10-09-2024, 11:37 AM
If you asked most people, they would probably argue that Dexter Grant had his foot well in the door and was already making his presence felt in SCW.
If you asked Dexter himself however, he would say he’s only just getting started.
It wasn’t a claim he’d make because he was a modest man, far from it. In Dexter’s mind, his presence across three SCW shows now had barely done a thing to curb the rampant social media usage plaguing the company and its fan base. He’d hijacked some airtime to give one of his soapbox speeches, he’d decimated a man who was probably as lousy a geography teacher as he was a wrestler, and tonight he’d effectively mocked a man who may have been the big deal he claimed to be once upon a time and offered him some help in planning for his impending retirement.
A tad harsh? Perhaps. But people like Gavin Taylor made Dexter sick. Perhaps goading him into an inevitable match and ripping him apart so thoroughly Gavin would have no choice but to retire was a blessing in disguise, denying the man a purpose to slowly wither away scrolling through his feed until the digital cancer ultimately killed him. Dexter had even offered him someone to actually call and talk to so he could set himself up for life after wrestling to avoid that perilous pitfall.
All in all, Dexter was trying to be a patient man, knowing that it would take time to spread his message and get humanity to change its ways. The problem was that he was only one man trying to make a difference on this great big ball of water and dirt, and he knew that time was running out to make the impact he needed to in order to prevent extinction.
“Do you think we went a little too far Dexter?” Wendell asked as the two made their way through the backstage area of the Rogers Arena, having just finished Dexter’s sermon to punctuate Gavin’s latest defeat.
“Hardly,” Dexter grunted. “Too far would’ve been literally kicking Gavin while he was down, putting him in the hold and forcing him to Disconnect to Reconnect. I probably would’ve put him into immediate retirement, but the endgame isn’t senseless destruction Wendell. Remember: we’re trying to save these people.”
Dexter motioned to several other wrestlers and workers loitering around backstage, either waiting for the moment the camera would be on them for some segment of this show or just killing time until their match came up. A low growl escaped his throat when he saw that most of them were just mindlessly typing or scrolling away on their phones, but he was ignored as he and Wendell trudged along.
“I just wish we had more people devoted to this cause,” Dexter huffed. “Don’t get me wrong Wendell, you’ve been an invaluable asset in this fight, but we’re still only two people trying to open everybody’s eyes and SAVE THEM FROM THEIR IMPENDING DIGITAL DEATHS!”
Raising his voice had gotten the result he wanted, with some people looking away from their phones to give him their attention. He knew who all these wrestlers were, he’d done his homework watching SCW shows to prepare for his arrival, making sure all the stats added up to bolster his message. Right now, though, who they were was irrelevant so long as their eyes weren’t being sucked into their screens. Unfortunately, it was a short lived victory, as they all went back to their devices just as quickly.
“Idiots, all of them,” Dexter growled, frustrated that not even a basic insult could yield another small victory at the very least.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to think about picking a fight back here Dexter?” Wendell asked. Dexter noted the trembling in his voice, and he couldn’t blame the kid. Wendell was no wrestler or fighter, this wasn’t a place where he belonged. His devotion to the cause brought him into a world that would eat him alive if he ever left Dexter’s sight.
“I’m not the one looking to start something over trivial internet bullshit,” Dexter argued, and he wasn’t wrong. Dexter Grant was not a stupid man…he knew that if he attacked every schmuck who thought it’d be funny to record one of his soapbox speeches and try to make a ‘meme’ or whatever the hell it was called out of his honest words, he’d have been serving prison time by now and may even still be locked up to this day for all he knew. He was well aware that if he started a fight back here that wasn’t televised to feed to the mindless masses as ‘entertainment’ then he risked being fired, axing probably his best chance yet of actually getting the truth out there.
Now, someone else throwing the first punch and Dexter being able to use ‘self-defense’ as an excuse for whatever happened next?
As tempting as that prospect was, no one was looking to take the bait. Each and every person around him was too busy eroding their minds with more digital drivel, and Dexter doubted he was going to make any further progress tonight.
“Let’s go Wendell. Let those fans ‘enjoy’ this show without truly connecting with what they’re watching. This company can keep promoting it all like some social media spotfest…Apocalypse, what a fitting name.”
“What’s the plan Dexter?”
“Getting out of this frozen wasteland of a country, for one thing,” Dexter spat as he and Wendell found the exit and started to leave the Rogers Arena behind, letting SCW continue on with its so-called Apocalypse. “I’ve spoken my piece and Gavin can grapple with the slow death of his relevance for the next week or so. We’ve got battle plans to draw up for the next show.”
