~ |Gaurav| ~ 

Lights. Camera. Mic check. Fuck my life.

My headset was loose, its mic slipping below my chin at the slightest movement of my jaw. Samar was supposed to shift the stage light to my left. Directly placed in front of me, it was making my eyes water from the sheer force of its white beam, cutting any chance I had of making eye contact with the audience.

Already at the worst possible start, I paused for the lukewarm applause to die before beginning my talk, "Your life is the result of the strength of your ancestors."

The stage was sticky and yellow, like the gross floor of a kids' birthday party. The speaker before me was a women's health expert and I remembered catching snippets of a demonstration from backstage. Had she fucking peed here? "For all of human history," I continued, "the one who had the resources dictated the culture. They made the rules. And those who wanted to change the rules would challenge them. Pick up their weapons, their swords, bows, arrows, tridents, guns, whatever, and storm the forts of the weak. History is a powerplay of wits and brute strength. Most of us are blessed with one or the other.

"If your neanderthal ancestor had died after falling on a rock, if the grandfather of your great grandfather hadn't survived the brutality of medieval invasions, if your great grandfather hadn't thrown his weight behind the freedom struggle, if your grandfather hadn't travelled thousands of miles on foot during the partition, you wouldn't have been sitting here before me, in this safe, air-conditioned hall, listening to all these great minds." I tilted my head in the direction of the first row, my fellow lineup of speakers. A theme of "Navigating the World in the 21st Century," had allowed organizers of this overhyped intellectual event to justify mixing a cocktail of lectures of a range of diverse experts—medical, career, beauty, family, dating and plain old vloggers like me.

That I could qualify as an expert in anything was news to me, but Samar wasn't dumb enough to let me walk away from a low-effort gig. Especially now when we were desperate.

"Now is the best time history has ever seen. We've never been more prosperous, more equal, more educated. The big question today isn't survival—we're not killing each other for dominance. Yet there is more competition than ever before. Productive competition. We're genetically coded to value strength, since it helped our ancestors survive." Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I shouldn't have used genetically, Samar had warned me to replace it with inherently, since there were actual geneticists in the panel. "So even if we don't need it, even if we can sit on our asses and earn a living with pension and health insurance, we still respond to strength. Not just physical strength but strength of endurance, of grit, of the hustle. That is always rewarded."

I paused, counted ten whole seconds in my head while walking to the other end of the stage. Hard heels, light toes. The sound of my footsteps echoed across the hall. An effective strategy to rein in attention. Fortunately, it worked. The silence was charged, thick with the audience's anticipation. "People often ask me, what exactly do I mean by a "men's lifestyle influencer"? And why isn't my advice universal? The simple answer to that is I am a man, my experiences are exclusively male, and I will never pretend to understand the battles of women, let alone advise them on what they should and shouldn't be doing, especially in the social and romantic realm. But I do know men. I know our flaws, I know our problems and insecurities. The term alpha gets thrown around a lot in my circles, for all the wrong reasons of course. Alpha male isn't about hurting weaker people, it is about unlocking your fullest potential as a man, of fulfilling the roles of a valuable, productive member of society. Of having enough self-respect to not take shit from anyone—your local politician, your boss, even your significant other. It is, ultimately, about leaving behind a legacy that'll help your great-grandkids survive."

That was the cue for the spotlight to spin and refocus on me, giving the audience a chance to blink and decide the nature of response they deemed worthy for my speech. It was more than I was hoping for. Not a single boo. People were kinder in person, and polite enough to applaud till the next speaker came on stage, despite my generic speech that bordered on inane motivational rhetoric. On the plus side, thanks to this talk, I had this week's YouTube content sorted.

Samar was waiting backstage, packed water in one hand and a cold samosa in another. "Ek collar upar tha poore time, maine ishaara bhi kiya tune dekha nahi."

I took a bite of the samosa, from the bottom, prolonging the taste for as long as possible before washing it down with water. With a lineup of three shoots next week, even a bite was risky. My abs needed to be as washed as possible.

The backstage was narrow and filled to the brim with shooting crew members. We beelined for the last row, tuning out the hip, millennial-friendly spiritual Guru who had gone after me. As the most anticipated speaker, his was a Q/A session and the audience—admirers and sceptics alike—was buzzing with anticipation. "Carelessly macho tag kardena."

"Macho kon use karta hai be gawar? Tu vlog bana raha hai ya ganji bech raha hai?"

"Saale char baar alpha bolkar aaya hoon udhar, what's the issue with using macho?"

"Anyone under the age of 55 unironically using 'macho' online will be dragged for days, and we can't afford more slip ups." Samar tapped his phone, drafting a tweet from my account. "They like the trailer of this speech though, so that's some good news. You can now add TEDx speaker in your bio."

"Right next to #cuckholded?" My own phone started glowing with notifications after Samar sent out the Tweet, and while they had decreased, trolls were still replying with the video that ruined my life along with the hashtag in question.

"Why do you always focus on the negative? That's just two out of ten responses, and they still create engagement, your fans will defend you."

"Twenty percent, even after three months. Mai khud move on kar gaya, inse kyu nahi ho raha?" As a men's lifestyle coach—specializing in career, fitness, freelancing and dating tips—getting dumped by a cheating ex trophy girlfriend was bad in itself. Even worse was getting into that whirlwind of betrayal on the day I had booked a custom-made ring, recorded the whole shopping and proposal planning experience, and forwarded it to Samar before the fiasco went down.

It had skipped my mind to stop him from uploading, and it was only six drinks down in my sorrow that a clout chaser approached my sulking self in the bar, asked, goadingly, how the proposal went, and got punched in the face.

He was livestreaming.

In exchange for his three seconds of fame, I took a hit. A massive hit.

The first week was plain trolling, endless jargon about redpilling and borderline sexist hashtags. The second week marked a trend of posers leading en masse unfollow campaigns, and while unsubscribers was not even a visibly significant stat, my online growth was at a lull, sponsorship deals getting increasingly harder to close, and views across platforms at an all time low.

Worst of all, I was out of ideas. A creator's worst nightmare—a block.

"Yeh move on nahi karne wale." Samar had switched to Instagram, adding an embarrassingly high number of tags under a boring mirror selfie of mine. "Bas inse adhik chilla ke chup karana hoga."

That was obvious. The only question was, "How?"

~.~

a/n

I think I need to clarify that I don't agree with the speech Gaurav gave but this kind of narrative is very, very, very common in the men's influencing internet spaces. Don't ask me how I know it I just do.

Anyway, thoughts on Gaurav? And Samar? 

I'm still struggling with first person. Have to correct a lot of "hes" to "Is" and making the writing descriptive. If you've got any nice first person narrative books (preferably romance) please do drop recommendations!