Throughout the novel, social media, cell phones, computers, and other forms of technology represent the double-edged sword of connection in the contemporary digital age. From the novel’s very first page, social media is used as a weapon, a tool of intimidation, and a method of control throughout Bayview High thanks to Simon Kelleher’s ruthless yet reliable gossip app, About That. After Simon’s death—which, despite its mysterious circumstances, seems intimately connected to his role as the primary gossipmonger throughout the Bayview community—many students expect that life at Bayview will return to “normal”; however, when blog posts written from the perspective of Simon’s “murderer” begin cropping up on About This, it becomes clear that the gossip-hungry, social media-saturated atmosphere throughout the school is inescapable.
As the novel unfolds, characters use technology as a means of connecting with one another, often intimately, despite the painful role social media and its attendant modes of access have had in many of their lives; Nate and Bronwyn, desperate to get to know one another better but forbidden from being seen together for fear of arousing suspicious of collusion, use burner phones to communicate with one another and fall asleep on the phone together each night. Meanwhile, Cooper Clay’s cell phone is his only way of communicating with his lover Kris—though their communication renders his phone a liability, and when characters such as his girlfriend Keely interact with the object, Cooper is plunged into abject fear. Meanwhile Mr. Avery, a strict science teacher with a zero-tolerance policy for cell phones in the classroom, is at the heart of the Kelleher murder investigation because all of the students who earned detention in his classroom on the day of Simon’s death had had fake cell phones planted in their backpacks; Avery is repulsed by his students’ addiction to their “screens,” and this calls into question whether he is so hateful of social media, cell phones, and other modes of contemporary communication that he would do something drastic to make a point of it. Throughout the novel, McManus’s vastly different characters navigate the complicated webs of communication that unspool from their various devices, plunge into internet rabbit-holes on websites like 4chan in search of clues to the truth about Simon’s death, and struggle with the media’s perception of the events swarming through their gossip-obsessed high school. As they do so, social media, cell phones, computers, and other tools of technology emerge as symbols of the failures—and possibilities—of modern-day communication.
Social Media and Technology Quotes in One of Us is Lying
A sex tape. A pregnancy scare. Two cheating scandals. And that's just this week’s update. If all you knew of Bayview High was Simon Kelleher's gossip app, you'd wonder how anyone found time to go to class.
"Old news, Bronwyn," says a voice over my shoulder. "'Wait till you see tomorrow's post."
Damn. I hate getting caught reading About That, especially by its creator. I lower my phone and slam my locker shut. "Whose lives are you ruining next, Simon?"
Simon falls into step beside me as I move against the flow of students heading for the exit. "It’s a public service," he says with a dismissive wave. […] “Anyway, they bring it on themselves. If people didn’t lie and cheat, I’d be out of business.”
The phone almost slips out of my hand. Another text from Chad Posner came through while I was reading. People r fucked up.
I text back, Where’d you get this?
Posner writes some rando emailed a link, with the laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji. He thinks it’s somebody’s idea of a sick joke. Which is what most people would think, if they hadn’t spent an hour with a police officer asking ten different ways how peanut oil got into Simon Kelleher's cup. Along with three other people who looked guilty as hell.
None of them have as much experience as I do keeping a straight face when shit's falling apart around them. At least, none of them are as good at it as me.
Four days after we're featured on the local news, the story goes national on Mikhail Powers Investigates. I knew it was coming, since Mikhail’s producers had tried to reach my family all week. We never responded, thanks to basic common sense and also Robin’s legal advice. Nate didn’t either, and Addy said she and Cooper both refused to talk as well. So the show will be airing in fifteen minutes without commentary from any of the people actually involved. Unless one of us is lying. Which is always a possibility.
Maeve and I are sprawled on my bed watching the minutes on my alarm clock tick by until my debut as a national disgrace. Or rather, I am, and she’s combing through the 4chan links she found through Simon’s admin site.
"Check this out," she says, angling her laptop toward me.
The long discussion thread covers a school shooting that happened last spring a few counties over. A sophomore boy concealed a handgun in his jacket and opened fire in the hallway after the first bell. Seven students and a teacher died before the boy turned the gun on himself, I have to read a few of the comments more than once before I realize the thread isn’t condemning the boy, but celebrating him. It’s a bunch of sickos cheering on what he did.
"Maeve." I burrow my head in my arms, not wanting to read any more. "What the hell is this?"
"Some forum Simon was all over a few months back."
I raise my head to stare at her. " Simon posted there? How do you know?"
"He used that AnarchiSK name from About That," Maeve replies.
Sexism is alive and well in true-crime coverage, because Bronwyn and I aren’t nearly as popular with the general public as Cooper and Nate. Especially Nate. All the tween girls posting about us on social media love him. They couldn’t care less that het a convicted drug dealer, because he’s got dreamy eyes.