One thing that Dexter had been told when he showed up to the arena tonight, despite not being booked, was that he would be in action on the next Breakdown. The thought of it being promoted as a special Saturday night edition of the weekly show made his skin crawl as that was practically begging for likes and retweets and shares and whatever else this digital menace had programmed into it to spread like the virus it truly was. Still, it was another match, a chance to either save some poor soul from the brink of cyber-oblivion or use them as a message to make sure his voice was heard.
“Well, your actions tonight have made it onto Twitter at least,” Wendell noted, having pulled out his phone to begin scrolling through the feed from his lurker account. Dexter glanced around quickly to confirm that they were far enough away from the arena so no one could call them out for the hypocrisy…even if Wendell was the only hypocrite despite doing so under Dexter’s orders. “Not exactly trending aside from being tied into any larger talk about Apocalypse…”
“Trending was never the plan anyway,” Dexter growled. “I could care less what these people say about me on those digital dumpster fires. If anything, I wish my name was blacklisted or something so it could be left off these godforsaken platforms in the first place. I cut that cancer out of my life for a reason.”
“Well, in terms of getting your message out there…” Wendell hesitantly continued. “No one’s taking it seriously. They’re joking about how it’s all a gimmick, and a quote ‘dumb one at that.’ Otherwise, they’re talking about the quote ‘balls’ you showed in trying to take a huge jump in competition for a newcomer by going after Gavin. Those conversations then start branching off into what title you’re hoping to pursue if you beat him and…”
“OF COURSE THOSE MINDLESS MASSES MISSED THE ENTIRE GOD DAMNED POINT!”
Dexter kicked the bench at the bus stop they were passing by, his frustrations getting the better of him. Thankfully, no one was around, probably because a good chunk of the city was attending the show, but that didn’t keep the anger from boiling beneath his skin. Wendell opened his mouth to ask something, but quickly thought better of it as Dexter aggressively sat down, huffing and puffing until he’d gotten himself sorted out again.
“Of course they don’t understand, think this is all just one big gimmick because I’m trying to play the ‘bad guy’ or whatever. That’s what SCW’s PR department wants them all to think, that’s what these big tech companies want the world to believe I am. This isn’t about me…it sure as shit isn’t about Gavin or Chase or anyone in that company. Yeah, I targeted Gavin while he’s at a low point, and I don’t care. I’m not trying to use him as a springboard to championship gold just because he almost achieved this or that. He embodies everything that I legitimately despise…people constantly reinventing themselves for nothing more than validation from idiots online who don’t actually know him but want to be just like him. He’s a fake, and not in the way of calling his entire act a gimmick. He’s a product of this digital age who needs to be brought back into reality and shown just how worthless he truly is in the grand schemes of this social media machine. I just wish people actually understood that…not just buy into whatever picture is being painted about me on these sites because they’re all brainwashed into believing sensationalist garbage instead of actually trying to find the facts.”
“I understand…” Wendell carefully said as he sat down beside Dexter, earning a raised eyebrow from the sulking savior. “Maybe that doesn’t mean a whole lot since I’ve believed in your cause for years now, but at least I know what you truly stand for and will follow you to the end in trying to open people’s eyes.”
Dexter exhaled, leaning back against the bench as he stared out at the city around him. Wendell was right, he hadn’t fully valued the young man’s input because he knew he could always count on him to support the neverending fight against this social sickness. Even still, Wendell was proof that someone at least understood his true intentions and seriously supported his cause all the same. Despite convincing Wendell to create lurker accounts for the sole purpose of online recon to strengthen their message without actually interacting with anything, the kid had otherwise purged every online presence he had and was honestly looking much better off for it. Hateful online vitriol using his name would never greet his eyes and convince him to consider crossing a point of no return with his life, and most of those who had bullied him now knew better than to get physical with him anymore…not when he had a ‘certified psychopath’ lurking over his shoulder like some sort of ‘deranged guardian angel.’
As they sat there in silence against the cool night air, Dexter couldn’t help but tread down a mental road he’d all but abandoned at this point in his life. Wendell’s support was, arguably, all he really had on that front anymore, though he pondered if there was any truth to that or not. His family had always loved him…his mom doted on him, his dad supported any pursuit he put his mind to, his younger brother looked up to him like he was already an idol in this world. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins…they all loved him, cared for him, wanted to see him succeed, and he’d cut it all away. Freeing himself from the rose-tinted screen of social media and seeing the true state of the world around him, eroded and toxified by all the lies and twisted nonsense perpetuated and circulated on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and so on had left him with a jaded outlook the likes of which he didn’t even know was possible, and he couldn’t even bring himself to look at the people who loved him the same way, wondering just how far gone they all truly were when they questioned what brought this sudden change on and ignored his pleas to at least try putting the phones down, shutting down the computers and just doing something together as a family, like old times. Did him going off the grid change anything with them? Did they finally listen? Did they even care, now or at all?
