Dexter Grant vs. Chase Upshaw

[Konrad Raab]

2 RP Limit for singles

3500 Word Limit Per RP

Deadline: 11:59:59 pm ET SATURDAY, September 21, 2024

Show takes place on September 21, 2024

[Digitox]

March 2021

“Heed my warnings! The digital age as we know it is on the verge of destroying us all! As technology advances further and further, the minds of each and every human being on this planet are losing themselves to the harmful practices of doomscrolling! You leave your minds wide open to harmful ideologies and enticing misinformation from those who know as much about what they preach as you do! I ask of you, don’t become victims of the Dunning–Kruger effect, take notice of the way the tech giants have intentionally manufactured their social media machine to be as addictive as possible, lining their pockets off of your naivete! How else could they have barely been affected by this global pandemic that grips us all?”

Maybe it sounded like the misguided ramblings of a madman, but Dexter Grant wasn’t just any old nutjob who grabbed a soapbox to stand upon so he could preach a sermon to any passerby who would give him the time of day. First off, he wasn’t doing this just to get attention, this was a cause he actually honest-to-god believed in. That was evident in the raw passion laced into every word he spoke, and it was clearly working since he’d amassed a fairly large crowd today. Perhaps it seemed weird to see a disheveled man decked out in anti-tech and social media patches from head to toe, a mask protecting him as COVID-19 was still very much a thing, standing on a soapbox in San Francisco’s Union Square as he preached about the virus of social media and the tech companies who knowingly infected the public with it. Then again, it would be just as bizarre to see Dexter as that disheveled man, because this was a far cry from the man many around this city knew just a few short years ago before he seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth.

“Take a good look around us,” Dexter told the crowd, motioning to the many buildings around him, plenty of which had been closed down and abandoned. “Union Square has been the beating heart of this city’s retail and tourism for many years. It’s a goddamned historical landmark of the state of California! But look at it now. In the wake of this pandemic, many retailers have up and abandoned this square, reducing it to a shell of its former glory. It would be easy to blame COVID for this tragic fate, but the official story they all paint for you on their social media feeds is that this square has become rife with crime and homelessness, a problem this city has had for many years and has only just now become an issue to them! They cite open-air drug use when not once have I ever walked these streets and seen a single crack pipe or syringe full of heroin. They hope that if they can plaster it all over Twitter and Facebook then you’ll just have to believe it as fact, knowing full well they were just looking for an excuse to go mine for gold somewhere else! They have abandoned you and the social media moguls are all too happy to perpetuate their lies because they can fill each other’s bank vaults through sponsorships that hide the truth and make you believe whatever they tell you to, like common sheep!”

He could see the disbelief in their eyes, and he just knew it was because they were already brainwashed. Dexter wasn’t a man who made baseless claims…yes, they certainly sound the part, but he was always a man who did his homework and gathered his facts before presenting them. It was the reason why he’d been top of his class once upon a time, even throughout college, why he’d had such a promising future in the eyes of so many. But that felt like an entire lifetime ago now, back when he was just another sheep in the flock mindlessly wandering through life being fed whatever garbage he was told to consume. He was smart enough to pick up on it rather quickly: the algorithms and design of these social media sites and apps, presenting themselves as the next logical step in the innovation of technology pushing humanity towards that future we all dream of with robots and flying cars and the like. Every cog in the machine was intentional, the purpose being to create a platform where it was so easy to get lost in the fog that your brain would turn to mush and you’d be a mindless zombie, ripe for the picking to spread whatever news was trending that day and your ‘beliefs’ in that subject to spread the sickness, infecting others with your bullshit so they would verify your claims and make it seem like you actually knew what you were talking about.

Researching the facts he was after felt like hell considering the internet was the go-to for everything these days, especially as social media began to dominate the digital stream of information, but Dexter would not subject himself to that hell ever again if he could help it. He would not lose himself to that cancer after he’d fought so hard to overcome it once before…a relapse would be fatal in his mind, and if he was going to die, then it was going to be a proper death where the empty void of the afterlife greeted him and his body was lowered into the ground to be consumed by the worms, not becoming a mindless husk that further spread the sickness because it was all he would know.

