The Experiment
“As a controller, your job will be to plant the seeds that we have discussed in order to solicit the reactions that your team will then record.” The woman spoke with an elevated chin. Her voice was crisp and each individual word snapped clearly in and out of existence.
They both continued to walk down the endless hallway of closed, gray doors past others in similar roles. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of The Devil Wears Prada, Merrill Streep-like sleek, slender women with hair sharp enough to cut you if you came too close. Following closely behind these women were always girls like her—frazzled and confused.
She would try to peer into the vertical window slits on the gray doors when she could, but the woman leading her was moving so quickly—despite her 5-inch heels—that she could barely keep up as it was.
“Who will be on my team?” The girl choked out. She was intimidated by the effortlessly beautiful women and the sterile, hush-hush tone set by the blank walls and silent conversations. She had so many questions bubbling up inside of her, but this one seemed to bubble just high enough to make it out.
“Great question,”
She silently applauded herself.
“Your team will actually be unbeknownst to you. We feel that if any of you know each other, it could compromise the experiments. It is best if you assume that everyone you come in contact with is one of the real people in the situation, and in order for us to ensure that you treat them as such, we keep everyone’s identities a secret.” The woman stopped at one of the gray doors and looked at her. The look was sudden and severe. Her eyes were terrifying and mesmerizing.
“Before we send you off into your first controller meeting, I would like for you to observe a few of our latest experiments.”
“Okay…” Her mind went blank as it always did when people in authority made sudden eye-contact with her. She felt like she had shrunk 3 feet and the woman had grown 12 in a matter of seconds.
“Don’t be scared.” The woman said as if she had heard her thoughts. “You see how we are?” The woman gestured to the others just like her leading the other, terrified, puppy dog-like girls around. “We all used to be just like you. To be a good controller, you either learn how to be like us, or you won’t make it. We hired you because we think you have it in you to be one of us.”
The girl raised her head some and rolled her shoulders back.
“Thank you.” The girl said. She was more relaxed now. She didn’t think she had it in her to be this amazon of a woman, but if someone else did, that was all the motivation she needed to try. “Are all controllers women?” The girl hadn’t seen a single man through her entire process of getting this job.
“We only train women in this unit. However, you will encounter male controllers—you just won’t know that that’s what they are.”
The girl’s face was frozen in confusion.
“Now, before we watch this video, I need you to understand some things.” The woman spoke as if her tongue sliced through her words.
The girl nodded and straightened up even more, this time in an effort to look as much like this woman as possible prior to entering the room; She wanted to look like she belonged there were there to be any other people inside.
“These experiments are performed on or in the vicinity of real people. They will alter people’s lives—their real lives. You have to understand that this is all in an effort to truly understand human interactions AND reactions. These studies will be able to be used in a court of law in cases where someone reacts a certain way to an environmental stimulus. We can use our case-studies to say that their reactions were typical or atypical given their situation. There are so many ways in which this research can change the world in therapeutic settings, in job settings, in interpersonal relationships—it will change our understanding of people in a way we didn’t think was possible prior to this.” The woman put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and lowered her head to meet the level of her eyes. “I need you to understand this because you will see people get hurt and change, and it will often be from your own doing. You will be playing a god-like role in real people’s lives. You always have to remember that it is all for the greater good.”
The girl felt shivers swim down her back in waves. She didn’t want to hurt anyone—especially on purpose. She was always the kid in school that rooted for the underdog and stuck up for those being bullied. What would she have to say or do that would hurt people? Could she hurt someone intentionally?
She nodded at the woman and looked toward the door. The woman took that as her invitation to open it.
They entered a conference room like any other. There were no people in it—which caused the girl’s shoulders to relax back to their original position—but the room did have an oval, wooden desk surrounded by six chairs sitting on top of spotted brown, nylon carpet. There was a large TV attached to the center of the wall in front of them. The woman stepped inside and grabbed herself a chair. She motioned for the girl to do the same.
The girl sat down, and the woman clicked the TV on.
“Save your questions for the end.” The woman said.
The girl nodded and sat up straight. The TV began to play.
On the screen, they saw a young girl with a long ponytail of wild, blonde curls sitting cross-legged in a chair next to the desk of what looked to be a boss of some kind. There was also a woman sitting in front of the girl with a clipboard. The two boss-like women in the room sat high and confident while the girl sat with shoulders rolled in as if she was folding into herself.
The boss at the desk began to explain that the girl’s coworkers had been complaining about her behavior at work for some time. The girl looked confused.
“There are complaints?” The girl asked. “What are they saying?”
