The Kids Are Gonna Ask

by Gretchen Anthony

  The man scowled. “If I’d found you last week, a couple of thousand, easy. But you’re not as hot this week. So maybe five hundred.”

  Jack hadn’t expected that. “Sick of us already?”

  “News moves fast.”

  That gave Jack an idea.

  “In that case, let’s give ’em something to talk about.” He faked as if he were going to attack the guy, who startled, but fired off a few action shots in the process.

  “Shit, Jack. You scared me.”

  Jack laughed. “Let me see those.”

  Camera guy shook his head.

  “Seriously? I probably just doubled your money. Let me look.”

  Camera guy hesitated.

  “Maybe I can do even better, get you even more money,” Jack said.

  After a second or two, the guy nodded. “All right. But don’t fool with anything. Just press the arrow buttons. They control the preview screen.” He handed the camera over.

  Jack did just as he’d been advised. He flipped through twenty or so shots, most of them boring—him standing at the edge of the dock not doing much. The fake attack shots, though, made him laugh. “See? These are good!” He flipped through a few more.

  When he was satisfied, he looked at camera guy and smiled. “Thanks, man. Even for a scum-of-the-earth paparazzi, you’re a decent guy.”

  Camera guy scowled. “Funny.”

  Jack reached out to hand the camera back. And just as camera guy went to take it, Jack flicked it over his shoulder and off the dock.

  “Oops!” he said. “I can be so clumsy around water.”

  Then he walked up the dock and back to his truck, finally ready to go home.

  Is Sam Tamblin the Podcasting World’s Yoda, or its Jar Jar Binks?

  The Guava Media Founder Is Just as Quotable, and Just as Divisive

  By Coco Beans

  Podscape.com

  Sam Tamblin walks through the door of the coffee shop where we’ve agreed to meet in a shirt that says, “I murdered a thousand cotton plants, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” It’s Tuesday afternoon. Not typically a popular time for coffee, but the place is packed. Sam’s face is glued so tightly to his phone, he doesn’t even notice the mother holding the door open for her toddler daughter. He walks right through. The toddler waits her turn.

  The obliviousness piques my curiosity, so instead of calling his name, I decide to sit back. I check my watch; it’s two minutes past three. Sam is scrolling on his phone.

  At three-oh-four, a woman says loudly, “Excuse me.” Sam’s blocking the path to the register. He takes two steps to the right without looking up.

  Five minutes pass by. The barista announces “Double-shot cappuccino, bone-dry,” and places a fresh drink on the pickup counter. At this, Tamblin looks up, grabs the cup and notices me, the woman in the zebra-striped shirt, waving at him from three feet away. He’s unshaven. Not in a hip, beard grease and electric trimmer sort of way. More like he can’t find his razor and who cares.

  He wanders over.

  “I didn’t see you order a drink,” I say by way of introduction.

  “Have you ever tried their steamed cold-brew? Lip. Smacking. Licious.”

  I try to write that down—colleagues alerted me to Sam’s quotability—when I encounter a new curiosity: how to spell his unusual word combinations. And how to punctuate them.

  I say, “Three hit podcasts in less than a year. That’s Crooked Media and Earwolf territory. Congrats.”

  “What I think you mean,” he corrects me, “is that Crooked Media and Earwolf are in Guava Media territory. Am I right, Coco? Is that your real name, b-t-dubs?”

  I explain that my dad was inspired by the actor, Rip Torn. Then I say, “I watched you after you came in. You scrolled for nine minutes without looking up. What’s so interesting?”

  “Are you being serious with me right now? Social media is at the heart of everything. Has no one explained this to you?”

  He scrolls again. My phone beeps. I look down to find a text with more links than can fit on my screen.

  “I just sent you the latest discussions on the future intersections of micromedia, social media and traditional broadcasting. The last one practically gave me hives I loved it so much.”

  Tamblin is passionate to the extreme.

