“Fill up to your heart’s content!!!” The app’s mascot, a pig munching on newspaper, squealed happily as the man, self-titled The Coach, tapped on it again as he wasn’t sure if it was loading or frozen. The loading icon finally appeared after 1.3 seconds and he felt the relief wash over him. This was followed by a sense of annoyance as he realised he was back here again when he was sure he had something else to do. The trough zoomed out to fill the screen, this animal feeding box containing all the discussions going on categorised as various items of food, with a number above each to depict the amount of pigs feeding concurrently. The numbers jumped up and down, erratically. He rationalised that he had nothing urgent to do than push out his waste, so he snuffled his way through what was on offer. He went into the gaming section, represented by a donut.
The assistant measured the components of the excreted sweat from his thumb and recommended, through his phone speaker in a tinny English accent with the usual automated tone that went in all the wrong directions, a reduction of sodium intake. It also recommended installing a partner device in the toilet for more accurate results, sponsored by New! Reduced salt Crispy Crisps.
“Yeah, yeah, we get it”, said the Coach, pretending to talk aloud to himself, “the advertising is just so blatant these days.” He knew the assistant on his phone wouldn’t answer. Still, the intentions were fair, arguably; the products that were thrown in his face did actually match his interests. He still hated advertising in general, but didn’t mind the discount coupons. “I don’t mind the coupons though”, he reiterated aloud. The assistant didn’t seem to do anything in response, and there was no light or sound to betray it.
Annoyed, the Coach turned off the screen and noticed his grizzled face in the blackened mirror. There was a bit of hair sticking out the side so he lifted his cap and smoothed the hair back under. Annoying. It occurred to him to get up and wipe his behind but the smallest room in the flat was warm and quiet. There was nobody waiting beyond this door, nobody aggravating him, no demands, well, there was the cat, but she was already dozing off in the underwear and jogging bottoms draped between his feet. Surely it stank, but she seemed happy enough. So yeah, even less reason to move. He woke up his phone and swiped open the feed. He tried not to lean his neck forward, rotating and stretching his head, listening to the creaks and pops. These noises were not satisfying, they were annoying; he had enough physical issues to deal with already.
He noted the continued talk of the next GAFY game and what should be in it and how it should work. He noticed the trough of a possible beta test and inspected the queue for dinner.
“It is obvious,” he fed (to anyone who might hopefully take a fancy to it), “that the players should get priority. It’s all about the players, not those frauds who make one video and then move onto another game.”
There was no immediate gobble of this feed but he continued, a little disheartened, as usual.
“It makes me sick when GAFY gives some random person beta access to the game when they have no idea how to fucking play it and just make it look shit.”
This got a few gobbles, but Coach remained disheartened as he guessed it got reach due to the expletives rather than anything else. He pressed onwards, like a soldier, into the jungle, in the night.
“They better give keys to us, we know the game, we know what to test-” a notification interrupted his post. Someone had replied to his sick post.
“They should give Mr.Beardy99 a beta key. He’s funny.”
Jesus, he almost wept, is everyone on the net this stupid?
“I just bloody well told you, that prick” – he deleted and started again. “Sure,” he tapped out the message on his phone screen with more than a little irritation, “he’s funny but does he know how to play? Does he know the series?”
As he tried working on his draft, there was another notification:
“Yea, he’s played it a few times, it’ll be good lol.”
The snack post made Coach claw at his own face.
They just don’t get it. And why is he laughing when there’s nothing funny in his sentence?
Yes, he had assumed this poster was a guy. Whatever, now the coach waited for people to nominate himself as a choice of beta tester. None came. He checked his followers, all one hundred and twenty nine. Perhaps they were sleeping or the stupid network algorithm hadn’t shown them the feed. He just had to wait. No, fuck that. He had to produce more spicy feed for the trough. “There are people in this community, like myself, who know and love the series, we would do the game justice, we know exactly HOW to test the game.”
He tagged the community manager into the discussion but after sending the food, he remembered the lack of expletives. But that could be good, he knew he likely wouldn’t get a direct response but the manager was fairly sure to read it. Good Lord he was going to be pissed if they made the wrong choices. He tried not to think about what he could do in retaliation, because there wasn’t much. It then occurred to him that he had been in the toilet for so long, things had surely dried up a bit down there. The cat, sensing movement, opened one eye, stared him in his, and judged him accordingly.