Focus Group

## Event type

- Date: 4/2/22

- Location: Koreatown, Los Angeles

- In person

- Invitation only

- Ten attendees selected by fellow participants

## Summary

An invite-only in person seminar or focus group held by Noah and Sarah Sinclair of The System.

## The Main Event

Attendees: Julie (chosen by herself at The Last Bookstore), Buz, Cristen, Brad, Drew, Hannah (five chosen by Buz at Tiki No), Mike, Russell, Hazel (three chosen by Mike and Russell) and Candace (chosen by community vote).

Individual accounts for the focus group can be found here.

When the participants enter, they find a circle of ten chairs with their backs to each other and clipboards on the seats, a snack table, and cameras monitoring the room. Security guards ask them to sit and after a few minutes, Sarah Sinclair enters. She circles the group, examining each person, before asking Mike to stand up next to her. She informs them that she has been observing the group and as a result, Mike is to leave. He is escorted from the room.

Sarah asks several participants to read aloud parts of the release agreement, including that they were giving The System the right to use their images, video, or likeness for any purpose. They are then presented with various moral scenarios, followed by a roleplaying session which includes convincing another to go against their moral convictions and that a shirt is a different colour. Sarah reveals that she knows all participants have lied to her, and that they now need to convince her to trust them.

Following this, Sarah holds up a picture of her husband Noah, asking the group their thoughts on him. Noah enters the room, visibly drunk, throwing an empty bottle on the ground, and harassing the participants. Sarah begins calling him out, asking the group if they believe Noah has a drinking problem, and if this is affecting "sexual relations" with his wife. Noah responds by storming out, and as the participants are dismissed, they follow Noah out onto the street.

As members of the group follow him, a police car pulls up and Noah appears to be arrested.

Relocating to a bar, Brad receives a phone call from a mysterious woman who tells him: “Don’t believe the distraction, you’re better than what they’re selling you.”

## Mike meets Otis

Upon being escorted from the room where the Focus Group was taking place, Mike encounters an older gentlemen working, seemingly in a janitorial role, in another room. Striking up a conversation, the man, Otis, asks if Mike is part of the theatre thing and how a movie director had rented the space. He then asks Mike to help with something, which involves taking a mop bucket into the next room. After Mike does this, Otis offers to pay him for his help, but when Mike refuses, instead says he will take him to Carl's Jr for dessert.

During the car journey, Otis tells Mike how has recently met a beautiful woman and asks about Facebook, and whether Mike can create an account for him so that he can connect with her.

At Carl’s Jr. , Otis buys Mike a milkshake and then returns him to the focus group address. While Mike is waiting for other participants, Noah exits the building nearby. He notices Mike and says, “Fuckin Mike Fontaine! Last time I saw you, you were getting your dick rubbed in a bathtub full of blood”. Mike tells him he was kicked out of the Focus Group, to which Noah replies: “Yeah my wife’s a cunt sometimes”. He drinks some of Mike's milkshake before making his excuses and leaving.