  As best as I can gather (no definitive numbers exist) Sam Tamblin has produced or participated in the production of more than forty podcasts. That’s not episodes; that’s show runs. Not all shows, however, are of equal quality or impact. The show Sam and Mike Talk Movies, which he and his best friend made in Tamblin’s bedroom when they were thirteen, had a sporadic, two-year run, releasing only six episodes and only when they felt like it. Others, like the latest Guava Media production, The Kids Are Gonna Ask, have become megahits; that show had also released just six episodes. But fans are clamoring for more.

  “I’ve got a screen rights agent shopping Kids as we spea-zak. Did you see the TV production of the Dirty John podcast? We’re talkin’ double-dirty numbers for Kids.”

  Which of course is just the latest controversy in this industry of ours: Will all this courting of television and movie money dilute podcasting’s rising influence? I ask Sam.

  “Mark my words. Kids broke the broadcasting world. Move their next chapter to the screen, and we’re talking an industry change of epic proportion. Like, the Death-Star-vaporizing-Alderaan proportions.”

  After he says this, I can’t help but remember the horrified look on Obi-Wan’s face in Star Wars as the planet Alderaan explodes, our hero realizing that the galaxy is now and forever changed. Then I think, A great disturbance in the force, indeed.

  Sam doesn’t agree. “Look, you can stick with the old world order and die, but I’m gonna go with the new rules of the game and thrive.”

  Forty-Four

  Thomas

  A few days after the phone call from Jack, Thomas was busy running endless mental circles about his mom and Jack and everything else. His mom had been in love with another man. A man who wasn’t their father. She’d almost had an entirely different life.

  Then Nadine walked into his room with her laptop open. Ever since confessing her suspicions about Sam Tamblin, she’d been on a mission. “I think I figured it out,” she said excitedly.

  A few minutes later, Maggie, Savannah, Chef Bart and Thomas clustered at the red table around Nadine’s screen.

  “So, here’s what I suspect,” she said. “Sam Tamblin has been planting fake and intentionally provocative stories about Thomas and Savannah on Twitter.”

  “Oh fabulous,” said Savannah. “More Twitter drama.” Maggie and Chef Bart hmm’d sympathetically.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Nadine brought up a screenshot of the tweet she’d shown to Thomas a few days earlier.

  Those McClairs are hadly innocent children. More like overprivileged white kids. #paternallivesmatter

  “This was the first tweet that got me curious. See how Sam misspells the word hardly? I know it seems like a simple typo, but the tweet that went viral didn’t include it. Here—” She pulled up an account for @Prddad_AmrcnDad69. She scrolled until she found the identical tweet. It was time-stamped with the same date as Sam’s tweet, but it was sent one minute later. It also had over half a million likes and had been retweeted several thousand times.

  “See?” Nadine explained. “Same exact words. Same hashtag. No typo.”

  Maggie straightened. “What does that mean, dear? In layman’s terms. Proud American Dad elicited more of a response than Mr. Tamblin?”

  Nadine shook her head. “Sort of, but not quite. Notice the picture @Prddad_AmrcnDad69 uses for his bio? It looks like him and his young son, right? I did an image search on it. It’s actually a stock photo you can download for free. I found the same picture used in an ad for bug repellent and for a
n insurance agency in Tulsa.”

  “So, this man lives in Tulsa?” asked Maggie.

  “No,” said Nadine. “The man doesn’t live at all. It’s a fake account. And I think Sam created it. That’s why the second tweet doesn’t have a typo. He goofed. He was logged in to the wrong account—his own—when he wrote the tweet, and he didn’t realize his mistake until he’d sent it. I bet he then logged in to @Prddad_AmrcnDad69, rewrote the tweet and sent it again.”

  “Okay...” Savannah said slowly. “But why didn’t Sam delete the original tweet from his real account?”

  “Several possibilities,” Nadine answered. “He might have thought he did. Or maybe he thought no one would notice. I mean, he tweets like eighty times an hour.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Or—he wanted the tweet to get picked up and promoted by a bot.”

  “What on earth?” said Maggie.