“Thank you Wendell,” he finally said, getting a nod from his flunky in response. “It’s good to know that I at least managed to save somebody in this world before this cyber cancer claimed their life.”
“Sometimes, all it takes is one gesture, one word, to change the course of someone's life,” Wendell replied. “We just need to figure out what that is for everybody else so we can start detoxing the whole world.”
“Quite a profound statement coming from you.”
“It was from Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo.”
“A criminally underrated classic, for sure.”
Dexter glanced around for a moment, taking in the beautiful sight of Vancouver at night.
“You know something?” he said. “For as much as I’ve wandered around, trying to spread my message even before I tried wrestling as my platform for making my voice heard, I’ve never really taken the time to truly appreciate anywhere. I’ve been so lost in how soulless it all feels like it’s become now for so long that I’ve been no better about appreciating what places like this truly have to offer even without having my nose buried in a phone. Maybe we should actually take some time to de-stress from our mission, just take a bit of time to take it all in.”
“We’ll have plenty of time until that next SCW Breakdown,” Wendell noted.
“Then we really don’t have any excuse not to just enjoy where we’re at, clear our heads and come back refocused and ready to make an example out of someone else. Actually live life, and not in that stupid…what the hell is the social media thing people call it?”
“YOLO, I believe,” Wendell clarified, which just makes Dexter cringe.
“Yeah, none of that bullshit,” he stated as he stood up and headed off, knowing Wendell was trailing behind him.
Needless to say, it certainly felt like a long time since Dexter had just…lived, doing something beyond his cause. He wasn’t a big fan of a lot of what he and Wendell ended up doing before they left Vancouver and Canada as a whole behind, mostly because of his growing irritation with how computerized a lot of it had become or the presence of people who ruined the experience because they were more interested in how many likes they could get instead of enjoying the experiences, but he did ultimately enjoy himself.
It was just the reminder he needed to remind himself of what he was fighting for, and why he would slowly but surely detox every aspect of SCW until it was purged of the social sickness that was eating away at it from the inside.
If you asked Dexter himself however, he would say he’s only just getting started.
It wasn’t a claim he’d make because he was a modest man, far from it. In Dexter’s mind, his presence across three SCW shows now had barely done a thing to curb the rampant social media usage plaguing the company and its fan base. He’d hijacked some airtime to give one of his soapbox speeches, he’d decimated a man who was probably as lousy a geography teacher as he was a wrestler, and tonight he’d effectively mocked a man who may have been the big deal he claimed to be once upon a time and offered him some help in planning for his impending retirement.
A tad harsh? Perhaps. But people like Gavin Taylor made Dexter sick. Perhaps goading him into an inevitable match and ripping him apart so thoroughly Gavin would have no choice but to retire was a blessing in disguise, denying the man a purpose to slowly wither away scrolling through his feed until the digital cancer ultimately killed him. Dexter had even offered him someone to actually call and talk to so he could set himself up for life after wrestling to avoid that perilous pitfall.
All in all, Dexter was trying to be a patient man, knowing that it would take time to spread his message and get humanity to change its ways. The problem was that he was only one man trying to make a difference on this great big ball of water and dirt, and he knew that time was running out to make the impact he needed to in order to prevent extinction.
“Do you think we went a little too far Dexter?” Wendell asked as the two made their way through the backstage area of the Rogers Arena, having just finished Dexter’s sermon to punctuate Gavin’s latest defeat.
“Hardly,” Dexter grunted. “Too far would’ve been literally kicking Gavin while he was down, putting him in the hold and forcing him to Disconnect to Reconnect. I probably would’ve put him into immediate retirement, but the endgame isn’t senseless destruction Wendell. Remember: we’re trying to save these people.”
Dexter motioned to several other wrestlers and workers loitering around backstage, either waiting for the moment the camera would be on them for some segment of this show or just killing time until their match came up. A low growl escaped his throat when he saw that most of them were just mindlessly typing or scrolling away on their phones, but he was ignored as he and Wendell trudged along.
“I just wish we had more people devoted to this cause,” Dexter huffed. “Don’t get me wrong Wendell, you’ve been an invaluable asset in this fight, but we’re still only two people trying to open everybody’s eyes and SAVE THEM FROM THEIR IMPENDING DIGITAL DEATHS!”
