Sara spent a few weeks recovering from her injuries. The F.R.I. decided not to press any charges, which was a relief to Sara's mother and father. Sara's mother came home within that month. Other than looking like she need more sleep, she appeared to be completely unharmed.
Sara's injuries…weren't as bad as she thought they were.
Her leg had been popped out of place and her arm was broken. She received a minor sprain to her neck and some bumps and bruises. Of course, Sara wanted to start vlogging immediately after she woke up. She needed to fan the flames as much as possible.
The doctor wouldn't let her and made her wait almost an entire week before allowing her to check her Televiz and post to PicNic. She posted a photo first, with help from one of the nurses.
Then, after checking her Televiz, she felt her heart skip a beat.
All of her videos had gone up by thousands of views. Some, the ones that had the camera facing her directly, had over ten thousand views. At first, Sara didn't understand what was happening. Then…she read some of the comments.
"OMG It really is her! I'm dyig!"
"Posts Sh*ttty video's by day,
fights for social inequality and gets hit by own cab also by day."
"BIYAH!"
"BIYAH"
"Just stopping by to say a few words on this poor girls sacrifice for the greater good…BIYAH!"
Most of the comments were posting a made up word. Sara couldn't understand what was going on. She hadn't yet posted her video of her confronting the office of the F.R.I. so how did these people seem to already know about it?
A quick internet search gave her the answer. She couldn't find anything when she searched her name, but when she searched the term "biyah" she was lead to a popular MEME site. There, she was staring at a screen shot of her being hit by the cab. The captions were as thus:
"Posts shitty videos on Televiz by night
Gets hit by own cab by day"
"The system is unfair
fight with honor, strength and…BIYAH"
"The fight for equality had always needed heros
Biyah-the first hero to brave the storm of ridicule."
Then, there were short video clips of her being hit by the car. Sara finally understood why everyone kept saying the word BIYAH in her comments.
As she was hit by the car, she was trying to say the word bitch, but the impact had caused the word to be distorted, making it come out as a partial scream.
There weren't just MEMEs with her as the photo, there were others that utilized her made up word and even photo's of her.
Like the long standing cooking MEME of a famous cooking show actor where the actor was haphazardly tossing ingredients into a pot of stew.
"This is a little bland
Needs more BIYAH."
The picture had a small photo of her getting hit by the cab, being tossed into the pot.
Sara was stunned for a moment before finally crying out in elation and disbelief.
The nurses close by were worried by the sudden distress of their patient, but Sara assured them she was fine and they went back to their stations. A cautious glance was tossed in the direction of Sara's room every now and then with the occasional suggestion of psychiatric care being sought.
As Sara calmed, she realized just what this meant.
Viral sensation.
There were certain exceptions to the fame ranking rules. Viral sensations were probably the most well known of those exceptions. The biggest thing that determines fame is, "How many people know this person?" If someone is hated by millions of people, they are still famous. No publicity is bad publicity. If you can't be famous, then be infamous. So, even if you don't have a lot of "fans" you could still be famous if the average person was able to recognize you on the street. Viral sensations, most of the time, were those types of people. They may not have "fans", but they were "famous" without a doubt. Just look at Sara's Telviz. The people that had flocked to her page and followed her and left comments were not fans of hers, they just found her "biyah" clip and started digging. In short, they were mostly trolls. But, that didn't matter. The best thing about the internet is that everything is both public and anonymous at the same time. You can choose to put everything out there (this is the path most take), or you can choose to change who you are, using only deceptive descriptions of yourself on any page or channel that you have (this is the path most that want to troll around use). With one, you become nothing more than a public toy, your life becomes entertainment for the masses, and the other you're able to become anyone, or anything you want. You're usually the quite, reserved type that can't seem to get anyone to listen to you even if you were to scream at the top of your lungs in a busy room? But online you're the well known gamer that's famous for trolling the other players in the Virtual reality community. You're mysterious because you never show your face and you have entire fan clubs of people that basically worship you.
The fame rankings do not discriminate. They give credit where credit is due. Sara became internet famous in a short period of time, and she would probably become yesterday's news just as fast. Most of the time, becoming a viral sensation was like winning the lottery. Most people would win, and then lose everything within a year.
There were exceptions, but not many.
Sara stared down at her followers and the comments they left. She wanted to be the exception.
Her first reaction was to try to film something for her "fans", but after starting and stopping three different times, she gave up.
She wasn't sure what these people wanted from her. She didn't know how to keep them watching…What did they want to see?
Sara decided to wait a while before posting and started looking into what people were saying about her. To do this, she needed to try to get as close to the original post as possible. It has to be said that by the time Sara noticed her viral nature, her shenanigans had already been circulating for almost a week. Finding the original post was next to impossible, but that didn't keep her from trying.
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