“We can’t tell you the details without giving too much of their identity away, but you should know what problems you are causing, and if your behavior doesn’t change, we’re going to have to let you go. You have one month to prove to us that things can get better.” The woman at the desk spoke down to the girl like she was a child.
The woman sitting across from the girl followed along with, “We have been getting these complaints for months, now. This is just the first you have heard of them. When they pile up like this, we can’t just leave them un-discussed.” She said as if these words would somehow soften the blow.
“Who has been saying these things?” The girl asked with tears welling up in her eyes.
“We can’t tell you that. If you knew who said it, it could put them in danger of retaliation from you. That’s also why you need to be very careful who you speak to regarding this problem. If I were you, I would keep this to yourself for the time being.” The—seemingly—main boss responded.
“I’m friends with everyone…I…I get along with everyone. I’ve never had conflict with any of my co-workers before.” The girl said between sobs. “How am I supposed to fix a problem that you can’t even verbalize to me? I have no idea what I’ve done wrong.”
The two bosses explained the same idea over and over to her. They never got any more specific than saying she has “behavioral problems” that needed to change. After the girl gave up asking questions, the two women had her sign some papers, and they told—again—that they would re-evaluate her behavior from the experiences of her co-workers in a month. After that, the girl would be told if she could continue to work for the company or not.
The girl signed the papers and left the office, walking straight to the nearest bathroom to cry for the next 10 minutes.
The next part of the video was various clips of the same girl working days, weeks, and months later. She didn’t speak to any of her coworkers for the first few weeks after the interaction with the bosses. There were many clips of her co-workers questioning what was wrong with her behind her back when she would step out of the office for a break or for lunch. The whole dynamic of the office seemed to shift. The girl became weary of everyone, and, in turn, everyone became weary of her.
After a few months, she began to loosen up at work. She started to be more open to her co-workers again, but it was still never quite the same for her—at least, for as long as the video showed. She resented her bosses, she resented the people she used to view as friends, but the majority of her anger and sadness was aimed toward herself. This poor girl was no longer the same person in any part of her life after that fateful meeting. She wondered every day who in her work circle disliked her enough to want her fired, and she wondered what it was about her that was so awful that someone would complain to begin with. Her self-esteem took a hit, her relationships outside of work began to suffer, and she sank into a darkness that she had never before experienced.
The woman paused the TV.
“So, do you have any questions?” The woman clasped her hands together in front of her and looked over at the girl.
“I mean, I have so many.” The girl said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “What did I just watch? Who are these people? What did the girl do that was so awful?” The girl looked back at the paused image of the sad woman still painted on the television screen.
“Those are not the types of questions I am referring to.” The woman said with a small grin.
The girl thought about what an appropriate question might be before coming up with, “Okay, um, who was the controller, here? What exactly was the point of this experiment?”
"Now we’re getting somewhere.” The woman’s face blossomed into a smile. “I can’t tell you who the controller was—not because it’s some big secret, but because sometimes, micro-experiments are also being done on the people surrounding the main ‘characters’—if you will. For example, the controller could have been one of the bosses, it could have been the HR employee who wrote out the ‘complaint’ and provided the rules for the bosses to follow in terms of how to handle the situation with the girl, but it also could have been the girl, herself. Outside of whoever the controller was, the rest of the people we saw could have been side-characters with reactions that we will study at a later date. For that reason, it’s best that those who study the interactions don’t ever truly know who the controller is.”
“Okay… So, if we don’t know who’s controlling the situation, then how do we know what experiment is being run?” The girl asked, confused.
“We never quite do know.” The woman straightened in her seat. “It seems that this experiment is likely meant to test the reactions of an employee when they have the idea of a--once trusted--complaining co-worker planted in their mind. I would guess that they are studying how her opinions of herself and the people around her change when she realizes there is one enemy in a bunch of her friends. We get to see how one disguised bad apple in a bucket of good ones can ruin the whole bucket. You see what I’m saying?”
The girl thought about that for a second. “If I were that girl, I wouldn’t know who to trust anymore. I would question my reality and my view of myself. It would throw my whole world for a loop.” She finally said.
“Exactly. Only, we can’t just take your word for it, we need to see it—and it’s ripple effects—in action. Having said that, that could just be a micro-experiment.” The woman picked up the remote and began to scroll through more titles.
“Wait, what do you mean?” The girl asked.
“Well, the main experiment may be on how her co-workers react when, suddenly, one of their friends at work becomes distant and cold for no reason. They may have had to tell this girl these things just to get her to react in a way that elicits the co-worker responses they were looking for.”