“You can see it in the world around us, woven into the politics of the United States! Who you want to be your President is irrelevant because at the end of the day, both sides are using social media to propagate their lies about one another, organizing the masses into armies that threaten to destroy the very democracy that has defined this country for generations! They’re just as much slaves to the system as they are abusers of it, buying into every little lie someone tweets out or posts online and building a political attack around it, creating the schism that defines our government today. Why work together for you when they can brainwash you all into getting your vote to keep them in power despite refusing to do absolutely anything! Is that the kind of country you want to live in? One where the government itself is merely a puppet to the whims of social media deceit?”

That lost him quite a few members of the crowd that had gathered before him, and he knew it would. It was obvious how much of a hot button issue politics as a whole was right now, but those who could be truly devoted to helping him spread his counter-message and fight back would be the ones who would power through, knowing he was right regardless of whether they were Democrat or Republican because they saw what he saw: a system that had been tainted by powers who had no business being involved that stoked the flames of hatred because it got people using their product to pour more gasoline on it.

“I urge each and every one of you to take a stand. Put down your phones, step away from your computer screens and take a good, hard look at the world around us as it truly is, not what someone else sensationalizes for you to believe it is. We can stop this virus before it spreads too far and spells the end of humanity as we know it! Free yourselves from the chains of this digital cult, embrace the real world again and everything that empowers you to be who you want to be and not what some ‘influencer’ tells you to be! Believe in my truth! Believe that you have the power to disconnect to reconnect, and your digital detoxing can begin!”

Perhaps throwing his arms out in welcome was a bit too much dramatic flourish, but Dexter knew he had to punctuate this little soapbox sermon somehow to open his arms for anyone who believed in his cause. His hopefully smile turns upside-down, however, when he begins to realize that he probably came off as nothing more than a novelty act to these people. After all, some crazy man who they believed was probably homeless literally standing on his soapbox and spouting off about how evil technology and social media is? To them, probably a worthwhile way to kill a few minutes if they had nothing better to do. He even sees some of them almost immediately pull out their phones, no doubt taking to Twitter to share their experience with the lunatic who thinks such apps are literal cancer to their hundreds of followers for a good laugh. Dexter can only hop off his soapbox and retrieve it before stomping away, fuming at how easy it is to draw a crowd but impossible to break the hold social media has gained over them. Perhaps if he could get just one person to pierce the veil and understand the reality of what’s going on, he could have a better chance of breaking the spell and making progress.

“Idiots…all of them…” Dexter grumbles to himself as he storms off. “I’m trying to save them and they think this is all a joke. Not a single word out of my mouth is funny! I’m not going to just stand here and wait for the world to fall to ruin just so they can finally realize I was right all along. This isn’t an ‘I told you so’ situation, this is their goddamned lives I’m trying to save!”

“...I believe you...”

Dexter quickly whipped around, surprised that someone had actually addressed him. The person who had done so certainly wasn’t what he expected. Shorter than he was and lanky as all hell, the guy looked like he was one of those nerds people probably loved to shove into lockers in high school. Even at what he wanted to presume was an age where this guy was probably in college now, Dexter’s mind flickered with thoughts about just how punchable this kid’s face was. He was clearly trembling, withering under Dexter’s gaze, but he tried to stand firm now that he had the man’s attention.

“What did you say?”

“I…” The kid cleared his throat before trying again, definitely intimidated by Dexter. “I said I believe you. What you’re doing, trying to save humanity from digitally drowning…it’s a cause I want to believe in.”

Dexter raised an eyebrow at this. The kid certainly wasn’t his first choice whenever he thought of someone finally believing in his cause and not treating it like a joke, but the fact that he did manage to get through to someone caused him to pull back on how menacing he probably looked right now.

“You seriously believe in what I said?” Dexter asked firmly. “You’re not just joking so your buddies can record it and post it on TikTok for some asinine viral challenge garbage or whatever?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

Dexter couldn’t help but be even a little skeptical of that claim, glancing around expecting to catch the slightest glimpse of someone trying to hide and record everything. He felt like he was one of those hidden camera prank shows, and the last thing he wanted was a night in a jail cell for caving someone’s face in because he refused to be subjected to that kind of ridicule when he was dead serious about trying to save humanity from itself.

“You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true!” the kid cried. “No one ever seems to like me, all those do is bully me and- and push me around because it’s so easy! They share it online and no one says anything against the bullying, they all just point and laugh about how much of a loser I am. I hate it! I want it to stop!”