  “A bot,” Nadine explained. “It’s an automated account designed to generate new tweets and boost the visibility of existing ones. Something like two-thirds of the accounts on Twitter these days are bots. There’s a whole long study on them from Pew Research. I’ll send it if you’re curious.”

  No, Maggie said that wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Then Sam Tamblin’s a bot?” Chef Bart asked.

  Nadine snorted. “No, Dad! Sam is a real person posting to his own account. At least, some of the time. What I suspect he’s done is created a bunch of fake accounts—like @Prddad_AmrcnDad69. And he’s also created a bunch of automated bots to help the tweets from his fake accounts gain attention. It’s not that hard.”

  She flipped her browser back to Twitter and pulled up an account called @PeekabooSammyTammy. There was no profile picture, and no biographical information. Where a user’s name would be listed, the screen read, “Me.”

  Even as generic as @PeekabooSammyTammy was, though, the profile screen showed that it had generated over two hundred tweets and gained nearly twelve hundred followers.

  “This is my bot,” said Nadine. “I created it yesterday. It’s programmed to find tweets featuring the term ice cream. Then it automatically likes and forwards them.”

  “You coded that?” said Savannah.

  Nadine smiled. “Trust me. You can find instructions for just about anything on Google.”

  Chef Bart patted her shoulder. “Well done, my young hacker.”

  Nadine rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I think Sam created fake accounts where he posts intentionally provocative tweets. Then he has a bunch of bots promote them. For publicity. That’s how he managed to generate so much debate and attention so quickly.”

  “All press is good press,” said Chef Bart.

  Maggie scoffed. “Hardly.”

  It made sense to Thomas, though. In fact, Sam’s strategy was so simple it was nearly genius. It was so simple that—“Wait. I thought Twitter was onto this sort of scam. They’ve been purging fake accounts recently, right?”

  Nadine bobbed her head. “Yes and no. It takes time to weed them out. And new fakes go up as quickly as the old ones get taken down. Eventually, the Twitter stream gets so mixed up, users don’t know which tweets are real and which are fake. Because all users can see is how much a tweet has been liked and retweeted—and sadly, that’s evidence enough for most people. Anything with six thousand retweets must be important!”

  Maggie clapped her hands together in disbelief. “How is this even legal?”

  “It’s not always fake,” answered Nadine. “In the end, bots are just plain old promotional tools. Visibility on social media is determined by algorithms—the more attention something gets, the more the algorithm promotes it. Bots just help beat the odds, fake or not.”

  Savannah was not having it. “That hardly excuses him! Sam Tamblin fed me to the Twitter dogs in exchange for free publicity—in what, five minutes or less?”

  Thomas winced. That sounded exactly like what had happened. “What about Saj? Was she in on this, too?”

  “I’m not sure.” Nadine brought up Saj’s account and scrolled. “I haven’t been able to find anything suspicious. But you’d be surprised how long this sort of research takes. It’s like trying to trace a spiderweb back to its center.”

  “Did someone say black widow?” Chef Bart snickered at his own joke. Maggie joined him.

  “It’s not funny!” Savannah sounded close to tears now. “Have you all forgotten the horrible things being said about us online? About me, in particular? This has been hell—and it’s Sam Tamblin’s fault.” She sank into the closest chair and dropped her head into her arms on the table.

  Thomas sat down in the chair next to her. “Van?” He put his hand on her back.

  “I’m not crying.” Her voice was muffled by her arms, but not by tears. “I’m too fed up to cry.”

  Maggie motioned to Chef Bart to take a seat, then took one herself. Nadine closed her laptop.

  Maggie took a deep breath. “All right. Nadine has given us ample reason to suspect Mr. Tamblin of some very serious and questionable activity.”

  She thanked Nadine, who nodded solemnly. Chef Bart gave her a side hug and kissed her cheek.

  “The question is,” Maggie went on, “what do we do now?”

  Savannah lifted her head. “Easy. Hang him up by that stringy beard of his. Then cut him loose and let the squirrels eat him.”