The girl sat for a second thinking about this all for a second. Either this poor woman just had her life ruined for no reason, or she was acting this way to then change the lives of the innocent co-workers around her? Did anyone know anything concrete in these situations? She wondered.
“This one is not as dark, I promise.” The woman interrupted her thought. “Also, pay close attention because this will likely be what you start out on. She pressed play on a video titled, “Ver.”
Together, the woman and the girl watched as a handsome, young man—maybe 28 years-old—swiped on beautiful women’s faces on a dating app on his phone. He was sitting at a coffee shop with a hunched back and low-hanging head. His swipes were so quick, the girl wondered how he was even able to see the faces of the women before they were gone from his screen.
He stopped swiping suddenly and sat up in his chair. He brought his phone closer to his face.
The girl and the woman were able to see the screen of his phone up-close—as if they were viewing it from his very eyes. How are they getting these shots? The girl wondered before being sucked back into the story.
On his screen, there was a picture of a beautiful, young woman. She had thick, flowing brown hair and a devious smile. The first picture of her was one with her back turned to the camera, but her neck was swiveled around enough to make out her smiling face. Her eyes were large and chocolate brown. She had a look that said, “Come and get me.”
The man stared at her for a few seconds before scrolling down to look at more of her photos. The woman’s name was, “Ver.”
Every photo of Ver was identical to the last. She was photographed waist-up with her hair down and her face scrunched in a smile. The last two photographs, though, were of nature—which made little sense to the girl watching.
Why would someone put photos of a park on their dating profile? She wondered.
The questions asked of Ver by the app including things like,
“What’s you guilty pleasure?” To which Ver had put, “Snacking.”
That seemed pretty vague, the girl thought.
The next question asked by the app was, “How do you like to spend your weekends?” To which Ver had responded, “With friends.”
Did this girl have a personality at all? The girl questioned. She guessed that it was only fair that someone that beautiful also be cursed with being that simple minded.
The guy scrolled through her pictures a couple of times before swiping up—the super-like (as the apps referred to it).
Right away, the app told the man that he had matched with the woman--meaning she had also liked his profile. He opened up the messaging board on the app and began to write her a message.
He wrote, “Hey there. Snacking is a guilty pleasure of mine, too. How has your day been?”
The girl watching the TV took a second to remember how cringy early dating used to be before she found her own boyfriend.
After a few minutes, Ver responded back with, “Good.”
The guy stared at his phone. The girl could only imagine he was thinking that there must be more conversation from Ver on the way. Unfortunately, 10 more minutes went by, and nothing else was sent.
The guy tapped his foot as he typed out, back-spaced, and re-typed another message to the girl. He ended up sending, “I had a good day today, too. Work wasn’t bad—for once. What do you do for work?”
He waited a few more minutes before receiving the response, “Lol. Nice.” From Ver.
Well, she’s a woman of few words, she thought as she stared at the screen in amazement.
The guy was becoming obviously annoyed at this point. He looked around the room as if searching for a camera to make eye-contact with in-order to break the 4th wall of this television show he must be on. He needed someone to validate the hilarity he was experiencing with this girl.
That idea was striking and unsettling considering there were, in fact, people watching him go through this experience.
The guy went back to his phone and began typing yet another message to Ver. This time, he said, “Do you work in town?”
He waited 15 minutes for a reply, but he never received one. He ended up placing his phone in his pocket and leaving the coffee shop.
“That was exhausting to watch.” The girl said to the woman.
“It’s not over, yet.” The woman said as the screen changed locations and time.
It must have been days later; the man was on his couch in the evening watching TV and eating what appeared to be home-made spaghetti. He picked up his phone after seeing the screen’s edges light up. It was a message from Ver. She had responded back to his previous message—from days before—about whether or not she works in town. She wrote,
“Yeah.”
The man threw his phone on his couch in frustration.
“God, talking to this girl is like pulling teeth. Why is he still even entertaining this conversation?” The girl asked more to herself than the woman watching with her.
“That’s a great question.” The woman said with a curious amusement. “That might be what we’re here to find out.”
They continued watching as the guy scooped his phone back up, swiped the app back open, and began furiously typing back to the girl. First, he typed out, “Wow, you’re so expressive with your thoughts. You should write a book.” He looked at this for a second before backspacing his words and typing out, “Good talk.” Again, he stared at his phone, backspaced, and finally ended up writing, “Cool. Where in town?”
The scene changed, again. It looked like it was the next morning. The man was cleaning his dishes from the night before when his phone chimed. He looked at it to see a response from Ver. The response read, “Lol.”
