Fishbowl (15 page)

‘They're awesome. I mean, totally awesome. What Andrei and Kevin have done with the advertising just blows your mind. Ed Standish says we're running at three, four times what he would have expected. But I swear to you, I don't think Andrei's even aware of that. And when he decides to do something that generates even more revenue, it's not because he thinks, I can extract more money here, it's because he's thinking, I can make this better, this can be more efficient. And you know what? That gets us
more
revenue. It's like this magic formula. It's totally win-win.'

‘And you don't think,' said Chris sceptically, ‘at the back of his mind, somewhere, there's this little voice saying, “OK, but we can earn some more money out of this as well”?'

‘I don't,' said Ben. ‘I really don't think so. I think he's thinking about efficiency.'

Chris took another mouthful of beer, considering what Ben had said. ‘So if that's Andrei's yardstick, efficiency, what about not making the world worse? You can do things efficiently that will make the world worse.'

‘Sure. He doesn't want to do that. That's a serious thing with him. If he thinks something's going to make the world worse, he's not going to do it, no matter how efficiently. But I don't think he's got a clear yardstick for what makes the world better or worse. That's just gut, whereas for him efficiency is quantifiable, so it's that much more concrete.' Ben shrugged. ‘But you know, when it comes to the big moral stuff, what makes the world better or worse, that's all any of us have, really. We dress it up in all kinds of ways – religion, humanism, whatever – but in reality it's just gut. That's the yardstick. It's what you learn at your mother's knee.'

Chris was silent. He watched the ping-pong game. The ball went back and forth over the net. ‘I haven't had much to do with Kevin,' he said eventually.

‘He's a little … he was a little funny about you buying into the company.'

‘I guessed that. You know, I didn't ask to buy in. Andrei asked me.'

‘Doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Do we need someone who knows about running a business? Hell, yes. Is that worth five per cent of the business? I'm guessing it is, whoever's idea it was.'

‘But Kevin doesn't think so?'

‘I really don't know what he thinks now. We haven't talked about it in a while.'

‘What does he do with these personalities he constructs?'

‘Just chat, I guess. Clearly, he gets something out of masquerading behind these facades.' Ben laughed. ‘If I ever need a subject for a doctoral thesis …'

Chris looked at the living room. Kevin hadn't moved. He was still fixed in front of his computer, staring at the screen. Chris felt there was something weird in what he had been told, as if he had just heard that Kevin liked wearing his girlfriend's panties. Not that it was odd to go online anonymously or under a pseudonym – but to make up a whole personality with the kind of detail Ben had mentioned was somewhat more than that.

But there was something that appealed to him about it as well, something that spoke to Chris's spiritual side. He could see that there could be something liberating, potentially empowering about leaving behind who you were and immersing yourself in the mind and body of another being that you had created. All native cultures have mind-opening ceremonies that take the participants out of themselves and lift them into another realm, and Chris had experienced them first hand on three different continents. There was something about what Kevin was doing that reminded him of that, albeit Kevin was doing it in a radically different way. Maybe, he thought, this was a digital-age version of the rites that every culture had produced in every age since the dawn of time.

‘You said he concocts photos?' said Chris.

Ben nodded. ‘You should see the work he does. It's amazing. He uses Facemaker or Photox or one of those programs, depending on what he's trying to do. But he's improved them. He's created functionalities that would blow your mind.'

‘Awesome.'

‘He did a Cooley, too. Got some guy to switch from buying one brand of wetsuit to another. Kevin – or Tonya, I should say, who was this South African woman Kevin invented who liked to swim with sharks – told him he'd show a big packet.'

Chris laughed.

‘What can I tell you? The guy went out and bought it.'

Chris's laughter stopped. ‘Seriously?'

‘Seriously. I think it's a terrible thing to do, but that's Kevin.'

‘And does he still go online as Tonya?'

‘I don't think so. The guy with the big packet wanted to talk to her so he made her disappear. I guess we've still got him – or her – in our archive. Nothing ever goes away, does it?'

‘No, nothing,' murmured Chris. He gazed at Kevin for a moment longer, then turned back and picked up a fresh beer. He put it to his mouth, again watching the ping-pong ball going back and forth across the table.
Click, clack
… An idea was
lodging itself in Chris Hamer's mind as he let the glass of the bottle linger against his lips. ‘I wonder which brand of wet suit that guy's buying now.'

18

KEVIN'S PREDILECTION FOR
impersonation played on Chris's mind. He couldn't decide whether it was brilliantly subversive or disgustingly childish. Probably both, as the most subversive things often were. Primitive cultures always had trickster gods and heroes, lovable scallywags who illuminate through prank. Chris thought of the myths and stories he had heard from Aboriginal Australians only months before.

A few days later, when Ben had gone to Stanford to arrange something about his upcoming return to the university, Chris suggested to Andrei and Kevin that they go to Yao's.