The kid kept rambling, but Dexter tuned it out, having heard enough to confirm his initial perception of the guy was spot-on, and it actually broke his heart at hearing how much he’d become a victim of the social media machine, not because of being obsessed with it himself, but because it was being weaponized to bury and destroy him. That itself had become one of the driving forces behind Dexter’s decision to take himself off the grid and begin this selfless crusade, seeing how the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on had groups that preached anti-bullying and yet did nothing against trolls and senseless hateful vitriol until it drove sweet, innocent souls to take their own lives. It was the darkest punchline to the cruelest joke, and no matter how many times it happened, nothing was done because no one would dare blame the vehicle that allowed for it in the first place and that vehicle certainly wouldn’t do the right thing and rat out whoever had used them for ill intentions.

“What’s your name kid?”

“And I- huh?” The guy stumbled as his frustrated ranting was cut off by a simple question, Dexter’s tone being far from anything he’d heard or expected from the man at this point. “It’s, um…Wendell.”

“Just Wendell?” The kid nodded. “Well, good on you for not sharing your full name with me. That’s a dangerous thing to do with a stranger in this day and age, especially since you’ve got to be, what, in college?”

“I’m studying IT here in California, something not even this pandemic has been able to stop thankfully.”

“Is that so?” Dexter’s curiosity was piqued now. This kid, Wendell, didn’t seem that much different from him in a few regards, and he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. That made the bullying stories he’d shared all the more tragic, and Dexter was having none of it. “Well, nice to meet you Wendell. The name’s Dexter, and if you’re willing to help me fight, then perhaps my cause stands a better chance of succeeding than I was starting to believe.”

“It has to succeed!” Wendell exclaimed as he took Dexter’s offered hand, shaking it enthusiastically. “This world needs to change for the better, people need to get off social media! It’s killing us, in some cases literally!”

“And that’s what we’re going to put an end to,” Dexter confirmed. “You seem like a good kid Wendell, far better than becoming just another statistic that doesn’t get through people’s thick skulls because they’re already drowning in the digital sea of misinformation and sensationalist influence. Together, I think this is the start of some real progress.”

Wendell eagerly nodded as he began to follow Dexter, hopeful that being part of a cause bigger than himself that would truly change the world would be a sign of positive things to come.

Dexter, on the other hand, saw this as his opportunity to solidify his facts through someone else doing all the digital dirty work for him, finally having a way of using the evolution of the digital age against all those who vouched for its rapid expansion into more and more dangerous levels of social sickness.

[Digitox]

Some might think it’s easy to just go “off the grid” these days, but Dexter would disagree. Most people he knew would consider “off the grid” as saying they were leaving social media and maybe the internet as a whole for a while or perhaps for good…except the truth was that they’d still use them, just lurking around hoping to see the reaction to such a ‘bold’ decision on their part. No, when Dexter Grant says he’s going “off the grid” he means it. He’d completely disappeared without a trace for years, leaving behind most of his worldly possessions. He’d trekked deep into the nearby woods until he was certain not a single soul would be able to intentionally track him down unless he wanted their presence, made absolutely sure it was completely impossible to so much as get any sort of signal or hint of communication there, and then built himself a little shack with his bare hands. It was his defense against any lingering temptation to return to the digital age that had sickened him so much, and after several years of spending most of his time out here, he felt he’d succeeded in detoxing himself of the cyber scourge that had once infected his brainwaves.

The downside was that it had become virtually impossible to contact him in regards to the wrestling he’d since taken up to try and spread his message, but that was one of the benefits of having Wendell around now.

In the past few years, Wendell had become an invaluable asset to Dexter’s cause. True, deep down he knew some of it was hypocritical, but as long as he could convince Wendell to streamline his internet use and only browse and not interact on social media for the purpose of research, then the world at large could remain blissfully ignorant…especially since Dexter himself wasn’t breaking his own stance against this technological terror. It also meant that Wendell couldn’t do any of that work in Dexter’s presence to tempt him with such evil because there was no connection to speak of out here, hence Wendell had a map and all the tools he needed to seek out the man who was working to save him and everybody else when necessary.

“I knew this place had such an eclectic cast of characters…but this is honestly looking like a bigger problem than I’d thought.”

