Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the number on my Watcher Count plummet as I pulled a half-full jar of peanut butter out of the refrigerator, momentarily bathing the kitchen in a soft, fluorescent glow. Oh no, what did I do now? Panic filled my chest as I scanned the flurry of angry messages that filled the lenses of my Augmented-Reality Goggles™. 
 
itsrayebb07: there's NO WAY he's eating Peter's Praiseworthy Peanut Butter 
jorjorwel: CANCELLED. dude is fully supporting a criminal who profits off of poisoning us 
 
What? Confusion replaced fear as I perused through the comments. Peter's Praiseworthy Peanut Butter had gone viral nearly a month ago. Crowds had swarmed and rioted in grocery stores for this stuff, ripping it off shelves and trampling each other in the process of reaching the register first. There was a national shortage of the now-famous peanut butter for days after the spread was launched. 
I nearly dropped the jar to the floor, my clumsy fingers struggling to type in the name "Peter Pattinson" into my Google search bar. My hands shaking, I clicked on a link to a recent article by the New York Times. 
 
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Peter's Praiseworthy CEO Peter Pattinson's Flight Logs Leaked, Company Faces Severe Backlash and Potential Bankruptcy 
 
For nearly a month, Peter's Praiseworthy CEO Peter Pattinson has been riding high on surging sales of his trademark peanut butter recipe, with a simple ingredient list and a taste profile that blew every other brand out of the water. Hundreds of livestreams have been dedicated to reviewing and promoting his products, putting him on track to run the most profitable company in the food industry by the end of the year. 
 
All of this progress came to a screeching halt at 4:27 AM today, when an anonymous user on Twitter posted links to a folder that allegedly contained the private jet flight logs of the entrepreneur. The documents claimed that the private jet he used to travel around the world, and promote his products released 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide – over 600 times the footprint of the average American. 
 
Fans of the Peter's Praiseworthy brand are seething and distraught. TikTok user @endpeterpatt posted a reel only minutes after the leak, igniting a boycott against the company's product that tanked company shares by 70%. 
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This is really, really bad. Dread creeped over my shoulders as my brain skimmed through every worst-case scenario it could think of. I couldn't afford to lose my Watchers like this. Everyone had witnessed me eating this guy's peanut butter, and I was most definitely going to be cancelled. Even worse, I barely had enough money to buy groceries; there was no way I could survive without their support. People at school would start avoiding me. My boss was going to fire me. I was going to lose my scholarship to Vanderbilt University. One measly midnight snack, and my life was completely, utterly over. 
 
* * * 
 
Two weeks later, my Watchers' hateful comments still occupied my head every waking moment. I spent hours livestreaming, grasping at straws in an effort to return to the good graces of my followers and the normalcy of my days before that simple, yet grave, mistake. My grades began slipping, and I was failing tests which once felt effortless. Intense loneliness lingered like a ghost around me, reminding me of the friends I hadn't spoken to in forever. In an ugly twist of irony, it was not my mistake, but my obsession with rectifying it, that had made me lose everything. 
That night, curled up in my bed, I scrolled through the comments of that wretched livestream just like I had countless times before, reciting each one from memory as if they had been seared into my brain. 
 
soosandcollin12: you're just another capitalist pig who doesn't care about anyone else 
peggyatwood: aren't you worried about the planet at all? there are people dying of floods and drought and wildfires because people like you can't be bothered to make the right decision for once in your life  
allthishuckslee: PETER PATTINSON DESERVES TO DIE AND SO DOES ANYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN HIS CRUSADE AGAINST THE NATURAL WORLD 
 
Through the blur of the tears that burned in my eyes, I noticed an unfamiliar username. I knew all my Watchers by heart. Below was a comment I hadn't seen before. I felt my muscles tense up, and I prepared myself to be torn down by the vitriol of another vicious person hiding behind a screen. I blinked away the tears and slowly read the comment. Immediately, something was different: 
 
freethewatched: hate under the guise of accountability is a dangerous thing. if you're ready to be human again, you have to leave this prison behind. 
 
Under the comment was a blue hyperlink. It looked innocuous enough, but I felt a foreboding vibration in the air as I moved my finger to click it. Every single commenter before this one had watched my livestream, spewing blind hatred at me in their responses. But for the first time in two weeks, I felt like I was being fully seen. Curiosity and desperation won me over, and I clicked on the link. 
All of a sudden, hundreds of videos, livestreams, and posts appeared in succession on my screen as I stared in shock. People were sharing personal stories, scheduling "livestream breaks" with strangers, and living lives free of scrutiny. I clicked on a post pinned to the top of the page. 
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FreeTheWatched: 
 
Everyone will tell you that The System is designed to connect the world, bringing people together. But we are more divided than ever. This is the home for the people who The System has betrayed, the people who were left behind, the people who couldn't live in a world trying to tear us down at every step of our journey. 
 
This is the home of the revolution. 
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