Chapter 82

Chapter 82

The WeTube algorithm was a content suggestion algorithm that recommended videos to users of the platform, though its inner workings were mysterious and obscured. And the early reveal video of Day in the Prank Life that had featured TeSTAR, for some reason, had been chosen by this very algorithm.

WeTube first began to push the video next to prank videos from other countries. Surprised by this professional-grade prank show, the first many had seen in a long time, people clicked on the video with great excitement.

- Is Korea making prank content again, too? I love it

- I want lots of famous people to show up and get pranked. It’s an obsession of mine

└ LOL. Celeb reactions are always fun to watch!

- Please let this show become popular! I’m sick of peaceful variety shows! T_T

Next, the video began to appear under various TVC variety show clips. Because the video was similar in tone to these clips, more people clicked than before.

- Wow, a new show from TVC? TeSTAR is so cute! LOL

- I want TeSTAR to do talk shows and relaxing travel shows as well... They should show off their peaceful group dynamic. It’ll make the fans go nuts! T_T. What is TVC doing? Get a move on!

- Oh, they’re the ones from Idol Inc. That show was pretty wild. How nostalgic... I miss how spicy it was. I’m going to watch this show live

And finally, oddly enough, people were led to the video through animal videos. The AI had categorized the strange bird images on the banners in the thumbnail as animals. Lots of people ended up clicking on it, confused by the over-dramatic thumbnail.

- Huh? I clicked on this video to curse in the comments about the ugly thumbnail showing up amid cute puppy videos. But this is fun... lol

ㄴ LMAO

ㄴ I thought the same thing, haha!

- Wait, is it because of those birds in the thumbnail that I got this recommended to me after a Paddy Bird water-feeding video? It’s absurd, but also kind of funny... It’s kind of degrading, really, LOL

- The people featured in this video were in on the plot, right? T_T They look so scared, I’m a little worried

As a result, the early reveal of the second episode was the subject of a seemingly endless spike in views. In the process, the background music that perfectly suited the outrageous tone of the video began to grow popular as well—the distorted version

of TeSTAR’s “Magical Boys.”

- This music sounds like a stupid cat plonking notes on a piano with its back paws. It scratches my brain just right

ㄴ LOL so expressive

ㄴ That is spot on. Haha

- Does anyone know the song they used?

- It’s “Magical Boys” by TeSTAR. It’s the most recent release by the idols featured in the video!

ㄴ Oh. Thanks!

- What! It’s an idol song? Is being cheesy their entire theme?

ㄴ No! The original is a great song! T_T (link to music video)

ㄴ Wow. I just watched it. It’s good.

ㄴ To think they changed the song like this! LOL

And the algorithm continued to work, guiding people this time to the “Magical Boys” music video.

- Who was sent here by the algorithm?

- I was watching a video about installing fountains for migratory birds. Before I knew it, I was watching this idol music video. I’ve lost all sense of reality.

- They’re so cute, and their music video is great, too! You have my like ♡

- So idols make music like this these days? I had no idea since I lost interest after high school... The song is great

- For any fans out there, was Idol Inc. fun? I’m suddenly curious

└ If you watch it, remember that these members are debuting

└ It’s fun, but it’ll make you angry and sad at the same time, and you’ll want to destroy your computer monitor! 10/10 would recommend!

└ ??

The algorithm’s magic brought about some unintended side effects, causing those who had no interest in idols or recently popular music to grow curious about the song.

In the end, it resulted in a significant rise up the music charts for TeSTAR.

[#5 Magical Boys / TeSTAR] ▲1

“Magical Boys,” which had been vacillating between 6th and 8th place, had risen slightly. And good songs tended to pick up speed once they started gaining traction. Climbing into the top five meant that people would usually give the song a listen, even if they were predisposed against it in some way.

This flood of new listeners showed results before long.

[#3 Magical Boys / TeSTAR] ▲2

On Tuesday, the following day, the song climbed up two more spots. As it happened, VTIC had finally lost the top position to a hit rapper after maintaining first place on the charts for a while. The TeSTAR fans, who’d been streaming the music nonstop, began to grow hopeful.

