Draining: The Digital Bro (Learn to Identify One)

It's by scrolling through Youtube, Insta or Tiktok that you come across his video.

There are beautiful blue neon lights behind him, and when he speaks into his microphone from his Ikea gamer chair, he seems to have mastered his subject. Marketing coaching, Discord or crypto, it doesn't matter, he's bound to catcall you with a subject he knows how to make attractive.

At first, you like him, he's almost charming. Too late, you've fallen into the clutches of the digital redneck. Like the TV bro, the digital bro realized early on that to be important, you had to stand at the top of a podium so that others would listen. Indeed, his speeches wouldn't stand out in the street or under a bridge, but in front of a camera, you're sure to grab attention by copying the com style of those you're putting forward. And it's true that without a camera, he'd be seen for what he is: a modern-day cult guru in search of money and digital followers.

As a specialist in a single subject, it's best not to ask him about anything else: general knowledge isn't his thing. Moreover, when he expands on other ideas, things get stuck.

Rotten, the digital bro will try his hand at a lot of sticky tricks before he breaks through, like renting extras for a fake party where he mixes, asking people how much they earn on the street (spoiler: they all earn more than 20,000 euros a day, of course), setting up fake hidden cameras with his accomplice buddies, and he'll do tutorials on Youtube, but he'll only talk about himself for 90% of the video.

He doesn't care about being useful, he just wants to be famous. But beware, by doing a “glitzy” job that he thinks is effortless: fortune-telling, DJ, PR, columnist, critic... and right now it's influencer, but a far cry from the demands of professional content creators.

He'll even take to the microphone to quiz passers-by on topics that are sure to generate comment, such as gender pay or the body-positive trend.

Willing to do anything to seem nice, even going so far as to grab the first homeless person who comes along, he'll buy him a Big Mac to seem human, but it all sounds fake, you can smell it, it stinks. Even the fake spelling mistakes he puts in his headlines past 28 “to look young” and to provoke comments, sounds fake.

You dig a little deeper and... that's when things get tricky. Because the digital redneck doesn't do anything for free. Like a syphilitic whore, he'll show you the best version of himself to make sure you feel close enough to trust him, far from the usual polished advertising: he's real. In fact, he's so real that he doesn't hesitate to show you: either a shitty place to live to let you think he's just like you, or a private jet to show you that he's living the high life.

What he sells you is never concrete: a marketing training course, an unsustainable workout program, bitcoin tips, in short, all the musty subjects par excellence... everything is done to limit physical contact with you as much as possible. Because the digital redneck doesn't like you, harsh reality.

He tells you he's an “expat/nomad”, translate: tax evader, he's not going to pay for your healthcare either, who do you think he is? In short, the further away he is from you, the better off he is, “yes but that's just because I love Thailand and Dubai you know”.

He worships Elon, Kanye and the whole pestilential clique of attention-seeking scum with their racist and hateful lyrics, convinced that they've reached the pinnacle of lucrative muckraking. In fact, one of his videos will surely be devoted to them.

Personally, it pisses him off to have to play a lousy role to sell you a poor Pdf. If the whole thing could be automated, he'd be happy. In fact, he'll soon get his wish thanks to AI, but in the meantime, here he is doing pranks, forced smiles and even life advice when he'd surely prefer people to stop taking him for a buffoon.

Unfortunately for him, it's too late. A production company set its sights on him a long time ago, and of all the crackpots and wannabes who populated the Internet, he was rigorously chosen because he was the lamest of the lot.

Modus operandi inspired by the advertising marketing of clairvoyance firms who post conspiracy/religious/strange phenomenon/astrology videos that will appeal to those whose IQ perfectly matches their target, social networks are riddled with asshole traps designed to make life easier for marketers of all stripes. The digital bro is no exception, and before he knows it, he's being coached like a puppet.

Yes, because the digital bro's modest bedroom and makeshift blue neon studio are just sets. Behind him is a major TV group that has recycled the most disgusting thing about humanity: reality TV.

The dumber the contestant, the better he or she will do, inevitably provoking a comment or a reaction of disgust from the audience. In marketing, we call this “consumer engagement”, and it's harder to get it with clever stuff than with controversial content. Ideal when you need to sell sponsorship or advertising space.

