Mateo versus The Bullying Market
Mateo looked down at Sara’s phone and saw himself. It wasn’t a photo. It was his name above a stock ticker. She hadn’t meant to show it, she was just busy swiping through apps before the first-period bell. But after a double take he saw his own name. The ticker was trending down with a red arrow.
“What’s that?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“OMG it’s the Mateo Market,” Sara said, laughing in a way that made it clear she was in on the joke and he wasn’t. “Brayden put it together on The Pulse.”
The Pulse: a peer-to-peer prediction app that had run through Jerry Nadler Middle School like an infectious disease. There wasn’t actual cash passed around, but the virtual currency called Clout. Having Clout was more important than money actually.
Mateo pushed his glasses up his nose with a trembling finger and looked more closely at the bets being made on him. The top proposition of the day was brutally simple: “MSCH will experience a spontaneous gravitational event involving cafeteria dairy product.”
He was going to trip and spill milk on himself.
The bets came in through a real-time feed. Currently YES was at 82%. He watched in horror as a new bet came in, raising that number to 83.5%. Someone, maybe even in his classroom, had just turned their Clout into a bet on his humiliation.
When he left homeroom and went to his first class, he felt like he was in hostile territory. The hallways were like a trading floor. He could feel eyes burning into him like he was a product, being watched be investors appraising his actuarial odds. He heard snippets of conversation with the jargon of The Pulse.
“I’m shorting his history quiz score. He was at soccer practice late last night,” a seventh-grader whispered as Mateo passed.
“The spread is too wide, it’s a risk. The milk spill is a sure thing though. I’ve gone all in,” his friend replied.
He wanted to become invisible, just disappear. He became incredibly self-conscious, hyper-aware of every movement, every word he said. When Mrs. Clark asked him to hand back graded papers, he could watch the students around him calculating how likely it was he’d trip. He didn’t. There was a collective sigh of disappointment as he finished and sat back down. The market resolved to NO.
Lunch felt even worse. He felt a strong tension in the air as he walked into the cafeteria. Various groups of friends sat together like individual hedge funds buying and selling bets. As he slid his tray along the metal rails in the lunch line, he looked at the various options for a drink: orange juice, water, and a small carton of chocolate milk. He knew what the market expected him to pick.
He took it. He had to. If he didn’t, they would know he was scared. He would only push them to bet more on something that would embarrass him. Brayden would know that he could turn the screws even harder for the enjoyment of everyone else.
The carton sat on his tray like it was a grenade, far away from all the other food. He spotted Brayden leaning in his chair at the center table with his eyes sinisterly fixed on him. A phone was in his hand, probably refreshing the feed on The Pulse. Brayden’s smile was wide, like he could taste the humiliation that was coming.
Mateo’s heart pounded as he slowly made a long walk across the room to his small group of friends. Everyone seemed to watch each step, waiting for him to mess up. He was halfway there, almost safe. As he reached the table, he put the tray down with a light clatter and let out a loud sigh of relief.
Then he saw Brayden’s eyes again. The market hadn’t closed. Bets were still coming in. If he didn’t have an accident, somebody would force it come into resolution by throwing something at him, or trying to jostle the table. The system was designed to be self-enforcing. The market would fine a way.
An idea came to mind, a way for him to take control of the situation. He quietly pulled his phone out of his pocket underneath the table. The screen was cracked despite he worn case wrapped around it. He opened his own profile on The Pulse. He was an optimist, always picking the wrong side. When he looked at the bets on him, he saw the odds for YES were now at a staggering 91%.
He tapped YES and put all his Clout on it. The app asked him to confirm. He pressed the confirm button with some reluctance. He quickly scuttled his phone back into his pocket and tried to act normal. He looked at Brayden again with a flat stare.
Then, he lifted his arm, pointed his elbow right at the carton, and collided straight into it. The cardboard erupted all over his pizza and his shirt. The cafeteria erupted in laughter. It sounded like a horde of hyenas. Then there was the chorus of high-pitched chimes from the markets receiving their payouts, including his own.
“Schneider, clean that up,” Mrs. Clark chastised him, seeing it as a simple accident.
The janitor came over with a roll of paper towels and dropped it right in front of him. Mateo quickly started to rip off sheets and dry up the mess starting with his shirt.
He felt his own phone buzzing. He knew he had won too, despite the laughs of everyone around him. Then he looked back at Brayden. The smirk was gone. Although Brayden had probably made the bet early, and made a lot of Clout, he had lost his power over Mateo. He was no longer able to manipulate it to hurt others.
By betting against himself, and joining in on the joke, Mateo was no longer a victim. While he spent the rest of the day smelling like sour chocolate, he was glad to no longer be a victim. He was now a trader.