27 Theres No Such Thing As Bad Publicity (2/2)
Some people stood out to defend the cafe, others to defend Gerald.The ones who defended the cafe were the ones who had gone there that day, and who had initially tweeted at the cafe once they discovered the account.The ones defending Gerald were obviously his fans or people wishing to get on his good side.
They pointed out how Gerald had so much money that he would never need to lower himself to accept payment to advertise, especially if he didn't actually believe in the product.Of course, they were completely correct.
However, the conspiracy theory had taken on a life of its own.The internet trolls had gotten ahold of it, drawn like sharks by the scent of blood in the water.Pretty soon tweets popped up claiming the photos were digitally altered, that the cappuccino didn't actually look like that.
As things continued to spiral, Alan drifted into a blissful sleep.Even if he had known, he wouldn't care too much.Instead he'd be thinking, ”Yes please continue to drive up my popularity trolls.”
The next day, Alan got up and got ready as per usual.He went downstairs to make himself coffee before opening the cafe.As he sipped on his coffee in his favorite leather armchair, he opened his phone to check his Twitter account to see if Gerald had responded.
He was overwhelmed with notifications as he opened the app.At some point it had stopped counting how many he had.As he scrolled through them, he quickly gave up, realizing he didn't have time to read each and every notification.
He checked his profile page and nearly dropped his phone out of fright.He'd jumped to over 50,000 followers overnight.
”What happened while I was sleeping?”He thought disbelievingly.He searched through his tweets and saw the initial tweet to his account from Gerald.Following that he noticed his initial boom in followers and the pics people had tweeted at him.He scrolled rapidly, until he reached when the conspiracy theory started to become the main focus of the conversation.He kept scrolling, reading occasional tweets.
By the time he reached the top 10 minutes had gone by, but he'd gained an understanding of what had gone on last night.
”Lucky,” He breathed to himself, doubting his own luck.There was a common expression that came to mind as he considered what had happened: there's no such thing as bad publicity.So long as people were talking about his cafe it meant he would grow even more popular.Some would come to support the cafe, others would come to tear it down, and still others would come just to see what the commotion was about.Either way, he wouldn't let any of them get away with full wallets.
He chuckled somewhat evilly as he daydreamed about the money he'd earn.
He quickly sent out a tweet.”If you doubt the hype, come check out the cafe for yourself.Put your money where your mouth is.We open in 30 minutes.”
The tweet instantly got retweeted, liked, and replied to by his many followers.Alan put his phone down in satisfaction, finished his coffee, and cleaned up in preparation for the day to come.