The Otto.

Born on the thirty first of January in nineteen ninety three was Otto Hanzbuurer; or at least that is what you be led to believe from his Facebook page. There is a small truth behind Otto that only a few people know, and that truth is quite simple to understand, for Otto is not a real person at all. How do I know this? Simple; I am Otto Hanzbuurer. The idea of creating him came from a large amount of boredom. I was sitting on Facebook thinking that nothing was happening, and I wasn’t just thinking it, but it was happening, and by it I mean nothing. I thought that maybe there are some other people on my friends list with nothing to do, just sitting there on a lazy Sunday afternoon bored out of their mind. I thought to myself that I should do something, something that would entertain not only me but also the entirety of Facebook, or at least the ones who were involved.

In creating Otto, there was much debate on what the name should be. By that I mean I was on the computer and Andrew was sitting beside me playing Call of Duty and we were exchanging funny names for him to have. It wasn’t long before the name Otto Hanzbuurer came out of one of our asses, and it was straight after that when the legend was born. I started off adding everyone in the friend suggestion box, but it was getting tiring having to type in that confirmation code every time I wanted to add someone because I guess even Facebook was having its doubts over the reality of Otto. Facebook said that all I needed to do was give them my phone number so that they could send me a confirmation code and then I can do whatever without being hassled because they would believe that I am a real person.

I went into my brother’s room and took his phone, gave Facebook his number and waited for the confirmation code. The reason behind this was simple; I really didn’t want to put my number in, I mean what would happen if something bad came out of this? I didn’t want to get into any trouble, so I thought that I should play it safe and put my brother in the danger, not me. Once the account was verified, adding people was much easier and before I knew it, Otto had like a hundred friends. At the start, I think that the people talking to him actually believed his story, the story being that he is a German exchange student from Koln who received a new laptop and internet for his birthday and he is going to start at Unley High School on Monday. Otto’s story maintained for around half an hour before I thought that it would be funnier if instead of being a believable character, he was a fucked up weirdo, and that is when Otto decided to link a porn video to his Facebook page.

From the second people first started to see the link on his wall, Otto was not only losing respect, but also the belief of his existence. No one in the right mind would put up a link to porn on Facebook, so the few people that believed his existence started to diminish in numbers, and before he knew it, he was nonexistent in the eyes of the public. It was then when Otto was receiving nothing but abuse, the notifications were full of wall posts asking who Otto was, either that or blatant abuse. Now I don’t know how, and I don’t know the reason, but Otto’s life took a turn for popularity at one stage throughout the day when everyone started to love Otto, and now I can comfortable say that if he was real, which he kind of isn’t, nah he actually isn’t at all but anyway, he would be so popular it is unreal. People love the Otto.

We still wanted Otto to come off as a kind of creep, as if he wasn’t seen as one already. Christine James just accepted the friend request she received from Mr. Hanzbuurer, so we decided to go onto her profile and fuck with her just a little bit. We went down her wall and liked every single thing that you can like. New friendships, statuses, groups and pages joined, events attending wall posts, everything that you can like. Within five minutes, Christine had Otto removed from her friends list, and the job was complete. Even though a small amount of the hatred towards Otto returned, he was mainly loved by the Facebook community. He was receiving friend requests from people who wanted to be in with the Otto crowd, he was the most popular person the internet has ever seen, and his name was Otto.

Not everyone loved him though, as there was always that one person who wanted him down, one person that wished Otto never came to Facebook, and he wanted to make sure he left as soon as possible; Michael Buckett. Buckett was continuously asking questions about Otto, to Otto, trying to find a gap in his story, something that he couldn’t answer, but luckily for Otto, there were no gaps in his story and every question that was thrown towards him was answered quickly and correctly. As far as anyone could tell, Otto was a real person, ready to start school ‘on the morro’.

Like most annoying people who use Facebook, Otto soon discovered how fun it is to join groups and become fans of things, but mainly the becoming a fan of things. The single click to show people what kind of a person Otto is made him think that it was easier than typing out his story to people, and much like all the users of Facebook, he thought he was the only one who did these things, he thought he was unique, but then it turned out there were hundreds of people, if not thousands in these groups. Otto wanted to get across the fact that he was really Otto to people, I mean some people still didn’t believe him. Otto continued to join every single group that he could find that had Otto in its name or description... every single one.

It wasn’t long after that when Otto remembered his love for sexy women, pornography and sex. This is when he decided to join every group with the word sexy in it, sexy men, sexy women, I am sexy... these were just some of the groups that Otto joined, passionate groups and fan pages that he felt he needed to be a part of so that the Facebook community could know what kind of a person he really was, for you see Otto isn’t really a lovable person, he is a freak, a creep and an absolute dick.

Not too long after the group and fan stage, or fad had passed by Otto, he realised that instead of watching porn and looking at pictures of sexy women, he could actually go out and find a girlfriend for himself, someone that he could love. Of course Otto wasn’t completely sure how to do this, so he ended up picking the girl who seemed the most interested in him and sent her a relationship request on Facebook, and that girl was Tori Hughes. In what was one of the biggest surprises of Otto’s life, Tori accepted the relationship request from Otto and they were, then and there, going out. It was then and there when Tori’s status actually went off more than you could ever imagine, and what was ten comments turned to forty turned to ninety seven comments in the end. Her status was just stating the new relationship, but Otto was such big news that it boomed ninety seven comments, and within those comments were more than just love for Otto, but there was hate.

What was harmless high school love turned wrong when Amelia Portellos said that she loved Otto more than anyone and she was in utter shock when Otto chose Tori over her. It wasn’t long before Otto needed to go to sleep, he did have a big day coming up; his first day at a new school. Otto logged off for the rest of the day and it was then and there when the first chapter of the Otto saga had been completed, and perhaps not only the first chapter, but also the last.

***

I was awoken at half past twelve in the afternoon by Brett calling me asking what I was doing. I said that I was sleeping which I was and then he said that he would come over soon to have good times. I turned on my computer and logged into my Facebook. I clicked on the friends list search bar and typed in Ot, only to see Gravity and Other Myths presents 'Freefall' come up; Brie's circus thing. I then type in the remaining two letters, another t followed by the final o to see not a single thing come up. I logged out of my Facebook and try to log into Otto's only to see a message come up that read: 'Your account has been disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.' I logged back into mine and looked through Facebook. Not only was Otto's account deleted but every trace of him was also removed, everything that he had commented, everything that he had liked, his photo's; everything.

It was weird. Otto had gotten to the stage where Facebook was thanking him for being such a good user, people loved him, people couldn't wait to meet him at school today, but now, all traces of him were deleted. Otto was a man too good for this world, perhaps that is the reason he was removed from Facebook, because the rest of the online community that makes up Facebook couldn't compete with him. Whatever the reason, he is now gone, and all that is left is the memories, and of course the wishful thinking that he will one day return.