A collective sanity break triggered by an apple
On January 19, I experienced a collective sanity break
An international student blogger jokingly referred to by netizens as "Lao A"—the King of Squeaky, held a joint live stream
He uttered a word: "frosted apple"
This word sounds sweet and harmless, like Halloween decorations, like childhood memory desserts. But in the mouth of Lao A, it is the most brutal punishment of South American gangs for debtors, a terrifying mark of decapitation and skinning hung at the door, a death scene attracting swarms of maggots to gnaw on flesh in Seattle's humid climate.
Countless netizens in the comments expressed: "I couldn't bear it physically and mentally while watching" "I was so scared that I directly turned off the live stream."
But this is not over yet.
A then threw out another concept: "Gundam financialization".
This time, he placed the bodies of American homeless people—whom he calls "Gundam"—into an even more suffocating logical framework: the futures market.
Human lives have turned into commodities.
When alive, they are people in need, undocumented, the bottom layer borrowing money from gangs, and debtors who could turn into "icing apples" at any time.
After death, they are "Gundam," trading targets that can stockpile in the futures market and wait for peaks to sell.
Colombia's airport has stockpiled 100,000 unidentified corpses, which is typical "stockpiling."
When Americans die, "fresh organs" or "fresh bodies" appear in certain markets.
They have peaks and troughs; they can be traded, stockpiled, and wait for the right price to sell.
This is what A refers to as "human futures."
Icing apple: When sweetness becomes death.
He tells the story of Seattle.
There, the people are at their wits' end and can only borrow money from gangs to survive.
The cartels from South America are more brutal than normal people's imaginations.
Some people owe money and do not pay it back, or want to be clever and pay less; what awaits them is a chilling end:
Be captured, behead, skin.
But skinning is very particular—do not fully peel, just leave a small piece of scalp with hair, twist it into a knot and tie it to the door.
The head hangs like this.
Round and bright red, with black hair hanging down, it looks like an apple.
Seattle is warm and humid, and there are flies even in winter.
Such an "apple" hanging there will soon attract flies to lay eggs, and maggots will crazily eat the muscle tissue that has no skin protection.
Maggots secrete digestive fluids, dissolving muscles into a viscous paste that falls in clumps, making a popping sound.
White maggots cover the head, forming a thick layer, resembling icing sugar.
"Icing apple" got its name this way.
No one dares to deal with it.
This is done by the gang; whoever moves is the next.
The head hangs like this until the maggots fill the place and it completely rots.
A said that when these details come out, ordinary people simply cannot bear it.
He has seen too much, so he can speak so calmly.
But for the audience in the live stream, this is a moment where their san value collapses.
The imagery of the apple has been completely distorted.
It is no longer a sweet food, no longer a festive decoration, no longer a childhood memory.
It symbolizes death, marks violence, and is a witness to the utter lack of dignity of human lives in the face of violence.
Gundam: When anime becomes a euphemism for death.
A's live stream is filled with such distorted imagery.
"Gundam" is the most typical example.
In the anime world, Gundam is the mech piloted by heroes, a symbol of justice and hope.
But in A's forensic work in America, Gundam is another thing.
It is the jargon for human corpses.
A uses the League of Legends equipment "Collector" as a metaphor:
In the game, this equipment triggers a killing effect when the enemy's health is below 50%.
In the harsh winter of the United States, the survival rate of the homeless is even lower than this slaughter line.
After the cold wave, the forensic laboratory welcomes the "Gundam peak season."
Batch after batch of freezing homeless individuals are sent in, becoming goods waiting to be processed.
This is just the beginning.
Long-term homeless individuals, often malnourished, tend to rely on addictive drugs—A calls them "enhancers."
The body's resistance is on the verge of collapse; if water splashes into the respiratory tract or eyes, it is enough to trigger a fatal infection.
There is no cure, quickly turning into a cold "Gundam".
Even escaping to warm places like Florida, fate may not improve.
America's aging infrastructure and severe pollution make urban corners natural breeding grounds for bacteria.
