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MidReal Story
A new social media platform launched where users popularity was
Scenario:A new social media platform launched where users' popularity was determined by their contributions to solving global issues.
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The next day, I was all over the news.
The video my brother James had taken of me went viral.
It showed the moment I responded to a man in the audience who questioned the existence of climate change.
He’d suggested it was a scam to make people pay more taxes.
I’d told him to fuck off and pointed out that 97 percent of scientists agreed climate change was happening, and we all had a responsibility to do something about it.
The clip made me look like a raving lunatic.
But it resonated with a lot of viewers on Civic.
It went viral on the platform, where it quickly racked up millions of views.
At the time, that was more than even the launch event, which had featured the British Prime Minister, Alexander Johnson.
I was a thirty-one-year-old history teacher from the UK, but for a couple of days, I was Civic’s most influential user.
It was a bit of an adjustment.
I’d had no idea how to use the platform at first.
The interface was simple enough, but I’d found it hard to navigate.
Everywhere I clicked, people seemed to be talking about me.
Some Civic users were supportive of me and my message, while others were critical of my language and presentation.
I was even added to one user’s “enemies list.”
My fans told him to get his priorities straight and focus on the real enemy: climate change.
But on the whole, I didn’t think my message had been too controversial.
Climate change was already affecting millions of people around the world and would continue to have dire consequences if we didn’t do something about it.
Most people agreed with me, at least according to the comments on my video and on other videos about climate change.
Those who didn’t were given short shrift.
One man commented on my video: “She seems like she knows what she’s talking about, but she’s so angry and shouty.
I wouldn’t want to bring her home to meet my mum.”
A woman responded: “Yeah, she is a bit shouty, but have you seen the state of the planet?
She’s channeling our anger to make a difference.” And then they started discussing what household items we could all give up to reduce our carbon footprints.
Civic users fell into two camps: those who admired my no-nonsense attitude and those who thought I should have been more polite to the man in the audience, even though he was being a dick.
The media was another matter.
It was fascinated by the angry woman from the Royal Parks, as it called me.
Newspapers and TV channels all wanted to interview me, but I wasn’t interested in being their puppet for a day, only to be forgotten as soon as another scandal came along.
I had a message I wanted to get out, and I was going to use Civic to do it.
I’d talked to James about how I could best use my platform to raise awareness for important issues, such as education, gender equality, or climate change.