Dexter was currently pacing around in one of the rooms he’d recently built onto his shack, which almost resembled a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream as various documents were nailed to the wall, each one detailing everything known so far about the various members of the SCW roster. Dexter had jumped into the wrestling business only about a year or so ago, solely to turn it into a bigger platform to spread his message and directly fight against the influence of the social media machine that was starting to infect it. He’d run into so many people even on what was considered the ‘independent scene’ who boasted sizable social media followings or played up the idea of being influencers in some respect that it made him sick and drove him to try and pick these cretins apart. He’d somehow gotten noticed by an SCW talent scout, learning from Wendell that they were apparently one of the biggest places out there, and having the information at his fingertips about what he was dealing with…he knew he had his work cut out for him.

It wasn’t a matter of knowing his competition would be stiff because that was irrelevant to him. He didn’t care about how skilled or more experienced any of these clowns were, because all of it paled in comparison to the need to have his voice be heard, no matter what. But the way many of these people carried themselves, the way the company was constantly promoting itself across all social media platforms, it all reeked of a place that was already ground zero for the digital infection he was trying to cure, and he knew he just had to march right into the lion’s den and detox each and every socially sick soul that would try to stop him, for their own good.

“Hey, Dexter? I’ve got some news to share.”

Dexter turned from whoever he’d been studying (they all felt the same to him honestly, regardless of what those so-called fans thought about them) to see Wendell trudge into the shack, covered in mud and looking like he never wanted to go on a hike in his life ever again, but Dexter would take no precautions when it came to how seriously he took the concept of “off the grid.”

“You weren’t followed, right?”

“Not by a single soul,” Wendell swore. “I think most people have started accepting that I just like to come out here to hike and unplug for a few hours…at least the unplug part isn’t a lie.”

“Unplugging is how you detox your brain from the addiction that those technological tyrants like to prey upon,” Dexter reminded him. “A good hike also does the body good too. Anyway, you said you had some news?”

Wendell shrugged off his backpack and fished around inside before producing a bunch of papers that he handed over to Dexter. Most of it was printouts of the latest statistics and analysis regarding social media use so Dexter had his facts straight, but what he focused on was a physical copy of his SCW contract, fully notarized and certified.

“So it’s official now, huh?” Dexter asked.

“Signed, sealed and delivered.” Wendell clapped his hands. “You’re officially a member of the SCW roster, no strings attached.”

“Then step one is accomplished,” Dexter mused. “And now that we’re in, it’s time to start preparing to spread our message. I have a feeling SCW isn’t going to be as nice as that place I was wrestling in before, and you’re going to have to prepare for anything in trying to help me out kid, but the detoxing process will begin. They’ve got this upcoming show that you said’s in Oklahoma to prepare themselves, but next week we’ll kick those doors wide open, turn some poor sod into my first message…”

“Actually…” Wendell cut him off, causing him to cower a bit when Dexter scowled at him.

“What did I say about interrupting me, Wendell?”

“I’m so sorry Dexter,” Wendell pleaded. “It’s just, well, you’re not wrestling on the September 12th Breakdown.”

Dexter raised an eyebrow at this, slowly approaching Wendell in such a menacing way that the poor guy quickly backed himself against the wall, hands raised in the hope of stopping anything from happening.

“And why not?”

“Well, you see,” Wendell stumbled over his words, “SCW announced this ‘Trios tournament’ thing on their Twitter earlier this week. Apparently all the teams are already drawn, were drawn before your contract was finalized, and that’s all they’re doing next week so…”

Dexter huffed. Of course he was already being excluded from something, and those brainwashed to spread the digital toxicity were probably banking on him not knowing and making a fool of himself on what would be his first night. Even ignoring that he left Wendell in charge of all his contact on this front because of his commitment to the mission, why else would they withhold this info from him?

“What’s the deal with this ‘Trios tournament’ anyway?”

“Well, from my research,” Wendell explained, “eight teams of three people each are randomly paired together for a tournament taking place mostly next Breakdown. All six person tags, winning team has each member get a contract that I think guarantees them any match, stipulations, etc.”