That was it. The man began to laugh in pure, annoyed delight. He took a screen-shot of the conversation and immediately sent it to—what appeared to be—a friend of his named “Hannah” with a text that said, “Are you playing a prank on me, or something? This is fucking wild.”
Hannah responded back with laughing emojis, and they spent the rest of the day joking back and forth about the one-word responses of—who they deemed to be—the most boring girl in the universe.
The woman paused the video and looked over at the girl. “What do you think?” She asked.
“What do I think about what?” The girl crossed her arms. “That was the most annoying interaction I’ve ever seen from someone on a dating app. That guy should have known she would respond like that based on her app responses, though. Guys are always just looking for a pretty face, I swear.” The girl rolled her eyes.
The woman stared at her for a few moments without blinking. The girl uncrossed her arms and looked down to her lap. Was there more expected of her right now? She wondered.
“Um, I guess you want me to guess who the controller was and what the…purpose? Of it was?” The girl asked with her eyebrows raising at the same time as her voice.
The woman smiled and dropped her head in a friendly way.
“I don’t know who the controller was.” The girl said with little confidence. “I feel like it couldn’t have been the guy. He wasn’t controlling anyone. Was it whoever ‘Ver’ was?”
The woman’s smile widened.
The girl continued on. “If that’s the case, then is she just seeing how long a guy will hold on with basically no response from a pretty girl?”
“I like the way you’re thinking about this. You and I could go back and forth for hours about what the purpose of this experiment was, but something you need to know right now is that, when it’s YOU on the other side of the screen, you don’t want to try to guess the purpose of the experiments. You just perform what you’ve been asked to perform, and you let those who study the interactions determine what the true purpose of it all is. In this particular case, we can guess that they’re looking for a general understanding of how men and women react to different types of potential partners on dating apps. There are many different types of people and ways of communicating when dating online. Some people are short responders. Some people write pages of information about themselves. Some people are consistent at responding and some are not. It is possible that we have sent this particular man quite a few women—like Ver—to see how he reacts to all different types of responders.”
“So, there’s a person who works here who is playing Ver?” The girl asked.
“It’s very possible, but it is equally possible that Ver is a real person, and the controller we sent in was the man, or even Hannah.” The woman responded.
“Wait, what?” The girl looked at the woman suddenly. “How could Hannah be a controller? If that guy is a real person, how could we have known that he would reach out to whoever Hannah is in order to have her control anything?”
The woman laughed. “These experiments can go on for years. Hannah could have been planted in his life weeks, months, or years before that moment. And he may never have reached out to her, in which case, we would find another way to use this case study to prove something else. However, think about what would have happened if Hannah was the controller and he reached out to her only to recieve an entirely different reaction.”
The girl still wasn’t making sense of what the woman was saying. “What do you mean?”
“Okay, let’s say the guy sends the screenshot, and Hannah writes back saying, ‘She sounds like a nice girl.’ Don’t you think the guy would have been confused as to how Hannah didn’t see the humor in the conversation the way that he did? Or, what if Hannah wrote back saying, ‘I don’t understand the problem, that’s how people talk.’ Then the guy would have begun to question himself in so many ways. He would have wondered if he was actually being too judgmental. He might have gone back and given Ver—and other girls like her—another chance in fear that they were the normal ones while he was actually the asshole who didn’t give them a fair shot. This man would have begun to question his own reality for days, weeks, or even years to come in terms of what to expect on these apps—or from people in general.”
The woman looked at the girl with a new softness in her eyes,
“It only takes one person validating or invalidating your reality to make a monumental change in who you are and what you believe to be true. You need to remember that before you go into this field, because you will be changing lives—you just won’t always know the changes you’re going to make.”
The girl sat back in her chair and looked over at the TV once more. Was she cut out for this? She kept asking herself.
“I know this is a lot to take in right now. You’re going to be given some time to process everything, and then we will start you with some controller meetings to get you in roles like those you have just watched. I can’t tell you which part you’ll be playing, but I can tell you that in order for these experiments to succeed, they are designed to ensure that you never truly know who’s actually in control at any given time.” The woman’s voice was lower than usual.
“Unless it’s me.” The girl said without moving her gaze from the TV.
The woman smiled. “Listen very carefully,” She said in a whisper, “You never know who’s in control, even when you think it’s you.”
The girl looked back at the woman with goose bumps blanketing her arms. “What, are you saying they’ll tell me I’m in control so they can study my behavior, instead?”
The woman slowly raised her eyes to the corner of the room just above the girl’s head. The girl took the silent direction and followed her gaze. They were now both looking right into the eye of a camera.
The girl felt a warm breeze tickle her ear as the woman whispered into it,
“Welcome to The Experiment.”
