Chapter 4: Trending for All the Wrong Reasons

Less than two hours after my Twitter post, I was trending.

A world champion top laner getting kicked—probably only me.

The #CalebGate hashtag blew up. My phone buzzed nonstop—DMs from high school buddies, a missed call from my cousin in Michigan, even my ex sent a “damn, you good?”

The comments section was a warzone. My fans and haters were going at it.

[Back when Wolf Team sucked, it was Caleb carrying them. Now you win Worlds and kick him? Mr. Carter, do you even have a conscience?]

Some fans even changed their profile pics to my signature emoji. There were memes, gifs of me walking out of the org pasted over movie scenes—my favorite was the one with the “Parks and Rec” ‘Treat Yo Self’ gif.

[No point staying with a heartless org. Caleb, go stream. I'll drop subs to support you.]

A couple of them sent me Starbucks gift cards in my Twitch DMs. One even DM’d me a code for a venti caramel macchiato. I almost laughed.

[Caleb finally got kicked. Worth celebrating. Always inting. If I were manager, I would've fired him ages ago.]

[Honestly, with Caleb's playstyle, it's a miracle his teammates didn't flame him to death.]

Both sides kept fighting on Twitter, and even took it to the gaming forums.

Reddit threads popped up everywhere. One got cross-posted to r/esports and r/unpopularopinion at the same time. Mods couldn’t keep up.

But what I cared about was whether any team would take me. I could still play. I wanted to stay on stage.

I refreshed my inbox every five minutes, heart pounding every time an unread notification popped up. Still, nothing from the big orgs.

My phone buzzed again—a DM from a name I never expected. My heart skipped. Could this be it?