Once my posts bloomed, like flowers in spring, brands reached out to me. Girls wanted to be me; their boyfriends wanted me. The algorithm looked at me like a benevolent god looking down at ants, with indifference.

Then it moved on to another ant, leaving me stranded. Leaving me scrambling for more. My reach dropped, my likes thinned, and my relevance disappeared.

So I escalated. Did what any reasonable person would do when they saw the means of their livelihood declining. I am human, after all—a flawed human, who would do anything to preserve their legacy.

A pedestrian bumped into me while I was fishing for content. It seemed intentional, but my reaction wasn’t. I shoved him, screamed at him, made sure everyone was watching.

My followers loved it—too much, honestly. Other creators praised my “bravery” and called me a visionary. Called me brave. Called my content real. But I couldn’t help but feel that I had lit the fuse for something terrible, and God, was I right.

Within days of my incident, there was a spike in similar content to mine. Content creators harassing pedestrians out of the blue, testing their patience. And when they finally lost it, these creators resorted to assault.

Pranking grandmothers with emotional damage. One guy apologized mid-punch because he forgot to tag the location. It was called a trend. It had a hashtag.

I was arrogant then. I believed I had simply cracked the code. “People want chaos,” I told a podcast host who nodded like a bobblehead with a degree.

“This is performance art.” I wore black turtlenecks. I used words like disruption. I believed history would remember me kindly—maybe even verify me twice.

But the market changed. Rage inflated. Harassment devalued. What once shocked people now barely registered.

You had to go harder. Louder. Meaner. Eventually, the algorithm demanded blood the way gods demand sacrifice: often, publicly, and never satisfied.

I watched my followers turn on me—not because I’d started it, but because I’d stopped enjoying it. Regret doesn’t trend well. Guilt gets shadowbanned. When I tried to pivot to accountability, they asked if it was satire. When I cried, they asked for a thumbnail.

Some nights I lie awake, scrolling through the wreckage: influencers chasing strangers like loose thoughts, pedestrians flinching at ring lights, an entire economy built on the idea that harm is just another content pillar.

They say creators shape culture. I didn’t shape it. I detonated it. And now the fallout settles everywhere: on timelines, on sidewalks, in comment sections that read like confessionals written by wolves.

If this is my legacy, let it be known: I wasn’t chasing cruelty. I was chasing relevance. Cruelty just happened to convert better.

The reach is gone now. The silence is loud. And somewhere out there, a new creator is staring at their analytics, thinking the same dangerous thought I once did:

What’s the worst thing I could do… that might work?