Fakebook (30 page)

It's funny…the whole point of Ralph's retirement trip was to develop a taste for the outdoors—to make sure retirement didn't meant watching more TV. Yet, without question, the highlight of the trip was from a hotel room in Virginia, watching some fool lose a half million dollars on
Deal
or
No
Deal
.

For those not familiar,
Deal
or
No
Deal
is a show where there are twenty-six numbered briefcases—each with a dollar value ranging from one to one million. The contestant picks a case and spends the next hour second-guessing himself or herself. One by one, the cases the contestant didn't pick gets opened—narrowing the range of what his case is worth. As the range narrows, the contestant is offered a dollar amount to stop playing—usually close to the average of whatever prize amounts are left. There is no skill involved at all. Only good and bad judgment—of knowing when to take the deal.

And while my father and I occasionally judge each other's decisions too harshly, we're usually on the same page when it comes to judging strangers. Especially when a contestant has two values left—one dollar and one million dollars—and a $450,000 offer to walk away now.

“If this guy bets a half million dollars on a coin toss,” Ralph said, “then he's an idiot.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He's not thinking of the 450K as his money.”

The camera panned to a close-up of a guy who didn't comprehend that he was risking a decade worth of his salary.

“We have your family here,” said Howie Mandell, the '80s comedian known for putting a glove on his head and present-day
Deal
or
No
Deal
host. “Let's see what they have to say.”

They panned to his sister. “I think you should go for it. You're such a special person. You deserve this!”

“Yeah,” my dad said sarcastically. “You deserve to win a million dollars on a game show.”

“That briefcase,” I said in near rage, “isn't capable of judging your character!”

My father laughed.

“I believe in you!” said another sibling.

“It doesn't matter if you believe in him!” Ralph yelled at the screen. As a family, Cicirellis get very emotional about logic.

And then finally the host walked to this fool's poor mother. “It's a lot of money you're risking,” she said. “Don't be greedy. Be sensible.”

And suddenly you just felt…awful. This poor woman, who'd raised three stupid and greedy children, was watching them gamble away possibly the biggest break that family had ever had. Sadly, her voice of reason was drowned out by the cheering of the crowd and the encouragement of her misguided children.

He jumped up, waved his arms in the air like a home-plate umpire, and yelled out, “NO DEAL!”

He should have taken the deal. A minute later he would be gone from the stage with nothing but a buck in his pocket and a lifetime of regrets. His “this is my moment” fantasy was over, and it came with a $450,000 price tag. Meanwhile, my father and I jumped up out of our motel beds and high-fived. That moment of schadenfreude-driven unity far eclipsed any heartfelt chat that long weekend could have offered.

But looking back at the photos from that trip, I had a slight bit of sympathy for the contestant.

“I can handle the pressure!” he yelled to the crowd at one point, receiving thunderous applause.

But he couldn't handle the pressure—not even close. He was completely controlled by the cheers. Since the beginning of Fakebook I had felt like that. I was hearing two sets of applause—my unknowing audience's cheers for what I claimed to do, and my knowing audience's cheers for me claiming to have done it. One I loved, the other I hated. Yet, I realized the knowing audience's influence was clearly stronger than that of my unknowing viewers—after all, I kept doing it. The support from the people I fooled bothered me when I thought about it. I didn't have to think about it, though, so I often didn't.

The people I saw, however, were the ones in on it. I could actually hear the laughter from Joe, or the encouragement from Elizabeth or Ted…and especially my father. Their support was tangible and immediate.

In truth, when I was probably ready to hang up Fakebook months ago, my collaborators had encouraged me to continue. I wasn't overtly pressured, but I was fueled by the continued surprise and delight at what they added. This was social media storytelling, which meant it was participatory. My audience was part of the cast, and they played their parts around every post. They made the story better by being part of it.

So I had Fake Dave and Fake Ralph recycle our trip through the Blue Ridge Mountains—and their trip was the one on which we bonded most.

That Friday night, I took Juror 10 to a themed cover-band night at Bowery Ballroom. It was a mistake.

Apparently the only thing more depressing than the first time you see KISS without makeup is seeing Mini KISS without makeup. Watching those poor dwarfs out of costume and loading their tiny instruments into some van between sets—it's a glimpse into a side of life you don't want to see.

