A thought-provoking look at the confrontations of the online world breaking into reality
If conflict is the lifeblood of fiction, it could be said the exploitation of conflict is the lifeblood of social media. Shanghai Casino owner Shane Thomas takes this further by arranging and hosting the annual Shanghai Lottery: a boxing card to settle scores between social media giants. An exploitation to engulf their exploitations, as narrator Ben eventually discovers.
Prior to that, he’s living at home in Boulder, Colorado with his alcoholic mother and her carousel of deadbeat boyfriends. Ben earns his keep at a grocer’s meat department, but for his financial future he’s counting on online alter ego, Eddie Luzhin. Eddie has cultivated a large and lucrative following on Disco Social. His “mob” eats up his witticisms and pounces on conflicts Eddie instigates (“engagement projects”), inspired by a mantra of “On Disco, fortune favors the blowhard.” Never shall these twain identities meet in public, if Ben can help it.
Of course, he can’t.
Someone as active as Eddie is bound to slip up with what he posts. Especially when much of his posting occurs at work among co-workers with whom he has bristly relationships. Even the friendly ones force him to engage clandestinely due to their disdain for social media. Like his superior Nick, in admiring the method used to handle wet chickens, a subtle jab at the disparity of values between online attention seekers and real life producers:
“This is how civilization advances, (Ben). Millions of men. Thousands of generations. They leave a little something behind to make life easier for the rest of us. This box … these little tabs … the work of a man who wanted to eliminate a small botheration in the world. He made our day a little easier, and we’ll never know his name.”
Inevitably Ben’s public and private worlds collide when he agitates a tough guy with a much wider audience beyond Disco Social. This Liam Campbell even stages his own unorthodox boxing matches, all of which he wins. As the Eddie-Liam feud escalates, it earns an invitation from Shane Thomas for his eponymous contest.
Ben’s reluctance to fight is understandable: he can’t box; he’s not strong. But when his mother and prospective girlfriend face online embarrassment, he has no choice but to fight. This involves relocating to Detroit for three months of training at Angel King’s Boxing Academy. It’s also a time of reflection for Ben. There it dawns on him he’s now on the side of the exploited. This reveals the impact of his own activities to open a potential path of redemption, if he opts to take it.
Ben’s story simply but meaningfully conveys the pitfalls of social media, without coming off as a sociological diatribe. Through Ben and his circle, the benefits and consequences of engaging (or disengaging from) the online world are not generalized but depicted through regular people. Their guileless ordinariness contrasts the bravado and dubious sincerity of online personas like Eddie Luzhin and Liam Campbell, or even Shane Thomas.
This is best exhibited during Ben’s time in Detroit. A fish out of water, he must socialize with actual humans who at best remain ignorant of Eddie, and others who resent him, such as Sebastian, one of the gym’s leaders:
“. . . he walked toward me in slow, decisive steps. It was as if bitterness had sprouted legs and learned to walk, and everyone in the room wanted to hear what it had to say. Men in the rings stopped to watch what was shaping up to be a confrontation.”
Ben’s struggles to adapt and fit in are touchingly portrayed and adequately fill what plot-wise is a slower transitional stretch.
The story pulls its punches at times as far as dramatizing the degree of nastiness from keyboard warriors. That’s justifiable as such “noise” might detract from the central human story. Where there could be more intensity is with those close to Ben, in particular his love interest, Kat. She seems too forgiving considering the manner in which his need to fight for her honor came about, never mind how long he kept his online life from her.
The boxing scenes themselves stand out, whether in sparring at the boxing academy or in the actual bout with Liam Campbell. They’re grittily engaging and realistic. As are the characters at the academy, in particular his trainer, Gabriel. Those three months are at the heart of Ben’s growth. They bring out and put into perspective the humanity Ben has previously obscured through Eddie in Boulder.
Shanghai Lottery comprehensively yet warmly illustrates how social media can get out of hand. The story’s humility, as reflected in its protagonist, makes for a subtly effective and resonating commentary on the online world.
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