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As Robocalls Become More Prominent, Teens Fight to Preserve a Way of Life
News
Teens
Robots
Dangit. Another interview with teens. I’m starting to think the boss is out of memory space in his brain, because if he hadn’t learned from last time, teens and me don’t go well together.
This time, instead of me going to whatever vile hangout they performed their cult rituals-I mean, fun activities,- in, they were coming to the office. In prep, the boss wanted to make the office as teen-friendly as possible. I thought that it was a disgusting idea. The boss thought that I would be perfect to oversee it.
After adding wheels to all the chairs, placing fidget spinners at any location that could possibly make a teen slightly nervous, and instructing the entire staff how to dab(the trick is in the flick of the wrist), we were finally ready to welcome the pipsqueaks.
Some background information before the interview for those of you who are not up to date with the news(for up-to date news, check out this website). In our digital age, technology has become super duper powerful(official sciency term). It can be used to make food, cook food, and feed food. But one achievement has rocked the advertising industry. Robotic calling. This is when you pick up your phone and you have a conversation with someone who acts like they genuinely enjoy talking to you. Otherwise, people just get bored within the first minute when you start rambling about the history of potted plants(speaking from experience here). Now, instead of real people selling to you, robots can, and it’s made the process so much more efficient. But teenagers, who used to rely on man-made calls as a daily part of life, now are facing the possible threat of their culture going extinct.
The boss contacted a group of teen activists known as the Loop-Froots to report on this issue. Based in yadda yadda, you get the gist, they do stuff. When they walked in the front door, I was there, performing Orange Justice to make them feel more at home.
“Um, what are you doing, sir” An insubordinate teen dressed in a polo shirt asked.
“What do you mean? I’m protesting for the rights of Oranges. Isn’t that what this is supposed to be?”
The boys looked at each other like they were silently conferring something, and then nodded in agreement, with pitiful looks on their faces.
“Sure man, that’s what it’s about. Now can we start the interview?” Asked another boy, this one dressed in a white hoodie that had a red rectangle with the words “Hyped Up” written in it.
We walked into the conference room. The Loop Froots took a seat, and then I, deciding to assert my superiority, sat on the table, cross legged, with a 360 degree view of everyone.
“So tell me about you guys’ problem.”
The teens look back and forth between each other, trying to figure out who was going to talk first. It was clear that they hadn’t planned this, and had probably procrastinated writing their interview speech.
The boy in the polo shirt spoke “Well, since we didn’t really decide who was going to talk first, I am, since I feel like it. Banana, back when you were a teen, didn’t you love messing with people?”
The memories flooded back of the days when my friends and I would place ice inside people’s sodas to dilute it and ruin the flavor, just for fun. People used to get mad back then, but now people like it for some reason, so it’s just not good pranking anymore.
“Yeah, those were the good old days”
“You see, Banana, our entire day revolves around one thing. Lunch. Lunch is when we have unlimited access, you know. Us teens can do whatever. Some weirdos waste their time by playing random pixelated space shooting games on their tablets in the library, but us intellectuals devote this time to more useful pursuits.”
“And what might this pursuit be?”
“The pursuit of happiness, of course. And the way we do it is the best. You see, we go to every shady website possible and enter our phone numbers there. And viola, the calls start coming in. These advertisers have no idea it’s us who they are calling. And so we prank them. Oh you should have been there this one time when Jimothy got called by a used eraser salesman”
A tall, built boy with a squeaky voice piped up “Oh man, I still can’t look at an eraser now without laughing.”
To test his claim, I threw an eraser at his face. He started laughing, but due to my impeccable aim, it went inside his mouth. We now have to pay a hospital bill and Hecrenews is facing a lawsuit over a case of purposeful rubber poisoning.
After Jimothy was rushed to the hospital, the polo boy started speaking again.
“But lunch isn’t the same anymore, Banana. We are getting less and less real calls. It’s just these darn robocalls nowadays. You can’t troll a robot. They just continue talking. And now we just have no purpose during school. It’s just plain boring nowadays. And that’s why we took up the fight.”
“What fight? Who are you guys fighting?”
“Robots of course. Technically, robot companies. We’ve planned a protest in which we call the companies using robocalls and advertise to them in monotonous voices. Let’s see how they like that!”
The boss, who had been watching the whole time, seemed bored and understood this interview was going nowhere. For once, we were on the same page.
“Well, that seems like a brilliant idea. We wish you good luck. I just forgot, we have our daily 30 minute study session. Would you teens like to join?” I asked.
Just as I had expected, at the thought of prolonged studying, these teens yeeted out of the building. I congratulated myself for believing in teen stereotypes, told Wopps to handle the lawsuit, and promptly slept on the table.
Another Pulitzer-Worthy interview over. Maybe I can retire now.