitar with you? Look at the selection of instruments you have here,” she says, pointing to the wall of guitars. "No need to lug this thing around Bangkok."
The barcode shrugs. “I like this guitar,” he says. That simple.
Jeff laughs and nods gently but is secretly pleased. I had no doubt whether or not Barcode would like the guitar when Jeff bought it for him, but it's fun to see how much value he has already placed on it.
“Did anything interesting happen today?” Jeff asks happily. He doesn't want to take the truth away from Barcode, but he is concerned about her silence on the matter. Barcode is usually quick to share his feelings, especially if he's being teased.
Barcode's eyebrows draw together as he looks at Jeff. Stop playing the guitar. "Anything interesting? Well, I saw something, but I don't know if it'sInteresting…” He's hesitant, and Jeff wants to reach out to say he understands why it's easier to feign indifference about receiving hate than it is to talk about it, but that he's here to hear your concerns if you want to share them. .
Jeff starts to lean forward to take Barcode's hands, knowing the physical contact punishes him and takes the worst of his nerves.
"I saw two fat cats today," says Barcode suddenly. Jeff takes a step back as if he's been hit by something. “They were fighting over a piece of fish. Here, I recorded a video.” He rolls the chair forward. Jeff watches him unlock his phone and casually slide a Twitter notification alerting him that he's been tagged in more tweets than usual and might want to check it out. Jeff glances quickly at Barcode's face to see if he's reacting, but it's annoyingly blank.
"Here," says Barcode, handing Jeff his phone. The video shows a fat brown cat continuously punching and hissing at an even fatter orange cat. “Make no mistake about the orange, it totally won in the end. He luckily left with that fish in his mouth."
"That's great," Jeff says, trying to smile at her, though he's sure it's more of a grimace. He really thought Barcode was going to tell him about the hate comments.
Barcode laughs and retrieves your phone. "I thought it was. Sorry, nothing interesting seems to have happened to me today. Why do you ask?" he asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"Just curiosity." He picks up a guitar and starts playing a riff he tried to work on today. Barcode joins in with enthusiasm and the moment is forgotten as guitar chords fill the room.
The afternoon passes as usual. They take turns on guitar and write what sounds best to compose a song. Jeff likes the bold spirit of the barcode; he plays what he thinks without fear of judgment. They discuss possible lyrical themes: Jeff's head is full of romantic lines, but Barcode wants to write about something more platonic.
“What is the difference between platonic lyrics and romantic lyrics?” Jeff asks. "You're basically saying the same thing, that you love someone or loved someone."
"I'm sure John Legend wasn't thinking of his friend when he sangAll of MeBarcode notes.
Jeff laughs. “Okay, songs with romantic lyrics are much easier to identify. But unless you are beingveryspecific andverycheesy in your composition, you know, ending each line with "my dear friend", people won't know if the experience you're writing about is platonic or romantic. and U.Sto worshiplove songs, they want to see romance in everything! If you're going to write a song about how dear your friend is to you, I bet my entire savings account will be known as a love song."
Barcode groans and throws his head back. "Why is it all about love?"
Jeff tilts his head. "Are you turning sour yet?"
“I have nothing against romantic love,” says Barcode, his head still thrown back. “I just hate how everyone expects me toto bepassionate. All my friends are dating and they think I want to feel sorry for them because I'm not in a relationship." He finally looks Jeff in the eye. "And when people ask me about my love life and I say I've never had a boyfriend or girlfriend, they They look at me like I have two heads. I don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with being in love. I'm going to stay single my whole life just to piss these people off."
Jeff snorts. "Good luck with that."
"I will!" He looks serious, but there's a ghost of a smile on his face.
Jeff remembers when love made him resent. He was fresh out of high school with nothing but music on his mind, and all his friends wanted to do was go out and pick up girls. They were getting into short-lived relationships left and right, and since Jeff wasn't seeing anyone, they would never ask him out on double, triple, or quadruple dates. He only saw his friends in the "off" stages of their relationships, and even then, all they wanted to talk about was girls and sex. By the time Jeff started dating, being single had become the newest trend and he was once again the outsider.