What is even more shocking is that these deceased find it hard to gain peace even in death.
A revealed in the live stream that such an industrial chain indeed exists:
The bodies of those who die from drug overdoses accumulate a large number of drug components; some crush the corpses for extraction and resell them to the next addict.
When the latter dies, the corpse will be recycled again.
An even more absurd cycle emerges:
Some homeless people sell relief supplies directly after receiving them to buy drugs, then gather for a large-scale drug party.
Those who cannot bear the drug effects will "ascend"; the corpses will be sold as "Gundam" the next day.
The funds obtained are used again to buy drugs and organize parties.
Survivors continue to sell corpses, repeating endlessly.
In this "Gundam industrial chain," almost no one is innocent.
Homeless individuals earn income by selling their corpses.
The police take a cut from it.
Biochemical processing institutions make profits.
Cold human lives are thus exchanged for warm dollars.
Human futures: When life turns into a commodity.
What truly suffocates A is that he placed "Gundam" into the framework of financial logic.
"Gundam financialization."
He said someone has treated Gundam models with futures processing and even established a platform similar to a Gundam futures trading market.
On this platform, participants can real-time track the changes in spot prices and futures prices of Gundam.
These prices will fluctuate with supply and demand relationships and as the delivery date approaches.
For instance, when facing extreme weather such as floods, the number of Gundam may increase, leading to a drop in prices.
If you are holding a long position and have added a high leverage, once you cannot make up the margin, you will be liquidated.
It sounds like discussing finance, but he is talking about human lives.
Colombia's airport has stockpiled 100,000 unidentified corpses, which is typical "stockpiling".
These things have peaks and troughs; they can be stockpiled for peaks, and then sold.
A said, even within the U.S., these things are tradable; they can circulate in the commodity economy and are no different from trading futures.
Many times, some corpses have no identity; there are no names in the social worker database, and no one knows who they are.
Undocumented immigrants come to the United States with nothing to prove their identity; some may have a white card, and some don't even have that.
What to do when dead?
In the community, the police arrive very slowly, which is how bodies can be found.
And some are still missing.
A said: "Those people who can still send messages on Twitter or X are lucky. Many people in need have not reached that step; they have not even had a chance to criticize the U.S. before it fell into my hands."
They didn't even make it to that step; they couldn't even get out of the rookie village's door before directly becoming "Gundam."
There are too many such people, of all genders and ages.
A said: "Do you think these people ever existed in American society? You have to look at the statistics; they have never existed."
Consumption exists; he exists in the U.S. eating and drinking, creating economic value, but nothing else.
It is almost a matter of the U.S. government not bearing any cost invested in him; there is no education or healthcare, purely there to create value and then die on the street or die for some reason.
A said: "Then in certain markets, a fresh organ or a fresh body will appear."
This is the logic of "human futures".
Living people have turned into future assets.
Death has become a delivery.
The corpses have turned into commodities.
All of this is placed into a framework completely identical to financial futures:
There are spot prices and futures prices.
There are supply and demand relationships and delivery dates.
There are peaks, there are troughs, there is leverage, there is liquidation.
Human dignity is completely stripped here.
You are no longer a person; you are a commodity, you are a trading object, you are a product that can be stockpiled and wait for peaks.
A said that in this magical place called America, where cults are sheltered, everyone's imagination of organs and body parts is too narrow.
Many people think these organs can only be matched for medical surgery.
A said: "No, this organ has a futures market."
A said in the live stream: "Did they see the reality? They can see it. But why do they not feel so distressed or think it is so tragic when describing this? Because they really do not go to those neighborhoods, do not need to go, and will not go. They may feel that it is very tragic, and I analyzed it to be very tragic, but I have not seen specific living and breathing people, families falling apart, starving children, elderly people without medicine."
"When viewing these things in concrete terms, many of the underlying logic and mechanisms of humanity will be activated."
We are used to looking at data, reports, and analyses on screens.
We are used to abstracting suffering, using numbers and theories.
But behind these data and papers are specific people, specific sufferings, and specific deaths.
A has made these concrete.