Lopez took their orders and they soon settled into their usual meals. Andrei got the fried prawn and chicken noodles, Chris had the kung pao chicken and Kevin the Vietnamese rice noodles.

‘So tell me about Tonya,' Chris opened.

Kevin looked up at him. ‘Who told you about Tonya?'

‘Ben.'

‘Well, it's nothing. She's gone.' Kevin dug into his noodles in a way that suggested he wasn't going to say anything else.

Chris glanced at Andrei, who was putting a forkful of chicken in his mouth.

‘Ben said you guys had quite an argument about it,' said Chris, still trying to open the subject.

Kevin shrugged. ‘Dude, we have arguments about all kinds of things. It's healthy.'

‘I'm interested to hear the points.'

Kevin was silent.

‘We can't stop people doing it,' said Andrei.

‘That doesn't mean you should encourage it.'

‘It's not an argument about what we can and can't stop,' said Kevin impatiently. ‘Look, why do we have to tell you about this? It happened before you came. We had a discussion, we agreed on a policy. I don't see why we have to put the case to you like you're some kind of judge.'

‘I'm not judging anything. I'm just interested.'

‘Whatever.'

There was silence.

‘Why do you say it's not an argument about what you can stop?' said Chris. ‘I would have thought that's exactly what it is.'

Kevin sighed. He shook his head for a moment, then looked at Chris. ‘It's a philosophical argument, Chris. OK? If people choose to behave like that in cyberspace, who are we to stop them? Who are we to say it's wrong? Cyberspace isn't physical space. Different space – different rules.'

‘I thought the idea behind Fishbowll was Deep Connectedness between people.'

‘And what if pseudonymity facilitates that?' riposted Kevin. ‘You get more Deep Connectedness.'

‘False Deep Connectedness.'

‘Why? What's false about it? What would be false would be to try to force someone to do things in a way that you prescribe. They won't do it. Therefore you'll have less Deep Connectedness.'

‘So it's better to have more Deep Connectedness, if some of it's false, than less Deep Connectedness, if it's all true?'

‘I don't see the distinction,' said Kevin. ‘Dude, I told you, I don't think there's such a thing as this false Deep Connectedness you talk about. That's a false dichotomy. It's your construct and I dispute it. The connection between me, as Tonya, and the other shark swimmers, if you want an example, was real. I was interested in shark swimming, I learned, I contributed, I developed, and maybe I helped them develop. Where's the falsity?'

‘You had to make Tonya disappear.'

‘Because someone wanted to take that personality from the cyber world – where she existed – into the physical world. Is that my fault? It's like taking a fish out of water. We have two worlds on this planet, water and air, and very few creatures can live in both of them. Well, in human cultures, we now have two worlds as well, the physical and the cyber. Some people are amphibians. Some choose not to be.'

‘I'm not sure I buy the analogy.'

Kevin stabbed at his noodles. ‘I'm not trying to sell it to you.'

‘What do you think, Andrei?' said Chris.

‘Dude, we had the conversation!' Noodles flew out of Kevin's mouth. ‘This was before you. It doesn't concern you. We had the conversation and we decided what we were doing. We're not reopening it.'

Chris waited a moment. ‘Andrei?'

Kevin rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

‘I think Kevin has a good point,' said Andrei. ‘The way the cyber world develops isn't set in stone. Social networking sites took a step forward towards Deep Connectedness. With Fisbbowll, I think we're taking another step forward and we're getting to a much deeper, more meaningful level. But to do that, we have to have a broad conceptualization of what Deep Connectedness might mean. We need to be inclusive. We need to offer as much as we can. Because what Deep Connectedness looks like when it fully develops – what the players in that world look like – I think that's something the cyber world itself will have to choose. It may look different in different places. It may look different on Fishbowll compared to some other site. That's because people would be using Fishbowll and other sites for different aspects of Deep Connectedness, which is totally cool. So, philosophically, I agree with Kevin. The cyber world will evolve as suits it best, just like the physical world. There'll be things that don't work and therefore disappear – evolutionary dead ends, if you will – and things that do work and survive. I don't know that it won't be, but I hope Fishbowll isn't a dead end. What I am pretty sure I do know is that
the best way to make it one is if we sit here deciding how everything's got to be. That decision has to come from the users.' Andrei glanced at Kevin. Then he shrugged. ‘That's my perspective.'

‘I don't disagree with it,' said Chris. ‘I don't disagree with what either of you have said. Kevin, the distinction I drew between true and false Deep Connectedness is an artificial construct, I agree. And by the way, I think it's great that you guys think about this stuff and debate it.'

‘Like we need your approval,' growled Kevin.

‘I also think that most people are so focused on their own selfish desires for whatever they can get out of what's put in front of them that they will pay very little attention to the way things are developing. So the way things develop … I think that's going to happen blind.'

‘Evolution is blind,' said Andrei.