Thinking about love almost makes Jeff forget about the hateful comments.Almost.
It's impossible to deny that the barcode is obviously fine. Jeff just can't understandas. The things those people said were really horrible, and hehe knowsThe barcode saw them; when Jeff answered a call from work, he noticed the barcode scrolling through his Twitter hashtag. Those comments had been on Jeff's mind all day, and they weren't even aboutto him. Why is it more affected than the barcode?
"He is well?" ask barcode.
"Hey, what?"
"Are you okay? You were distracted.
"Oh sim…"
Barcode lower your guitar. "What's going on? You've been off the pitch all afternoon.
Better ask Barcode about it. He's clearly not going to bring it up, but Jeff just wants to know how he's doing.
“I know you saw those comments about yourself.” Barcode just stares at him, so Jeff continues. "Hate comments."
The barcode gives a strange appearance. “That's itWhy are you weird?
“I'm not being weird,” Jeff says, offended. "I'm just worried about you."
Barcode laughs, but it's not exactly funny. “Why would you be worried? It's just some hateful comments."
“Barcode…” Jeff says softly. “I read some of them this morning. They werehorrible.EUI felt bad reading them, I can't imagine whatyoumust make sense
Barcode lifts his head and looks at Jeff as if suddenly realizing something for the first time. "They weren't anything new, I've gotten hate before."
"Ter?"
The barcode fixes you with a stare. "Clear."
"Oh."
Jeff sees the mistake he made now. This was the first time he saw Barcode hated, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. He assumed, rather ignorantly, that Barcode would join him for comfort the moment he received any kind of negative attention. That was the kind of relationship you used to have, right? Barcode trusted Jeff to protect him. When did that change?
"When did you get hateful?"
"Many times. It started before KinnPorsche aired. Some people weren't too happy that I was cast as Porchay, so they tried to make me quit by threatening me. It was silly.
“What? Threatening: barcode, why didn't you tell me about it?
The barcode shrugs. “It's not like there's anything you can do about it. Unfortunately, people are free to say whatever they want on the Internet. “
“Still,” Jeff grumbles, a little annoyed that Barcode never told him he was going through this. "You should have told me."
"Probably," Barcode shudders. “I definitely should have told management at the very least. But you already considered me the baby of the group, and I didn't want to complain about that either, you know. Like I'm the only one getting hate. I just wanted to get through it alone."
"Should not-"
“I know, I know,” Barcode interrupts. "Don't bother scolding me. I told my sister when it happened. We talked a lot and that helped. So don't worry, I didn't go it alone."
"If you know you shouldn't go through things like this alone, why didn't you tell me about the hateful comments this morning?" Jeff can't help but scold.
Barcode smiles. “Jeff, these things don't bother me anymore. If I see hateful comments, I just click on them. Believe me, I've been burned enough to never be tempted again. I didn't tell you because I was barely impressed this morning. I had already forgotten when I got here.
Jeff is silent for a long moment. "That is good." He settles down on the couch. Barcode picks up his guitar again and goes to the computer to play with the songwriting program.
Jeff watches him intently, and suddenly,euthe change. It probably came on gradually, so it's no wonder Jeff didn't notice it before, but now that he does, it's pretty obvious. Barcode is no longer a shy and naive child. He doesn't need Jeff's protection, not because he doesn't trust him, but because he can protect himself. He's mature enough to handle his own shit now.
"He is well?" Barcode asks, snapping Jeff out of his thoughts.
"Yes I am happythey arebom."
"It's too late, do you still want to cook?"
"Ah... I was planning on getting takeout."
The barcode is animated. "In reality?"
“I thought it would cheer you up,” admits Jeff. "But if you're okay..."
"I am not!" The barcode says quickly. "These comments really got to me, they really hurt me, I'm so upset, can we order burgers?" He's grinning from ear to ear and Jeff can't say no.