Chapter 1 : New social media
The blue glow of the laptop was Luiza’s only companion in the dead of night. Her life had become a cold, monotonous routine, punctuated only by the glare of online classes and a stack of books for the Master’s program she had already tried—and failed—to enter twice. Frustrated by sterile academia and the emotional chill of her life at forty-five, Luiza sought warmth where most people do these days: the internet.
Incognito mode seemed like the perfect shield—a safe harbor for her anonymity. She didn’t want trouble; she only wanted adventure.
"Reddit..." she whispered to herself, typing in the address. The interface was a chaotic mess. "How does this even work?"
She filled out the registration, feeling a sharp sting of anxiety—an emotion her chest hadn't felt in a long time. As she selected her feed preferences, her academic mind categorized the chaos: fitness, rescued animals, bizarre stories. A buffet of other people's lives, ready for consumption.
After a while, the anonymity gave her courage. Her feed transformed into a gallery of random posts, but some images held her gaze longer than others. Handsome men—though far too young for her—and well-crafted stories that reminded her of the ones she wrote herself during her rare spare hours.
Suddenly, a subreddit appeared: EgyGym. Egyptian men at the gym. It was a geographic fascination mixed with the promise of raw physical strength. Luiza clicked, and the algorithm responded with an avalanche of videos and photos of bodies more defined and massive than anything she had ever seen in real life.
The idea of interacting felt almost innocent.
"Why not comment?" she thought. "I don’t have a profile picture; incognito mode is safe. I’ll just be a ghost, praising all this effort. It must be nice to be admired."
However, Luiza soon discovered that ghosts do not go unnoticed in that environment. Her comments triggered instant notifications. The safety of her anonymity began to crumble as chat requests started to blink on her screen.
There was something intrusive about those direct approaches. Men from Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt itself began responding via chat. Luiza felt a knot of discomfort in her throat. It was too personal. She shut down the computer and hurried to bed, startled by the unexpected emotional weight she had just added to her monotonous existence.