It was supposed to be a fun Friday night full of tribute bands, including the top-billed Tragedy, a heavy-metal tribute to the Bee Gees. Joe Moscone and I had seen them before, and they are unbelievably entertaining. It's such an absurd spectacle, full of backup singers in angel wings and some guy dancing around with a feather boa. It had been a really fun night full of weird, unexpected highlights—including a surprise cameo by Moby.

So when Joe was pulling a group of my favorite Handler people together—a group I knew I'd be seeing a whole lot less of—I thought it'd be a knowingly silly and fun thing to take Juror 10 to.

Unfortunately, this glimpse into the sad visage of life on the road as a dwarf cover act was not quite the aphrodisiac I had hoped. Even before we were confronted with the moral issues of watching a band whose main selling point was their disability, I could just tell we didn't have the same sensibility. She was reluctant to jump into the absurd spirit of the night and not especially interested in mixing with my friends. I felt a little too self-aware to really melt into the heavy takes on the Bee Gees' tasty grooves.

Juror 10 and I—we had a really nice moment in Washington Square Park exactly when I needed a moment most. But “just a moment” seemed increasingly like all it would be. I was okay with that. Fakebook was about to end; I was about to start a new job; and my whole life was about to expand again.

So without feeling like there was much keeping me in the city, the next day I took a train to New Jersey, and spent a rainy Saturday and Sunday in my parents' empty house.

On the train ride down, I looked at my calendar. It was March 16. I wanted to end Fake Dave's story in the middle of the next week. From there I'd not post for one week—giving people time to discover the ending. Then, on April 1, I'd confess.

In between would be my last day at Handler and my first day at LiveWired. And on April 2, I'd turn twenty-seven. I had to keep reminding myself of this. It was the first year I wasn't throwing a party. I really didn't know if I'd have enough friends left to throw one.

I'd felt like I needed the comforts of home. It was an hour away, and I hadn't been there since Thanksgiving. But this weekend, that's exactly where I was supposed to be.

It was the first time in nearly half a year that I had posted a photo that was undoctored and in the moment. I was actually there—at Sandy Hook on March 17—thinking. I was thinking how funny it was to post an honest message that applied to both my lives. How strange it was that Fake Dave and I were crossing paths—him about to end his adventure, and me about to start one of my own. It felt strange to be in the same place at the same time, as strange as it had when I first watched my online persona cross the George Washington Bridge without me.

Now, six months later, I was used to seeing my image as someone else. It felt invasive, almost intimate, to take a picture of our shared shadow. I kicked off my shoes and walked out onto the sand, still cold and wet from last night's rain. The wind was kicking up and pushing against my lightweight jacket. I carefully stepped into the frigid March ocean water, barely able to tolerate the lapping waves as they soaked the bottom of my dark denim jeans.

I looked south, away from the Manhattan skyline, and did the game I always do: look at just the right angle so the entire horizon fills my vision—with nothing to focus on but the vast ocean meeting the vast sky.

Around my ankles, I felt the waves recede—and with it, the grains of sand flooded out from under my heels, causing me to sink slightly into the ocean floor. It was a sensation I'd felt on those summer nights with the friends I grew up with, and those fall afternoons without them.

And it was a feeling we were feeling now—Fake Dave and I—separately and together. But who was the person I was sharing this moment with? Who exactly was Fake Dave?

Fake Dave was deeply flawed, I concluded. He was a guy who ran away from things. He was a guy who was fleeing the narrowing of his future. So he'd jump into a new possibility. Yet each new adventure soon became old routine, and the disappointment would crush him. Because what he was really after was a happy ending. Don't I feel that way? Doesn't everyone? But in real life, there are no endings. Life simply goes on.

Fortunately for Fake Dave, this moment wasn't real life. It was fiction. After all we'd been through, it was time to give him his happy ending. It was time for him to overcome his flaw and become the man deserving of the attention and goodwill he'd received. I wanted to give him something worth the trials I'd put him through.

So after all his running away, I gave him something to finally run toward. I gave him a strange, complicated, rewarding mess of his own making.