Same goes for school. Bronwyn and I are pariahs—other than her friends, her sister, and Janae, hardly anyone talks to us. They just whisper behind our backs. But Cooper's as golden as ever. And Nate—well, it’s not like Nate was ever popular, exactly. He’s never seemed to care what people think, though, and he still doesn’t.
“I'm getting what I deserve, right? That’s what everybody thinks. I guess it's what Simon would’ve wanted. Everything out in the open for people to judge. No secrets."
"Simon . . ." Janae’s got that strangled sound to her voice again. "He’s not . . . He wasn’t like they said. I mean, yes, he went overboard with About That, and he wrote some awful things. But the past couple years have been rough. He tried so hard to be part of things and he never could. I don’t think . . ." She stumbles over her words. "When Simon was himself, he wouldn’t have wanted this for you."
I sit with Mary in the interrogation room after Detective Chang leaves, thankful there’s no two-way mirror as I bury my head in my hands. Life as I knew it is over, and pretty soon nobody will look at me the same way. I was going to tell eventually, but in a few years, maybe? When I was a star pitcher and untouchable. Not now. Not like this.
"Cooper." Mary puts a hand on my shoulder. "Your father will be wondering why we're still in here. You need to talk to him."
"I can't," I say automatically. Cain't.
"Your father loves you," she says quietly.
I almost laugh… He loves when I strike out the side and get attention from flashy scouts, and when my name scrolls across the bottom of ESPN. But me?
He doesn’t even know me.
[Nate] crosses to our table and dumps his backpack next to Bronwyn. She stands up, winds her arms around his neck, and kisses him like they're alone while the entire cafeteria erupts into gasps and catcalls. I stare as much as everyone else. I mean, I kind of guessed, but this is pretty public. I'm not sure if Bronwyn’s trying to distract everyone from Cooper or if she couldn’t help herself. Maybe both.
Either way, Cooper's effectively been forgotten. He's motionless at the entrance until I grab his arm. "Come sit. The whole murder club at one table. They can stare at all of us together."
Maeve's hand finds mine as Mikhail drops his last bombshell—a screen capture of the 4chan discussion threads, with Simon’s worst posts about the Orange County school shooting highlighted:
Look, I support the notion of violently disrupting schools in theory, but this kid showed a depressing lack of imagination. I mean, it was fine, I guess. It got the job done. But it was so prosaic, Haven't we seen this a hundred times now? Kid shoots up school, shoots up sell film at eleven. Raise the stakes, for God's sake. Do something original.
A grenade, maybe. Samurai swords? Surprise me when you take out a bunch of asshole lemmings. That's all I'm asking.
I'm not sure you could call it journalism, but Mikhail Powers Investigates definitely has an impact over the next few days. Somebody starts a Change.org petition to drop the investigation that collects almost twenty thousand signatures. The MLB and local colleges get heat about whether they discriminate against gay players. The tone of the media coverage shifts, with more questions being raised about the police’s handling of the case than about us. And when I return to school on Monday, people actually talk to me again. […] Maybe my life won’t ever be fully normal again, but by the end of the week I start to hope it'll be less criminal.
"Let's go back to what we know," Bronwyn says. Her voice is almost clinical, but her face is flushed brick red. “Simon was one of those people who thought he should be at the center of everything, but wasn’t. And he was obsessed with the idea of making some kind of huge, violent splash at school. He fantasized about it all the time on those 4chan threads. What if this was his version of a school shooting? Kill himself and take a bunch of students down with him, but in an unexpected way. Like framing them for murder." She turns to her sister. "What did Simon say on 4chan, Maeve? Do something original. Surprise me when you take out a bunch of lemming assholes."
I look up from the papers. "Why?" I ask, bile rising in my throat. "How did Simon get to this point?"
"He'd been depressed for a while," Janae says, kneading the fabric of her black skirt between her hands. The stacks of studded bracelets she wears on both arms rattle with the movement. "Simon always felt like he should get a lot more respect and attention than he did, you know? But he got really bitter about it this year. He started spending all his time online with a bunch of creepers, fantasizing about getting revenge on everyone who made him miserable. It got to the point where I don’t think he even knew what was real anymore. Whenever something bad happened, he blew it way out of proportion."
"Maeve, I don't care about Twitter," I say wearily. I haven’t been on there since this whole mess started. Even with my profile set to private, I couldn’t deal with the onslaught of opinions.
"I know. But you should see this." She hands me her phone and points to a post on my timeline from Yale University: To err is human @BronwynRojas. We look forward to receiving your application.
Social Media and Technology Symbol Timeline in One of Us is Lying
