The Bottom Club

20 | conflate

A FEW DAYS of brainstorming passed before Wyatt recalled the tidbit his sister mentioned during their FaceTime, and he decided to investigate for himself. It was love at first sight, because as soon as he lay eyes on the minimalist aesthetic of the login page, which consisted primarily of a smokey taupe color (though the designers had managed to incorporate lots of white space), he knew that it was the place for him.

An uncluttered layout, along with a series of mouth-watering hi-res images that displayed podcast setups from the very elaborate to some that had definitely seen better days, was the final nail on the coffin to ensure that.

Wyatt was obsessed and for the first time in as long as he could remember, it had nothing to do with a boy―not even remotely. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one he would describe as good if pressed.

From a bit of internet sleuthing, he'd learnt that Podster initially started out as the final year project of three UCAL seniors who, on the advice of their professor, began to seek out corporate sponsors with a goal for expansion. They proceeded to launch in the early summer of 2015, and from a viral New York Times article that dubbed them the YouTube of Podcasting, the hype caught on like wildfire, growing until they got hit by a barrage of intellectual property related lawsuits, at which point they took Podster off both the IOS and Android app stores.

Within two weeks it was acquired by a family-owned American conglomerate, Donato Inc., and within four it had made its comeback to the app stores with a sleek new logo and design, going on to win several awards in the years that would follow. It had been smooth sailing ever since.

Are you a Consumer or a Creator?

Wyatt stared at the question at the top of the login box―then below, in a New Times Roman font, he read, Don't have an account?

His eyes returned to their former position, where the words seemed to taunt him without even trying.

Are you a Consumer or a Creator?

"Neither," he muttered under his breath as he pulled up the page to fill in his details. "I am a burden."

He cracked up at this, but it was fleeting as he realized how pathetic he must've looked from outside, alone in his room laughing at his own little bad joke.

A page pulled up, asking him to input a username, and naturally he typed his first and last name. A tiny red X icon appeared beside it after a couple of seconds, indicating that the name was already taken. He tried this with a variation of dots and underscores all to no avail, then tried a couple of other options that also happened to be taken.

Taking a deep breath, Wyatt imagined the thrill of opening an anonymous account, into which he'd spill all his secrets for the world without a care in the world, but just as quickly as it came the dream vanished.

He wasn't good at espionage, and even if he was he could say all that he intended to without having to hide his identity. Besides, doing so would effectively strip him of bragging rights. He was sure that mentioning you had a podcast you'd opened for purely vindictive purposes added, like, two times more personality.

On a whim, he typed in his full name into the username section and a green tick appeared beside it.

Of course it was available. Embarrassing middle names were so expected that it was almost a cliche, but even at that Wyatt believed his parents must've had a vendetta out against him to do him dirty the way they did.

The words that he had been dreading appeared on the screen once more:

Are you a Consumer or a Creator?