Skip to main content

Scifi short story where everyone's lives are recorded, and based on this everyone is ranked at every different skill there could conceivably be



I read this story in the last 10 years. It is a scifi short story, probably published in Giganotosaurus or some other sci fi short story collective. Definitely published online.



The story is kind of like "The Entire History of You" from Black Mirror, where people's whole lives are recorded by small devices. Except the conceit in this story is that everyone's "talent" at different things (think... everything from juggling to cooking) is ranked, and social value and popularity is derived from this.


So this leads to a bunch of people trying to find the obscure thing that they can climb the rankings in (I seem to remember the protagonist was at one point in the top 500 Male jugglers under 30 or something like that). Then one day, he has sex, and is suddenly the number 1 Male Lover in the world. I think this happens, at least.


Later on, he finds a community who has given up the devices, and finds joy in doing things even though they aren't the best at them. I remember the girl being impressed by his juggling (?) "even though he isn't even in the Top 100", and the love interest's lack of world-weariness enlivens the protagonist.


Thank you to anyone who ended up reading this!



Answer



Camera Obscured by Ferrett Steinmetz. I read it in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, which from the ISFDB entry would appear to the the only place it has been published.


The story starts:



It had been a week since Victor “Yo-Yo” Pino had been stung by a hundred and seventy-four bees. And after a brief hospital stay at the 8,546th best emergency care center in the world, Victor's mother made him go back to his classes at Wilkinson High, the 4,378th best high school in America.




Your recollection is lightly off. Victor wants to be the worlds best lover (hetero male) and figures out the secret to this is just to be a nice guy. The current top lover is a chap called Angata Mahamoud:



It didn't matter. On the third afternoon, as Victor lay dejectedly in his bed, kismet struck in the form of a television show—specifically, a documentary on the the ex-girlfriends of Angata Mahamoud, the World's Best Lover (Hetero Male).
...
Truth was, Victor realized, Angata wasn't that great a lover. He was simply a nice man who'd had the good fortune to sleep with four women who had no other experiences to compare with. Angata had stumbled into an isolated bubble of four people, none of whom had even kissed anyone else in the world—so the Worldwork algorithms couldn't contrast and compare their results with those of previous lovers to fine-tune the thousands of other factors that made people over-and under-estimate someone's skills in bed.



So Victor sets out to find six girls he can sleep with who haven't had previous lovers. This search leads him to Rosalie, the girl he tries to impress with his juggling:



He thought about listing all the things he couldn't do, but that would have taken too much time. “I can juggle,” he volunteered.

“Get outta town,” she said, punching him in the arm. “You're like a piñata, Vic. I keep poking you and weird shit falls out. Juggle for me.”

His stomach clenched; he hadn't juggled since his final ranking (3,212,091st). “I'm not good at it.”




Spoiler: it doesn't work out.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

tolkiens legendarium - Did Gandalf wear his Ring of Power throughout the trilogy?

After Gandalf discovered that Sauron was back and sent Frodo on his quest to Rivendell, did he continue to wear Narya (one of the Three Rings)? It seems like a huge risk to continue to wear it after the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths) started to try and reclaim the One Ring; if they managed to get the ring to Sauron, couldn't he be corrupted by his power? Whatever powers Narya bestows upon him couldn't possibly be worth the huge risk, could it? Answer When Sauron forged the one ring and put it on his finger, the other ring bearers were immediately aware of him and his intentions and removed their own rings. There is no reason why they couldn't merely do so again. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and preceived that he would be master of them, and of all they wrought. Then in anger and fear they took off their rings. "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age," Silmarillion