Marlon (failing to) fool the internet script

7 days. Not a word, not a video, not a clip, not a post, nothing. You may wonder, or you may not wonder, why do you do this? Why’d you do this experiment? Why are you even making this video? Why were you silent for 7 days straight? I wanted to test the internet. I wanted to see how bad and easy or hard you can really fool the internet. Now, was it easy? Yeah. Was it hard seeing it? Yeah. Let me tell y’all how in seven days I fooled the internet completely.

Stage one, the crash-out stage. This was the moment I pretty much pulled the plug. I wanted the internet to think I was done. Fully done. Gone off social media. All this work I put in, gone forever. That’s it — in a snap. Well, in a crash-out, to be honest.

Back to script. The goal: make it look messy. So, I went on stream and I started acting weird, out of my usual behavior. I started saying things I wouldn’t say. I started acting different. My energy was different. You can see the chat start saying, “This not you. What are you doing right now? Who is that?” That’s when I knew it was time to crash out. So, I crashed out. Did I actually work myself up to be a little bit hot and actually crash out a little bit? 100%. But when I watched it back and I turned it off, I said I was done. Those were my last final words, and I was going to be done. That was the start of the experiment.

Now, my real emotions actually coming into play a little bit played the perfect part because afterwards, I was like, “Wait, this actually was really good.” And this was the start of the disappearance. You can’t really fake a disappearance unless you really do it the right way. So, I disappeared — just like that. Gone.

Stage two, the quiet stage. Now this is when the internet starts talking. Days go by, hours go by, minutes go by, people start talking, people start wondering. I just sat back, let it all happen. This is when you let it marinate. You let it sit. You let people’s thoughts form for themselves. But I didn’t say a single word. And the internet started whispering: “Is he done? Where’d he go? Is he fully finished? What is this? Has he sold his soul?” I’ve seen every single thing. I just sat back, looked at my phone, and said, “Perfect. This is what I needed right here.” That reaction right there sold it. The silence truly made people talk louder. That’s what I wanted.

Stage three, confuse the internet. This is probably the hardest part. This is when you’re supposed to drop little hints, but also drop hints to make it seem very believable that you’ve pretty much gone insane. Well, have you gone insane? Have you not gone insane? Are you in a bed crying at 4:00 a.m. because you’re just in your feelings and no one takes care of you at night?

Back to script. So this was my master plan. I made it seem like I was in Thailand — like I lost my mind, went bald, turned into a monk. Hopefully I say that correct. Turned into a monk and was in Thailand fulfilling my true passion of becoming that. Here’s how I did it. I searched up garment stores, drove around in my car, and I found one. The perfect garb. I went in there and picked the orange color that fits the exact colors that true monks have in Thailand. Went home, cut it all up myself, put it around me, drove to a temple in LA — not Thailand, their main temple — and asked the guy in there if I could film a video. He said, “Absolutely. We’d be happy to.”

By the way, this is all in Los Angeles. I had my car parked, my iPhone camera zoomed in almost to the max right where it cuts off by the little temple. So you can’t really see that it’s Los Angeles, but you can only see the temple. You can’t really see if it’s me or not, but you can see my posture, my body, that I’m bald. Then I turned, and the camera went down, acting like they got caught filming. Then I put the Snapchat location in Thailand — which you can do manually, by the way — and I said, “You know what? Let me put this on TikTok, on a clip account, not on my main account. Put a caption to make it seem like somebody caught me in Thailand losing my mind, trying to find my true self.”

Now, here’s the thing: this wouldn’t go as good if I woke up the next morning and had no views. Because if it had no views, I’d be cooked. I’d be done. But I woke up and had 2 million views. It was the perfect plan. It had comments — people from Thailand saying, “Oh, this is good for you,” and others confused: “Is he losing his mind? Why is he bald? Is that really Marlin? I thought he was done.” It was perfect.

All up here, we created a narrative to make it really seem like I’d gone insane. Half the internet thought I quit, thought I became a monk. Half the internet probably thought I was just insane at this point. But the truth is, I was just watching. And trust me, it was beautiful to watch. It was beautiful seeing the creation come to life.

Stage four, the setup phase. This is when you get your friends — your lovely friends on the internet — to play along in the game. Lacy was talking to me saying he hadn’t heard from me for a week. He said, “Mo, Chad, I don’t know if Marlin’s coming to Theon. Obviously, I invited him, but I haven’t heard from him.” You have JJ in a podcast saying that Marlin shaved “17” in the back of his head. It was all filmed. It made it seem like I’d sold my soul, that I was going crazy, while somebody actually did shave my head — which you’ll see in another video.

It was perfect because then JJ could go on his podcast with the Sidemen and make it seem like I’d gone insane. They didn’t really see the full clip. He was just talking about the video. It went perfect. It sold it even more. It made people question it even more. Again, plan worked.

Stage five, the execution. This is when it all comes together. I hoped that for 7 days I could really confuse the internet into thinking I quit. That’s where we’re at right now — 7 days in, and I think I completed it. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of people that caught on to it. A lot of people knew the place was in LA, not Thailand. I wasn’t losing my mind — people were really just chatting.

Now, why did I really do this? 7 days of silence, 7 days of confusion, 7 days of sitting back and seeing how easily fooled the internet is. You may ask why I did this. You may not. You may not even care about this video or me. This might be small. This might be big. I wanted to see for myself, going through this social media experiment. I really love doing it. It’s funny. It’s harsh. It’s ups and downs. But at the end of the day, it’s crazy to see that you can make it seem like you’re in Thailand, in Russia, or disappeared forever — anything you want — and the internet will go with it if you do it well.

Now, is that a good trade? Probably not. To be honest, I really wanted to do this YouTube video because I wanted to see how good I could do it. You really thought I was done? Man, I love this [__]. No matter what people say, it’s you versus you. That’s it. You can’t fool the internet forever, but for one week, I think I did a pretty good job. I proved that sometimes going ghost makes the noise louder. It also shows you who truly supports you and who doesn’t.

I want to say — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, everywhere — I love y’all, bro. You’re very positive, and I appreciate that. Y’all got my heart, bro. Seriously. It’s a lot of hate in this world. It was fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. Matter of fact, I love doing these types of videos. Hopefully it turns out good. We did that. I love y’all. Don’t be so easily fooled, boy. You understand that, boy? Welcome back. May see y’all tomorrow, bright and early in the morning with a new room. Don’t be so easily fooled. Bye. Maybe I’ll fool y’all again. Who knows? Who knows?