“So useless in the grand scheme of things,” Dexter spat. Wendell certainly didn’t see it that way, but he liked to think he’d gotten a solid idea of how Dexter’s mind worked by now. To any wrestler, the power of such a contract certainly sounded tempting, but to Dexter Grant, if such a reward couldn’t be used in any way to benefit his mission then it was a waste of time. He believed he could see the logic, considering Dexter would have to put up with people he likely wanted nothing to do with all for something he probably couldn’t use in a way that SCW would actually approve of.

“If it helps,” Wendell chimed in, “you are booked for the following Breakdown.”

“They can try to delay the inevitable all they want, it’s not going to stop me from seeing my mission through and detoxing SCW from roster to fans. Give me the details on the first social zombie they’re throwing at me to cut down.”

“Let’s see…” Wendell pulled out a notebook, flipping through a few pages before he found what he was looking for. “Here it is! His name’s Chase Upshaw. He’s only about a year older than me, hails from North Carolina and apparently hasn’t been with SCW for very long. According to what I’ve dug up, the guy’s a geography teacher who’s angry about how little his students actually know about geography.”

“Considering how much most people rely on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever to tell them whatever they need to know anymore, I’d be pretty pissed too if I were in his shoes.”

“Apparently his whole reason for becoming a wrestler in the first place is so he can legally beat geography knowledge into people,” Wendell laughed.

“Any social media presence to speak of?” Dexter asked.

“None as far as I can tell.”

“Clever bastards…” Dexter huffed again, storming back into the room covered wall to wall with profile documents of SCW’s roster until he found the one he was looking for of Chase Upshaw.

“What is it, Dexter?”

“Think about it for a sec Wendell,” Dexter glanced over at him. “If you’re going to play into our hands without realizing it, what would’ve been the smart move to do for my debut match aside from delaying it like they did, hoping it might deter me?”

“Um…wait, I know this…” Wendell snapped his fingers a few times. “Throw you against one of the big dogs right away?”

“Well, throw just about anybody on this zombified roster against me honestly. But they didn’t…they pitted me against somebody who probably isn’t enslaved by the digital delusions of grandeur, trying to paint me as a hypocrite right out of the gate. Think about how they can paint me on those cancerous platforms if I destroy this man when he might be one of the few people in this whole company who may not even need detoxing.”

“It’d be like how Disney preaches inclusion and tolerance while still shitting all over minorities and the LGBTQ any chance they get!” Wendell feels the light bulb go off in his head.

“Exactly,” Dexter nods in agreement. “And while they deserve to be called out for that garbage because it’s abhorrent, how many people who do so through social media are doing so because they’re actually offended or speaking out because it’s the right thing and not just doing so for social brownie points and following the crowd? Regardless, the point is that these higher-ups clearly know what they’re doing and are hoping to paint me in an awful light online the first chance they get.”

“So…we’re just going to leave Chase alone?”

“Nah, they’re trying to make this into a lose-lose situation for us,” Dexter mused. “But I’m going to give this guy a chance…see if he’s willing to hear me out and join our fight come Breakdown. Even prove that I’m not as intellectually stunted as anyone else he’s probably come across because my brain hasn’t melted from mindless doomscrolling or trying to indulge in useless TikTok ‘challenges” designed to get people hurt or killed for a good laugh. If he’s going to be ignorant enough to not hear us out, then he’s part of the flock after all and needs to be put down.”

“So this is the part where you’re gonna address him and…”

“Not quite,” Dexter says, reaching out and grabbing Wendell’s shoulder as he turns to go dig out the camera he’d brought with him. “We’re not going to address this one.”

“We’re not?” Poor Wendell looked confused.

“He’s not worth my breath, especially if he could be a potential believer in our cause. Our words are best saved for those who truly deserve them to burrow beneath their skin and cure the cancer that dwells beneath courtesy of those malicious digital media presences. I’ll give Chase the courtesy of thinking carefully about how he wants to approach this fight, and for his sake, hopefully he chooses to hear me out and side with us in our fight, for I’d like to hope we’re on the same side here.”

“As you wish Dexter.”

With that, Dexter and Wendell turned their conversation towards their future plan of attack after these next few Breakdowns. Wendell was skeptical, but he knew better than to doubt Dexter Grant at this point. Dexter had helped to save him and put him on the road to recovery, after all, and he had faith that the Digital Detoxer could do the same to others if they only listened to him.

He hoped that after these next few Breakdowns, they would do just that, even if he made them listen.