Goodbye My Invisible Readers

Hi dear readers, are you still here with me? Do you check in once in a while to see whether I have something to say about Mr. Frank?

Yes and no?

I don’t blame you.

So, let’s see, the last time Frank Mr. left the CH was at the end of May and then he had been back in the middle of June-ish to only change his user name. Finally, he was back on the App in the second week of July again with his original CH name and has stayed on ever since.

Again, it was the most inconvenient time for me this time — I was in the middle of my vacation to France where the Internet was only intermittently available, so I could not follow him around. But looks like that I did not miss much, as most of the time, he was just using the backchannel to “talk” to ppl.

I enjoyed teasing him with texts in a chat group of 14 ppl, however, he soon left the group and started to invite ppl to text him individually in his own “text me maybe” CH rooms, which is far less fun than pushing his buttons in a social setting. Also, compared to his voice, his writing is much less captivating. His texts make him a normal and random guy to me. Importantly as well, communicating with texts on a voice-based social platform contradicts the original idea of my coming on to the CH, let alone the annoyance that ppl’s conversations become “content unavailable” if they deactivate their CH accounts — a habit of Frank Mr.!

Needless to say, I have not joined him in his text-only rooms. I much prefer to hear his voice. Yet listening to what he says, if he decides to start rooms, has become unentertaining and sometimes unbearable to me lately.

First, he has lost the patience to wait for his turn to talk, which is so different from the figure that he had initially established in Feb when he was indeed a “nobody”, as he often claims to be whenever his listeners confess their admirations for him.

Second, he has lost his modesty. Knowing that he mostly speaks about things based on unverifiable sources, he used to remind his audience, “you don’t have to agree with me.” But this is now replaced by “this is an unarguable fact. If you don't even believe in facts, there is no need for us to continue our discussion.”

Third, he goes off topics way too often as well as completely disregards and rarely addresses questions of his listeners directly. He would go on and on and twist ALL the questions into low birth rate in China, feminism, love, marriage…those topics, at least to me, are not his strengths. Most of the time he gives his rooms titles of “What Chinese men should do to attract women.” “Why the birth rate is so low in the Chinese Han majority?” “We Chinese men face the danger of having no children.” “We Chinese men must be aware of our shortcomings.” “…” He clearly is in need of exhibiting his affections to women and trying too hard to prove himself to be the most superior man that is worthy of women’s love in the Chinese community.

“Hi Frank bro, you have become somewhat a different person this time coming back.” I pointed out to him based on my above observations one day when he dropped into our small social room, believing it would be in his best interest to control the potential damage to his well-established image in the CH.

“You seem to have lost your calm and the spirit of a knight. For example, you…”

Before I completed my sentence, he cut me off and said, “Oh, Xiatian sis, you misunderstood me. It is very important to me that someone of your caliber would not misread me.” “…”

He then spent the next 8–10 minutes talking loud and clear about something that was completely unrelated to what I intended to say. When he finally paused, I followed by, “See, what you did just now is exactly what I meant to explain, if only had you let me finish. You indeed have taken what I was trying to say in the wrong direction. I was going to let you know that I find that you no longer are willing to wait in line to speak. Remember the rules that you wrote in your “Knighthood Club?…”

But again, before I could elaborate further, he stopped me and said, “You are right and I am getting anxious because things have happened faster than expected.” “…” I should not behave like that.” He responded with obvious relief, possibly because I was concerned about only his manner, not other qualities such as knowledge, intelligence, or trustworthiness…

Knowing how well he usually takes criticisms, I expect to see a change in his behavior on the CH. However, whenever I join him in his rooms, he remains to be unreserved and even rude to other speakers.

Finally, the most disagreeable moment came two nights ago, when he hijacked our social room once again — he comes with a lot of traffic, which naturally shuts down our voices. As usual, he could not keep on chit-chatting with us and asked soon after he dropped in,

“Hi, Xiatian sis, could I ask you how you think about the Nonviolent Communication book that you recommended in your bio?”

“Of course. I strongly recommend that book because I truly believe the CH would be much more pleasant if all of those who speak often in this platform used nonviolent languages. It would not have so many name callings/hats like “little pinkoes” or “big rebellers” flying around. So have you read the book? How do you think of it?” I answered him with these questions to buy me some time to organize my thoughts so that I could come up with a synopsis of the book to introduce to him and the rest of the audience.