Could it... be possible? And as was often the case, life once again proved to be full of surprises.

***

The third week of music shows was slowly winding down. The crowd roared and though they couldn’t hear the members, since the microphones were off, they mouthed their goodbyes to the audience—waving as they ran offstage. Colorful lightsticks were being waved up at the stage.

“T-that was fun!”

“Today’s outfits were amazing, and filming was easy, too!” Raebin shouted, shaking off his summer-style uniform that featured fancy golden bands around the arms. Everyone burst into joyful laughter.

“Haha!”

“I know, right?”

They’d likely have laughed at even the lamest joke. Grins could be seen on every single one of the member’s sweaty faces Eugene added, “It’s amazing that we won first place!”

He was right. We’d finally gotten first place.

Though not on public television, of course. We’d taken the top position on Music Bomb several days before, which was Tnet’s music show.

Was I disappointed? To be honest, yes. Another well-known artist was having a comeback this Friday, and there was likely zero chance of us hitting the top on any chart with this album. And worse still, getting first on Music Bomb wasn’t really that amazing an achievement.

They were biased toward us, to be honest. I’d checked and found out that our broadcast score—how many times our song was played on radio or TV in the last week—had been what pushed us over the edge.

In any case, I decided to just smile along with the others, since there was no point in souring this small victory. We needed morale boosts like this since we hardly got any sleep thanks to our busy schedule. Even Lee Sejin had something to say for once.

“It’d have been even better if the episode hadn’t been canceled.”

“S-s-still, we got a trophy!”

“Yeah. I guess we’ll be taking home a trophy for this album after all, huh?” Chungwoo said, laughing and stretching.

He obviously felt that the week had come to a successful close.

Something unexpected happened when we returned to the stage for the announcement of the winning singer at the end of the show.

“And ranked first place on the Inki Music chart for the first week of July... It’s ‘Magical Boys’ by TeSTAR!”

“...?”

We were suddenly being handed another trophy. Fireworks went off at the front of the stage in front of the confused members. None of us were able to recover from our shock as the emcee handed us bouquets of flowers as well as the trophy—including me.

What on earth is happening? And as it happened, Raebin was handed the microphone.

“Uh... thank you...” He was at a complete loss for what to say, not having been at all prepared for this moment. He looked around desperately, silently begging for help, before making eye contact with me.

Hey, sorry. I can’t help you this time. I had no idea what to say, either. My brain had shut down, unwilling to cooperate. Thankfully, the second microphone was given to our leader.

“Thank you... This... we weren’t expecting this. Firstly, we’d like to thank our fans, as well as the staff...” Chungwoo seemed to have it under control, calmly giving credit to our support team, before suddenly bursting into tears. Reality had finally sunk in.

I’m going crazy. It was completely unsurprising that he was crying. Chungwoo had probably done at least half as much work as the manager, looking after the members.

To my relief, Big Sejin took the microphone from Raebin and continued.

“Director Gwak Singyun, Ms. Kim Hyejeong, and everyone else who helped us with the album... thank you so much! And more than anything... We love you, our fans! We really didn’t expect this. We probably don’t deserve it. But thank you very much!”

The fans screamed with ecstatic joy.

“Congratulations!”

Everyone seemed excited, thankfully.

VTIC hadn’t shown up to any of the music shows this week since their three-week domestic promotional cycle had come to an end and no one in the audience was booing us.

Wait a second. How the hell did we beat VTIC? The breakdown of the scores had already vanished from the prompters, however, and our encore performance was about to begin.

“All right!”

The emcees appeared on stage with their microphones, ready to say their goodbyes to finish out the episode. In the split second this took, Eugene grabbed the microphone, his eyes glowing as he shouted, “Uh, shareholders? Thank you!”

We gasped. It was a live blunder—referencing a competing network’s show while on a public tv program. While several of the members scrambled to pull the microphone away, the emcees continued saying their closing lines.

“Haha! Whenever you want to hear the latest popular songs...”