Raising his voice had gotten the result he wanted, with some people looking away from their phones to give him their attention. He knew who all these wrestlers were, he’d done his homework watching SCW shows to prepare for his arrival, making sure all the stats added up to bolster his message. Right now, though, who they were was irrelevant so long as their eyes weren’t being sucked into their screens. Unfortunately, it was a short lived victory, as they all went back to their devices just as quickly.
“Idiots, all of them,” Dexter growled, frustrated that not even a basic insult could yield another small victory at the very least.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to think about picking a fight back here Dexter?” Wendell asked. Dexter noted the trembling in his voice, and he couldn’t blame the kid. Wendell was no wrestler or fighter, this wasn’t a place where he belonged. His devotion to the cause brought him into a world that would eat him alive if he ever left Dexter’s sight.
“I’m not the one looking to start something over trivial internet bullshit,” Dexter argued, and he wasn’t wrong. Dexter Grant was not a stupid man…he knew that if he attacked every schmuck who thought it’d be funny to record one of his soapbox speeches and try to make a ‘meme’ or whatever the hell it was called out of his honest words, he’d have been serving prison time by now and may even still be locked up to this day for all he knew. He was well aware that if he started a fight back here that wasn’t televised to feed to the mindless masses as ‘entertainment’ then he risked being fired, axing probably his best chance yet of actually getting the truth out there.
Now, someone else throwing the first punch and Dexter being able to use ‘self-defense’ as an excuse for whatever happened next?
As tempting as that prospect was, no one was looking to take the bait. Each and every person around him was too busy eroding their minds with more digital drivel, and Dexter doubted he was going to make any further progress tonight.
“Let’s go Wendell. Let those fans ‘enjoy’ this show without truly connecting with what they’re watching. This company can keep promoting it all like some social media spotfest…Apocalypse, what a fitting name.”
“What’s the plan Dexter?”
“Getting out of this frozen wasteland of a country, for one thing,” Dexter spat as he and Wendell found the exit and started to leave the Rogers Arena behind, letting SCW continue on with its so-called Apocalypse. “I’ve spoken my piece and Gavin can grapple with the slow death of his relevance for the next week or so. We’ve got battle plans to draw up for the next show.”
One thing that Dexter had been told when he showed up to the arena tonight, despite not being booked, was that he would be in action on the next Breakdown. The thought of it being promoted as a special Saturday night edition of the weekly show made his skin crawl as that was practically begging for likes and retweets and shares and whatever else this digital menace had programmed into it to spread like the virus it truly was. Still, it was another match, a chance to either save some poor soul from the brink of cyber-oblivion or use them as a message to make sure his voice was heard.
“Well, your actions tonight have made it onto Twitter at least,” Wendell noted, having pulled out his phone to begin scrolling through the feed from his lurker account. Dexter glanced around quickly to confirm that they were far enough away from the arena so no one could call them out for the hypocrisy…even if Wendell was the only hypocrite despite doing so under Dexter’s orders. “Not exactly trending aside from being tied into any larger talk about Apocalypse…”
“Trending was never the plan anyway,” Dexter growled. “I could care less what these people say about me on those digital dumpster fires. If anything, I wish my name was blacklisted or something so it could be left off these godforsaken platforms in the first place. I cut that cancer out of my life for a reason.”
“Well, in terms of getting your message out there…” Wendell hesitantly continued. “No one’s taking it seriously. They’re joking about how it’s all a gimmick, and a quote ‘dumb one at that.’ Otherwise, they’re talking about the quote ‘balls’ you showed in trying to take a huge jump in competition for a newcomer by going after Gavin. Those conversations then start branching off into what title you’re hoping to pursue if you beat him and…”
“OF COURSE THOSE MINDLESS MASSES MISSED THE ENTIRE GOD DAMNED POINT!”
Dexter kicked the bench at the bus stop they were passing by, his frustrations getting the better of him. Thankfully, no one was around, probably because a good chunk of the city was attending the show, but that didn’t keep the anger from boiling beneath his skin. Wendell opened his mouth to ask something, but quickly thought better of it as Dexter aggressively sat down, huffing and puffing until he’d gotten himself sorted out again.