‘True. But not even evolution is as blind as we are. When social networking sites took off, if people had been told they could have a free site where all their data's exposed so any advertiser can hit on them, or they could have a site that might cost them a few bucks a year but their data would be completely protected and they'd never see an unsolicited message, what do you think they would have said? That's the trade-off, right? But look where we are. Now, what does that tell you?'

‘That we're a sad species,' muttered Kevin.

Chris laughed. ‘What I'm interested in is what would be the effect on Fishbowll if it became known that
x
per cent of profiles were … I won't use the word false … let's say pseudonymous.'

‘They do know. It's right there on the home page.
You may encounter avatars, pseudonyms and even real people.'

‘Do people read that? Do they process it?'

‘Did you?' retorted Kevin. ‘Look, it's there. We're not people's mothers. Fishbowll's there for them. They do what they want with it.'

‘I think it could have an effect,' said Andrei, ‘if something happened to make it a real issue that there are people using
Fishbowll under pseudonyms. You know, if there was some kind of major crime or something that could somehow be linked to that.'

‘Like people who
don't
commit crimes don't use pseudonyms,' said Kevin.

‘Exactly,' said Andrei. ‘I think the effect would be short term. I'm trying to build something for the long term. I'm looking ten, twenty, thirty years out. I want Fishbowll to be the true global dating site for ideas, the place you go to make connections. I want the clusters that are only potential today, because people can't find their way to others in their cluster, to become real. And that can only happen through Deep Connectedness. And if that's going to happen, like I said, it's going to happen in the way the cyber community wants it to. Which means we need to have that broad conceptualization, be open to what they want. If they want pseudonyms, it's going to be with pseudonyms. Or not. I don't know. I don't care. The only thing I do know is that it's not going to happen in the way three guys at Yao's says it has to happen. That might work for a few years, but after that, if we don't let our users mould our service in the way they want it to be, someone else will appear and fill that gap. I don't want to leave a gap. I don't have an ideological need that forces me to leave that gap.' Andrei looked directly at Chris. ‘Do you?'

Chris laughed. ‘I have no ideological need at all.'

‘So we're good?' said Andrei.

‘We're good.' Chris looked at Kevin. ‘I wasn't questioning the decision, Kevin. I just wanted to understand how it was made.'

The next time Chris had a chance to talk to Kevin, he mentioned Tonya again. He said Ben had told him that Kevin had done a Cooley.

‘Wow,' said Kevin, ‘Ben's really been talking, hasn't he? Why are you so interested?'

‘I'd like to see how it's done.'

‘Why?'

‘I just would.'

‘Go take a class,' said Kevin.

‘I don't think they have classes for this.'

‘Bad luck.'

But Chris persisted whenever he had the opportunity, trying to get Kevin to show him Tonya's home page. Kevin said the home page was deregistered. They both knew he could recover it if he wanted to. Chris told him that Ben had said he used Photox and had actually improved it, and asked Kevin to show him what he had done to the program. Grudgingly, Kevin mentioned some of the technical details. Chris wanted to know more. Over time, Kevin's conversations with Chris grew longer. The chance to talk about his obsession got the better of him, especially as Ben, who had shared his early forays into psuedonymity, seemed to have had some kind of religious conversion against it. Kevin was still somewhat resentful of Chris, and he wasn't completely sure that Chris wasn't going to turn around at some point and ridicule him over his online personas, but eventually, one night, Kevin couldn't help himself. He pulled up a home page dominated by a picture of a grinning woman sitting in a boat with a great white rearing out of the water in the background. ‘This is Tonya!'

Chris sat beside him, fascinated. He was full of questions about what Kevin had done, how he had conceived of Tonya's persona, how he produced the photos, how he had introduced her into Fishbowll. Kevin clicked through a few more photos that he had posted on the site. The same woman's face peered out, at a party, with friends, and, of course, on boats or in the water. A couple of pictures showed her bobbing at the surface in a shark cage, a big grin on her face and the tiniest bikini imaginable covering her butt. Chris couldn't believe Kevin had concocted those photos out of fragments of other shots.

By now, Kevin had lost the last vestiges of his suspicions about Chris's motives and was enthusiastically telling him how he constructed and managed his personas. Photoxing photos was only part of it. You had to get into the head of the persona. You
had to know the kind of things they would they do, the kind of things would they say. It all had to be coherent.

‘It's like being a novelist,' said Chris.

‘A little, I guess. You know, there was a time when I was a kid that I wanted to be a screenwriter.'

‘Really?'

‘I never thought I could be an actor.'

That wasn't the last time they discussed his pseudonymous activity. They bonded over it. Kevin's residual resentment of Chris for being allowed to buy into Fishbowll drained away. He revealed other profiles to him, personas he had kept secret from Andrei and Ben. Chris kept asking him questions, wanting to know more. They spent hours at Kevin's screen, looking over messages that had come in for his personas, deciding how to act, what to say, what photos to concoct. Chris couldn't seem to get enough of it.

Then Chris said he wanted to develop a profile. Kevin shared his improved versions of Facemaker and Photox, and helped him do it.