“Come hear them live on our show!”

“We’ll be back next week!”

Then the prelude for “Magical Boys” began to play. The members shot a variety of looks Eugene’s way, who seemed puzzled as to what he’d done wrong, before letting him go. It was a struggle for me to get it together enough to sing.

“I met you today... but I’ve been thinking of you tomorrow...?”

For some reason, the notes of the music box sounded outlandish and silly to me at that moment, just as they were in the early reveal of the prank show episode. I only realized after looking back on the footage of the encore performance that night that I’d even gotten the lyrics wrong.

It was a hot mess.

***

“Understood? If you want to say anything on camera, you need to check with the older members first!”

“Okay...” Eugene was sulking, on the other side of a thirty-minute lecture from the manager. He kept glancing at the trophy nonetheless, which suggested that he wasn’t really listening.

Scolding him about it any more won’t do anything. He did seem penitent at least, so it was probably time for me to get back to work.

Repressing a sigh, I said, “Uh, he needs to take a picture, too.”

“Yeah. You can go, Eugene.”

“Okay!” He rushed over, trying to lift the trophy over his head like a certain famous baboon lifting a baby lion in the air.

I stopped him. “Hug the trophy and bow your head.”

“Huh?”

“You need to look apologetic.”

“Oh...” He did as he was asked, looking sad, which was perfect for the photos we needed. After taking a few, I sent them to Big Sejin, who was preparing to upload a post to social media.

“Add a postscript that says he’s regretting his mistake,” I said.

“Okay! Uh... but then again, maybe it won’t be necessary?”

“Huh?”

“Take a look.”

He held out his phone, and I checked the trending social media posts that he’d been browsing through.

========================

[Guys, get this: TeSTAR just reached first place on public television, but their fandom doesn’t even have an official name yet. Can you believe it? The way I see it, Cha Kitty was trying to send a message]

========================

I stared.

“That’s not a half-bad take.”

“One second.”

I took the phone from him and did a more detailed search, and found my answer in a top trending community post.

[TeSTAR takes #1 spot, amid hilarious chaos (featuring proof their minds are still in survival show mode)]

When I clicked on it, a fully edited video, complete with captions and all, of our encore performance began to play. There were all kinds of special effects, making the confusion on the members’ faces even more hilarious.

I’d been compared to a meme of a robot looking the other way, and my mistake with the lyrics was cross-edited with the original performance, with lots of LOL’s and ROFL’s crowding the screen.

[TeSTAR climbs to the top for the first time and it’s an unforgettable experience in more ways than one.]

This was the title of the video.

I’m going to lose my mind at this rate. In this same video, Eugene’s comment to the shareholders was the funniest highlight in the entire clip.

[“Uh, shareholders? Thank you!”]

[“!!”]

The captions read, “The ghost of their survival show past still haunts them.”

I stared at the screen in silence. Amid the laughter and congratulations in the comments, some fans could be seen wishing they could do away with the remnants of the show once and for all.

- Our idols debuted and even got a #1 spot. Why are they still calling their fans shareholders? T_T

- We’d all rather forget about that show, idols and fans alike. Why won’t the agency get off their ass? T_T

- I’d love to hear them call us by name and tell us they love us... Won’t it be fun to hear them talk about us using a proper fandom name?

That wasn’t the end of it. The recent comments on social media and across various communities went a step further.

- There’s not even an official lightstick or a fan color. What are they thinking, half-assing it like this? I had a bad feeling the moment they mentioned a comeback within a month, but I didn’t say anything since I didn’t want to jinx their debut. LOL

- They don’t have any other variety shows planned and all they do is show up at events. F*ck it, just let them hold concerts. That would generate way more revenue, given how popular they are. How do they not know this?

- Come to think of it, they came up with the concept for the song that reached the top. What’s more, Moondae did the presentation. Isn’t it shocking that they managed to complete the song within a month after a start like that? Just how hard were they forced to work, anyway?

“Hmm...”

As it happened, the fans had stumbled closer to the truth than they realized.