“Of course they don’t understand, think this is all just one big gimmick because I’m trying to play the ‘bad guy’ or whatever. That’s what SCW’s PR department wants them all to think, that’s what these big tech companies want the world to believe I am. This isn’t about me…it sure as shit isn’t about Gavin or Chase or anyone in that company. Yeah, I targeted Gavin while he’s at a low point, and I don’t care. I’m not trying to use him as a springboard to championship gold just because he almost achieved this or that. He embodies everything that I legitimately despise…people constantly reinventing themselves for nothing more than validation from idiots online who don’t actually know him but want to be just like him. He’s a fake, and not in the way of calling his entire act a gimmick. He’s a product of this digital age who needs to be brought back into reality and shown just how worthless he truly is in the grand schemes of this social media machine. I just wish people actually understood that…not just buy into whatever picture is being painted about me on these sites because they’re all brainwashed into believing sensationalist garbage instead of actually trying to find the facts.”
“I understand…” Wendell carefully said as he sat down beside Dexter, earning a raised eyebrow from the sulking savior. “Maybe that doesn’t mean a whole lot since I’ve believed in your cause for years now, but at least I know what you truly stand for and will follow you to the end in trying to open people’s eyes.”
Dexter exhaled, leaning back against the bench as he stared out at the city around him. Wendell was right, he hadn’t fully valued the young man’s input because he knew he could always count on him to support the neverending fight against this social sickness. Even still, Wendell was proof that someone at least understood his true intentions and seriously supported his cause all the same. Despite convincing Wendell to create lurker accounts for the sole purpose of online recon to strengthen their message without actually interacting with anything, the kid had otherwise purged every online presence he had and was honestly looking much better off for it. Hateful online vitriol using his name would never greet his eyes and convince him to consider crossing a point of no return with his life, and most of those who had bullied him now knew better than to get physical with him anymore…not when he had a ‘certified psychopath’ lurking over his shoulder like some sort of ‘deranged guardian angel.’
As they sat there in silence against the cool night air, Dexter couldn’t help but tread down a mental road he’d all but abandoned at this point in his life. Wendell’s support was, arguably, all he really had on that front anymore, though he pondered if there was any truth to that or not. His family had always loved him…his mom doted on him, his dad supported any pursuit he put his mind to, his younger brother looked up to him like he was already an idol in this world. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins…they all loved him, cared for him, wanted to see him succeed, and he’d cut it all away. Freeing himself from the rose-tinted screen of social media and seeing the true state of the world around him, eroded and toxified by all the lies and twisted nonsense perpetuated and circulated on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and so on had left him with a jaded outlook the likes of which he didn’t even know was possible, and he couldn’t even bring himself to look at the people who loved him the same way, wondering just how far gone they all truly were when they questioned what brought this sudden change on and ignored his pleas to at least try putting the phones down, shutting down the computers and just doing something together as a family, like old times. Did him going off the grid change anything with them? Did they finally listen? Did they even care, now or at all?
“Thank you Wendell,” he finally said, getting a nod from his flunky in response. “It’s good to know that I at least managed to save somebody in this world before this cyber cancer claimed their life.”
“Sometimes, all it takes is one gesture, one word, to change the course of someone's life,” Wendell replied. “We just need to figure out what that is for everybody else so we can start detoxing the whole world.”
“Quite a profound statement coming from you.”
“It was from Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo.”
“A criminally underrated classic, for sure.”
Dexter glanced around for a moment, taking in the beautiful sight of Vancouver at night.
“You know something?” he said. “For as much as I’ve wandered around, trying to spread my message even before I tried wrestling as my platform for making my voice heard, I’ve never really taken the time to truly appreciate anywhere. I’ve been so lost in how soulless it all feels like it’s become now for so long that I’ve been no better about appreciating what places like this truly have to offer even without having my nose buried in a phone. Maybe we should actually take some time to de-stress from our mission, just take a bit of time to take it all in.”
“We’ll have plenty of time until that next SCW Breakdown,” Wendell noted.
“Then we really don’t have any excuse not to just enjoy where we’re at, clear our heads and come back refocused and ready to make an example out of someone else. Actually live life, and not in that stupid…what the hell is the social media thing people call it?”
“YOLO, I believe,” Wendell clarified, which just makes Dexter cringe.
“Yeah, none of that bullshit,” he stated as he stood up and headed off, knowing Wendell was trailing behind him.
Needless to say, it certainly felt like a long time since Dexter had just…lived, doing something beyond his cause. He wasn’t a big fan of a lot of what he and Wendell ended up doing before they left Vancouver and Canada as a whole behind, mostly because of his growing irritation with how computerized a lot of it had become or the presence of people who ruined the experience because they were more interested in how many likes they could get instead of enjoying the experiences, but he did ultimately enjoy himself.
It was just the reminder he needed to remind himself of what he was fighting for, and why he would slowly but surely detox every aspect of SCW until it was purged of the social sickness that was eating away at it from the inside.