500 +

Tell us how it started.

I first noticed something was wrong when I opened my inbox to find it was empty. This never happened, not in a world where if colleagues and clients don't want to get in touch there will be at least several online networks and shops that do. I had clicked refresh a couple of times and checked my internet connection but still nothing came up. Somewhat naively I'd put it down to a slow news day and figured something would happen eventually. But it never did. Hours went by and still nothing, no sign of anyone following my abandoned Pinterest boards or adding me to a circle on Google Plus. No-one had any tweets for me and Facebook had given up on telling me who I might like to be friends with. I visited all these sites individually and soon realised it was far worse than I'd first thought. Not only were these sites not emailing me, but they weren't being updated. The last time a friend had uploaded a picture of her baby was a whole week ago, Ricky Gervais hadn't blasted God on Twitter in five days and Piers Morgan had been quiet for so long that I assumed he'd finally been put in prison. I longed for it to just be a connection issue and desperately began looking for the blue fail whale or information on Facebook's status site but could find nothing there to suggest anything was wrong. Mashable had no reports of failures, in fact Mashable had no reports of anything. There'd been no new mobile developments that they expected us to care about, no students had written anything about how groundbreaking Google Glass would be and Pete Cashmore's face was nowhere to be seen. There was simply nothing to keep me updated on modern technological advances. I even tried looking at things on my phone, thinking perhaps it was a fault with my computer, but my HTC was telling me the same story. The sites were working fine; there was just nothing being put up on them. 

So what did you do?

I decided I had to act. Maybe there were other people out there staring at their screens thinking the same thing as me, equally worried about the lack of inane tweeting and photographed food. I thought the best way to check this would be by doing those things myself. If, for whatever reason, other people weren't active online, I could take up the mantle. I opened up all of my social networks in a row of tabs at the top of my screen. I knew how to garner engagement online and would use those skills to ensure I sent out the most tempting message possible, one that would definitely attract someone's attention if they were looking in the right place. 

The first site was Twitter. I knew on Twitter that if I said the right thing and used the right tone of voice my message could spread to thousands of people in a very small amount of time, meaning if there was anyone else out there they could see me in bulk. I thought long and hard about what I was going to type to ensure maximum impact. Then it came to me.

"Free One Direction tickets for anyone who retweets this."

Did it work?

No, there was nothing. That's when I really got worried. Had there been just one One Direction fan out there they would either have gone mental at the prospect of free tickets or sent me a load of hate for lying about it, but I didn't even get a single favourite. There was no interaction whatsoever.

So, to the next network...

Yeah, then I went to Facebook. Facebook was different in the sense that I only had actual friends on there so I was only going to be talking to people I knew. From past experiences I figured that the most likely source of a reply was if I told them something important was happening in my life. You know how you get loads of comments on your birthday or if you say you've got a new job, or are in a new relationship? I thought something like that would work. If any of my mates were out there, even the ones I only knew a little bit from my old school, they would interact with something like that.

What did you say?

I told them I was in love with a new girl who I'd met at my new job whose birthday it was today and she was inviting them all to her new club night. I asked them to click like if they wanted to go.

And?

Nothing, again. This stuff was engagement gold normally but not one person said anything. I feared the worst. Similar things happened when I put a picture of a really interesting looking sandwich up on Instagram with some words layered over the top of it telling everyone to be happy. I'd even hidden a small kitten in the background, something that always got attention on there, but there was still just online silence. My friends were either really busy or...

You didn't really believe that, did you?

No, I think I knew by then. 

Tell us how you came to be here...

Well I only had one viable option left. I ignored the other sites, your Pheed, Pinterest, Skype etc. I never really used them anyway so I had no-one to speak to there even if they had been, well, active. I went straight to the only other place where I could expect to see life. Updates about offers at work, promotions, new job opportunities in far off lands and invites to connect and endorse people for skills you didn't know they had were always aplenty there. Surely they would be something? Surely there would be signs that people were still...

Say it...

Alive.

Were there?

No. I didn't even get to see. I opened up the home page and instead of seeing the usual spam I found something else. Something bigger, something more likely to get me to click on it. In place of all the normal recommendations and people you might like to connect with was just one big number. It was the number that got me here.

(He looks down to the floor, as if trying to compose himself.)

It just said... 500+.

What did that mean?

It meant that I had over 500 connections. And then, well, I clicked on it and it became apparent that it meant much more than that. It meant that I... I had been saved.

Was that when people came for you?

Yep. The door flew open and before I'd had the time to really come to terms with what was happening I had a crowd of men in suits telling me that I had been chosen to live. 'Congratulations sir, you get to come with us.' They took me firmly by the arms and led me away from my desk, all the while informing me about several BNI groups that I might like to join now I was one of the select few. It was all pretty overwhelming.

Do you ever think about those other people, the ones who didn't have 500+?

All the time. They're in my head when I try to sleep. I feel so sorry for people who denied the chance to connect with all of those recruiters, for the people who only wanted to be linked with others they thought might be useful to their own careers or to whom they wanted to sell a product. If only they'd been like me and connected with anyone and everyone they might have still been alive today.

And instead they're...

Something's lunch, probably.