\n
Some trolls experience buyer\u2019s remorse, Margera says, chuckling. He says a man from Texas recently emailed the morning after spending $5,000 sending variations of the message, \u201cWake up, pussy!\u201d He pleaded his case: He was drinking and blacked out. Margera wasn\u2019t sympathetic. \u201cEat a dick!\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what you get.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team welcomes me into the control room, where several other producers are diligently clicking away behind custom multi-monitor displays. The fish mill about on their screens, flitting from feed to feed. I can hear their footsteps overhead.<\/p>\n
The control room evokes an insurgency\u2019s bunker, or the lair of a trashy supervillain\u2014it\u2019s all screens and crumbs, guitars and whiteboards, cables and empty cans and canisters of pepper spray. At least eight producers scurry around the largely windowless space or spin in their chairs. Neptune gives me the tour: One configuration of monitors displays the inside of the house, another the outside (to provide advance notice of the cops, when the fans call them as a joke); one desk controls sound effects and ads, another the paid fan messages. Much of this, I\u2019m told, was coded using AI. I ask where the team sleeps. Neptune points to couches and the floor underneath his own desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily the carpet is nice and soft this season,\u201d Ottman says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like sleeping on the floor,\u201d says Taylor, who wears a knit cap, an untucked dress shirt and Japanese-seeming slippers. He has a full beard and dark, tired eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice and debasing,\u201d Neptune agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s punishing,\u201d says Taylor. \u201cI don\u2019t want to sleep on a bed anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t deserve it,\u201d says Neptune<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t fucking<\/em> deserve it,\u201d Taylor echoes. \u201cWhen we\u2019re filming, I feel so masochistic. It\u2019s like, fuck it.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cFuck<\/em> my stupid life,\u201d Neptune says. \u201cI\u2019m just an idiot<\/em> who sleeps on the ground<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nThey both laugh, then fall silent. Just then, a printer beeps in the corner, and fresh pages jolt out. With an assist from ChatGPT, they\u2019ve written a love song for one of the fish named Landon to sing. Landon, in his early twenties, is a janitor from Wisconsin who, I know from watching the show, is the team\u2019s favorite cast member to torment. A few days earlier, Taylor had challenged a drunken Landon to a boxing match and viciously beaten him to the ground.<\/p>\n
The previous night, Landon had gotten drunk again and spent many hours begging another cast member, Vimp, to kiss him. Today he\u2019s experiencing a lot of regret, and the producers want to make sure he doesn\u2019t give up on the storyline.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we want this to end with Landon getting his kiss?\u201d Taylor asks the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want it to end with it getting worse and worse and him never getting his kiss,\u201d Neptune says. Everyone agrees. They decide to tell Landon, who is naturally trusting, that Vimp is simply playing hard to get. Lyrics in hand, Neptune and Taylor ascend the staircase and appear moments later, in miniature, on the monitors. Vimp is off camera, in the bathroom. They pound on the door, shout, \u201cCHOP CHOP!\u201d and then find Landon, who is curled up on a couch, hungover and sad. All day the viewers have been taunting him, but now a few are trying to comfort him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some trolls experience buyer\u2019s remorse, Margera says, chuckling. He says a man from Texas recently emailed the morning after spending $5,000 sending variations of the message, \u201cWake up, pussy!\u201d He pleaded his case: He was drinking and blacked out. Margera wasn\u2019t sympathetic. \u201cEat a dick!\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what you get.\u201d The team welcomes me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[396,68,186,183],"class_list":["post-2293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-longreads","tag-streaming","tag-television","tag-tv"],"yoast_head":"\n
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