"Virality is bullshit", he said that last night, waving his gun as if underlining the point.
"What do you mean?" Not the smartest question, maybe, but I was his friend, not a psychiatrist or a hostage negotiator. He was the psychiatrist, and... maybe I was his hostage? I couldn't tell. A week before he had been fine. I hadn't even known he had had a gun.
"Companies build social networks to disseminate things users make, those photos and posts, that way they don't have to pay anybody for anything, just collect advertising money. Real viruses -" he laughed, and it was the most awful sound I had ever heard, "- real viruses have to work for it. Nobody made them, nobody’s profiting from them. Organisms defend themselves." He put his gun against his temple. "You hear me?"
"I do, I do," I said.
"You hear me?" Maybe he wasn't talking to me.
Then he shot himself. Either he was the worst shot in history or something moved his hand, because he lived enough for me to rush to him, I don't know what for, and hear him whisper his last words.
Only they weren't his. It was, in that last couple of seconds, the other way around.
I'm not as strong as he was. Since then I've been posting things everywhere: tweets, comments, short pointless videos. I don't always remember most of what I've seen or posed, or why I felt I had to. I don't think we do anymore. Anyway, it's not the end of the world.
At least that's what I keep saying to myself, and what I needed to share with you.