For the digital bro"girl", it's more difficult. Because of her lack of talent, she'll have to show her ass straight away... only to apologize for it right afterwards. Impromptu porn, like the accidental sex tape, is a tried-and-tested technique that's the Holy Grail for anyone who wants to be known quickly when you've got the intelligence of a blowfly - just ask Kim K., for whom anal enema holds no secrets.

But at a time when the flood of images to which we have access is colossal, getting noticed as quickly as possible becomes vital. It's during a video workout with leggings over-embedded in the slit that the digital bro-girl will shine. Even if climbers have killed themselves in shallower crevasses, the result is there. And since too much is not enough, she'll also flaunt lips so swollen that they look like she's giving birth to her head, and then complain about the harassment she suffers in her videos. Because in the absolute, everyone is free to do what they want... and even if looking like a blow-up doll is surely just a clumsy aesthetic choice, the final feeling of a call to throatfuck is, to her greatest surprise, curiously acclaimed by her followers.

Of course, in order to be selected from among the very open candidates, she'll have to get in with all the production company bosses, photographers, cinematographers, a few sponsors and many others whose disgusting, off-putting looks have prevented them from being in the limelight. To get there, the digital bro-girl had better have a leather pussy, because she's going to have to chain together all the assbrokers in the western suburbs of Paris, who understand that, like a bowling ball, you can easily put three fingers in it. And since she's going to be less and less fresh, she's going to democratize her thick, trowel-spread make-up tricks, such as contouring, a make-up technique specifically designed to be bukkake-resistant.

In fact, since she's a big user, why not launch her own make-up brand?

Note that at least porn actresses have the elegance not to lie about who they are, but the digital bro-girl wants to be much more premium when she'd even get kicked out of a Trump penthouse for vulgarity, that's saying something.

Even so, at the end of her career and with some resources, she could possibly evolve into an ass-licker in some German porn after her Onlyfan page, “but it's artistic you know”. Her rather pronounced nasolabial fold around her lips is a direct visible consequence of this practice, and it's ideal for grilling any MILF trying to play prude about her saucy past.

And just like the digital bro-girl, the digital bro has also had to give blowjobs. When he was under 16, he was sent to a certain well-known cable channel director, and not much older, it was between public channels or streaming platforms depending on the orifice used.

Some digital bros are very ambitious, and with a great deal of ass gel, they manage to get a TV appearance, or even a whole show if they're not afraid of dirty geriatric groups.

Like the not-so-fresh chronicler present on the set at the same time as them, their knees are covered in scars. Their determination is to be applauded, for we're not far from the musical single catapulted to “next summer hit” following an appearance on a “talent” show, even if it will certainly need adult diapers to manage to hold out for a few more years, before sinking into oblivion like the juice bags that preceded them. And nothing changes, because when you're a successful singer, it's an understatement to say that all the latest pieces have passed through your lips.

Television loves this kind of dejecta, because it reinforces the viewer's artificial belief that they are normal, and should never question their mediocrity. After all, who would buy the ultra-processed food in the advert that follows the show, if it were full of hot, healthy, athletic, intelligent people? The slightest flat stomach with abs has to be associated with the most extreme stupidity so that the audience feels superior and above all doesn't have its hunger cut off.

We wouldn't want to stop you from consuming - on the contrary.

In the twilight of his twenties, the digital bro can still make money by showing off his digital ass on certain specialized networks. Granted, the followers will be mostly undemanding old Indians, but when you have no talent other than having an orifice to show, any income is good for the taking.

The digital bro often likes to get together with his peers. In fact, it's not uncommon for them to invite other rednecks and put them in front of a podcast-style microphone to try and give their buddies some credibility. The topics will always be the same: how I made a success of my life (and you didn't), how I became an entrepreneur (and you didn't), how I became a millionaire in 5 minutes (and you didn't).

In conclusion, we know that the Internet, like every other medium, is set up to give the impression that it's a big party to which you and I aren't invited, and that we just need to subscribe/buy/comment/share to feel more accepted. Of course, we'd be tempted to fall for it. And even if “the question is quickly answered bro”, we must never forget that the digital bro is first and foremost... a redneck.