  Maggie redirected, tapping her fingers on the table. “While I believe everything you showed us, Nadine, I don’t think it’s definitive. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Sam could easily brush our accusations aside.”

  “It’s definitely suspicious, but no, what we have isn’t indisputable,” Thomas agreed.

  Nadine sagged. “Sorry, guys.”

  “Heavens.” Maggie waved away Nadine’s disappointment. “You’ve done far more to prove my suspicions than I have. I can only judge Sam by the annoying pit in my stomach every time the phone rings. You did some real sleuthing, my dear.”

  Chef Bart stood and went into the kitchen, reappearing with a pitcher of iced tea. “We’re going to need some caffeine.”

  Thomas jumped up to retrieve glasses. Nadine went for the ice.

  Savannah finally lifted her head. “Does Sam still think I’m working on writing the next episode?”

  Maggie said he did.

  “Good. I wonder if that would be enough to get him to fly into town.”

  “To discuss the draft?” Thomas doubted Sam Tamblin would leave the ci-tay, as he called it, for script revisions.

  “No.” Maggie held up her hand, thinking. “But he might come if I were able to convince him that his being here would make for the quickest path forward.”

  “Who’s ready for tea?” Chef Bart held up the pitcher and began to pour.

  “Hopefully Sam is ready to spill the tea,” Maggie said ominously.

  ITINERARY

  Sam Tamblin Visit to the McClair House

  Tuesday, August 18

  TRANSPORTATION

  Delta Airlines #725 from LaGuardia arriving 2:59 pm

  ACCOMMODATIONS

  Hotel Ivy-Minneapolis

  ARRIVAL AT MCCLAIR HOUSE

  5 o’clock Central Daylight Time via car service

  COCKTAIL HOUR

  Upon arrival at McClair house

  Purple Dragon cocktails

  Pan-fried butter beans

  Farm-fresh goat cheese with molasses blackberry syrup

  Pâté with caramelized onions

  Handmade 12-grain crackers

  DINNER

  7 o’clock

  Chilled watermelon mint soup

  Brandy-soaked apricots with crème fraîche drizzle

  Falafel with sweet cream tzatziki sauce

  Roasted garlic hummus

  Pistachio lentil couscous

  Fermented red cabbage salad


  Fresh baked pita

  Farm-fresh cheese plate

  Lemon-curd custard with vine-ripened raspberry swirl

  Forty-Five

  Maggie

  Sam Tamblin showed up wearing a vineyard vines whale T-shirt that had a coffee stain and sneakers so white they made Maggie squint.

  “Hey,” he said. “I thought I’d find you guys all tan and chillin’ by the lake.”

  Maggie couldn’t even begin to count the levels of asinine. He could have started by inquiring about their health. Or about their general well-being. Or by saying, I’ve been thinking about you all, or I’ve been worried about you, or Hey, just so you think I’m not a complete imbecile, let me say it’s nice to be here.

  But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, he made fun of her family for being pale. Which was quite something coming from a man who, judging from the divot in his mustache, looked like he’d sneezed while trimming it that morning.

  “I loved the cookies and milk you left for me at the hotel, by the way. Just like Grandma!”

  “Don’t you know how to charm a hostess, calling her a pale grandma?” Maggie smiled, dulling the reprimand. “I take it you received the itinerary I left at the hotel?”

  “Totally impressive, Maggs. One question. When’s bedtime?” He laughed at his own joke so hard he snorted.

  “I expect you’ll be back at the hotel by ten o’clock.” She refused to surrender even a hint of sarcasm. “But now, come and enjoy a Purple Dragon. We’re lucky enough to have Chef Bart cook for us, and every once in a while, I’m able to cajole him into fashioning a cocktail or two.” Maggie led Sam into the family room and poured him a martini glass full of a deep purple concoction. Savannah and Thomas followed.

  “Whoa.” Sam dipped a finger into the glass to examine a drop on his skin. “Looks almost radioactive.”

  “Sour-plum nectar, lime juice, vodka and just a shot of sweetness,” Maggie explained. “It’s the plum that gives it color.”