Yet after more than 10 min “blah blah blah” — he had again taken a potentially interesting topic off to something completely unrelated to nonviolent languages. Quickly my brain was off. The sound of his voice had become a white noise that served me as an effective lullaby…

…which explains why many of the CH rooms that he either starts or hijacks have turned into ghosts — you see in these rooms that his fans/listeners are still on the speakers’ stage but no one is talking after he leaves! They all must have fallen asleep like me!

“We New Yorkers can simply talk for hours about books that we never read!” Mr. Frank’s recent behavior reminds me of this statement from my writer friend years ago. But I am still immensely disappointed, when I actually experience it for the first time, especially it is demonstrated by my favorite speaker on the CH. To me, his talk is now an utter waste of time as his choice of words is empty, meaningless, and even obnoxious!

It was then that I realized that Frank Mr.’s voice has lost its charm to me.

So quietly, I left the room.

I am now feeling awful as I know that I am responsible for having contributed to retaining, trapping, and even expanding the body of his audience with my characteristic, direct, and sometimes even “stupid” questions that challenge his views. As someone who gives lectures to my peers and students, I know too well how stimulative those unexpected and seemingly vacuous questions can be — they serve to boost the speaker’s ego when s/he handles these questions swimmingly.

Dame, I feel so used!

Before I sign off, I must record a fun fact here. Frank Mr. has now coined the word “1234567” and this new word serves perfectly to those unverifiable stories/historical events, although not friendly to his new listeners.

Funnily also, his CH user name is now from “Frank Mr.” to “RespectPartyA 1234567”.

Clearly, distancing myself from Frank Mr. represents that my CH life has likely come to an end. I must say tho that Frank Mr. remains to be my favorite speaker on the CH — his way of delivering a message was so manipulative that still attracts many of the Chinese-speaking users.

Distancing myself from Frank Mr. also means that I need to stay away from his hardcore fans — I left the Telegram Chat Group that I established for our “old knights” to hang out. We have had a great time together since its establishment in early March and the chat group has been worthwhile to trace Frank Mr.’s trajectories on the CH as well.

Lastly, I must emphasize that I think of Mr. Frank’s stories as nothing more than conspiracies. Based on the fact that fewer and fewer of us “old knights” still are following him around on the App, I know that I am not alone holding this view.

Goodbye Frank Mr. and goodbye my dear virtual readers!

__________

Okay, before ending my life here in the medium, I know that I owe you a post about the “fight” between Mr. Frank and one of my favorite YouTubers, Lao Lei. So, here it goes:

Lao Lei seems to be bothered by the style that Mr. Frank speaks on the CH and does not understand how such a “narcissistic” man can attract so many listeners. He concerns even more about his own friends being brainwashed by this Frank Mr. So he tweeted one day, “What do you think you are, Mr. F, God?” (I honestly don’t remember the exact words that he used, something ruder and dirtier than what I quote here. In fact, even I did remember, I wouldn’t have repeated it here in writing anyway.) That tweet went viral and some of Frank Mr’s fans, almost immediately following the post, requested Lao Lei to delete it. Lao Lei would not budge at first but removed it a few hours later, possibly due to the fact that Mr. Frank's appealed to Lao Lei directly.

I came to know this incident because these two of my favorite speakers of different platforms happened to meet in a social room in which I was chatting with my CH friends who are also frequently attending Frank Mr.’s “lectures.” Frank Mr. skillfully took the opportunity to express his feelings about that nasty tweet using us as his witnesses. As usual, he has chosen each and every word carefully to show his grace and eloquence. His speech is well-crafted, moving, heartfelt and honest to me, yet apparently not too impressive to Lao Lei, likely because it’s too wordy and lengthy. The YouTuber had kept quiet the whole time waiting patiently for the CHer to end his monologue. As soon as Frank paused, Lao Lei responded with a single word of “Ok” and swiftly left the room.

As far as I know, these two men have not spoken to each other ever since on the CH. Lao Lei calls Xi Jinping his son, thus, it would not shock me that he did not give a dime (damn) to our beloved Frank Mr.

If you care about what I think of this short-lived “fight” between these two men, I say: behave, kids, you are in public!

There, I kept my promise, happy now?