| Episode 115. Malicious Editing
We had been practicing right up until just before the first episode of A Wangsil aired.
Though we eventually had to stop because half of them kept looking elsewhere.
“Guys, why have you been unable to focus since earlier?”
“Can you focus right now, hyung?!”
Lee Cheonghyeon shouted.
“What reason is there for me not to be able to focus?”
“Today’s the first episode of A Wangsil!”
“So?”
“So?”
Lee Cheonghyeon repeated my words, then laughed with a deflated sound.
“You really have no human emotions at all, hyung.”
“Why are you suddenly turning me into an android?”
“How are you exactly the same as usual, hyung? Don’t people usually worry about how they’ll be edited or something?”
“They can’t create mistakes that never happened, and you already know we won’t come across as sociable. If you’re curious about the performances, you can watch them once they’re uploaded to MeTube.”
“Wow…… Am I the weird one here?”
When Lee Cheonghyeon looked around, Kang Giyeon shook his head.
That meant I was the weird one. These little punks, seriously.
“It’s not like watching it live will change anything. Do you really want to watch it in real time that badly?”
“You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it, hyung. You have no human heart.”
“Right, so now you’re insulting me by saying I’m a wooden doll who can’t dance.”
“My goodness. Now hyung is even slandering us.”
I didn’t understand why these fragile-minded kids were going out of their way to walk into the fires of hell.
I had deliberately planned to watch it alone later, in case I failed to settle them down and only made the atmosphere more restless for no reason.
“Hyung, then how about we focus and practice for exactly thirty minutes, and then watch the live broadcast?”
Jeong Seongbin proposed it while placating the dejected Lee Cheonghyeon.
My first thought was, What are you going to do if you get so happy or upset over such small things? But……
With kids who weren’t even twenty looking at me so desperately, I felt as though I were the one in the wrong.
“If we finish everything we need to cover within thirty minutes.”
I was too softhearted.
No matter how much time passed, I probably wouldn’t ever become a strict boss.
* * *
Although we had missed the first twenty minutes or so, A Wangsil was unfolding in a fairly favorable direction.
For one thing, there weren’t many mocking comments in the live chat.
That was largely because we hadn’t received much attention at the beginning compared to other audition programs, but while the Sparks were watching, a lack of reaction was actually preferable.
Even right now, there were people sitting with their hands clasped and heads bowed, performing the prayer meta. I won’t say who, for the sake of preserving their dignity.
But the low influx of the general public definitely had its consequences.
≫ I love Song Minil ㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠ
≫ Our boys are already in the eldest-hyung position ㅠㅠ Time flies
≫ Look at how Parthé’s years of broadcast experience are showing lol
The overwhelming difference in reactions according to fandom size.
I could see the Sparklers working hard to leave comments, but the other groups’ sheer volume was nothing to scoff at either.
While several groups that had appeared before us exchanged greetings on-screen, I scrolled through the live comments I had missed earlier on my smartphone.
Then I reached a rather interesting point.
≫ Gasp
≫ Gasp
≫ Whoa
≫ Gᅟᅥᆨ
≫ ;; Wow, amazing
≫ Whoa?
Exclamations of fewer than two words poured down at a particular point like a summer monsoon.
Taking advantage of the others being absorbed in the television broadcast, I moved the playback bar on the video on my smartphone to the point corresponding to when the comments had been posted.
Then Lee Cheonghyeon’s face appeared, taking up the entire screen. It was a pre-recorded interview inserted into the cast-introduction segment.
‘Of course.’
The first appearance of Spark…… No. It seemed that the birth of Spark’s top visual had given viewers quite a shock. Though it wasn’t as if his looks were anything surprising.
Just then, a peculiar sound effect came from the television.
When I looked up at the screen, I saw several groups chatting and laughing against a cute and charming background melody.
A moment later, a chilling sound effect that seemed to slice through the air played. The double doors opened, and Spark appeared to grandiose background music.
On-screen, we looked like a group of intimidating older brothers who were shy around strangers, and like a bunch of cheerful guys who had just enjoyed some incredible surfing in the winter sea a few hours earlier.
I don’t think the atmosphere had been that dramatic. I supposed that was why people said you had to watch broadcasts as broadcasts.
The suspicious flow continued until Parthé entered.
After the other groups nervously bowed to Parthé, Spark briefly passed across the screen, offering only a slight nod before turning away.
“Gasp……”
Lee Cheonghyeon’s breathing echoed through the living room like a reverberation.
“That editing is provocative,” I added.
We had bowed at a full ninety degrees when Parthé came out, too.
For over a year, I had told these guys that if they couldn’t properly greet me, they should quit everything and go home.
I had personally watched them receive excellent training and work hard on-site with my own two eyes. We had nothing to take responsibility for here.
They had probably attached a reaction that came from listening attentively to Mr. Yureu. Given the short pacing of the program, it wouldn’t have been difficult.
“Are we…… being maliciously edited?”
Park Juwoo asked cautiously.
“It doesn’t qualify as malicious editing yet, but it could turn into that. Since we’re competing against Parthé’s seniors from the first preliminary round, maybe they decided on the narrative in advance.”
“Then isn’t that bad?”
Kang Giyeon’s face had turned ashen, too.
“If they edit the evaluation scene from our self-PR performance like this, we’ll get a lot of hate.”
“……!”
“Still, we didn’t actually act disrespectfully, did we? We didn’t deliberately put down people who were better than us. That’s enough.”
“What good does that do? Nobody will know that.”
Choi Jeho added a word.
At least it mattered to me. Wasn’t it more problematic to behave properly because people were watching, then do whatever you wanted when they weren’t?
And we had wanted to keep our distance from Parthé from the beginning. If the broadcasting station was going to make us look that way, I could only be grateful.
But understanding something in your head and feeling it in your heart were different matters. I spoke to the guys, who had gone rigid with tension.
“Don’t worry. Even if we get cursed at, I’ll take the brunt of it.”
“What?”
Jeong Seongbin turned toward me.
“I praised only the Veryon seniors and deducted points from every other team’s performance. You guys didn’t say much, so there’s nothing for them to maliciously edit.”
“Was that why you deliberately led the conversation back then, hyung?”
“Giyeon, the commercials are over.”
When I changed the subject, Kang Giyeon frowned. What, did he think I had done it because I wanted to be called Spark’s greatest MC?
The mood had sunk a little, but there was one more thing I needed to make clear.
“Even if we’re maliciously edited or there’s a lot of negative public opinion, don’t forget what we decided to aim for. It’s fine to get along with the other groups, but make sure to keep your distance from Parthé’s seniors.”
“I’m probably not going to live out my natural life if I keep failing to communicate with you, hyung.”
Lee Cheonghyeon turned around in disgust and sat with his back to me.
After the commercial break came the rest of the introduction to A Wangsil, followed by the self-PR performances.
The broadcast lasted an hour and ten minutes, but only three performances aired. To make matters worse, Spark’s performance was last, so the only parts where our faces were properly shown were the pre-recorded interview and our first appearance.
The first episode of A Wangsil really did end by cramming all the remaining self-PR performances into the preview.
With editing like this from the very first episode, it was bound to get branded as a boring show. They seemed to be trying to create tension, but that sort of thing only meant something once the rankings began to diverge in earnest.
If they wanted to make people watch the next episode, they would have been better off putting the scene where I said, “I’m giving Down to all four teams except the Veryon seniors,” in the preview. If they blurred out only the part about Veryon, they could have started a full-blown controversy.
At this point, I began to think that setting the bait myself had been the right choice. You had to give people something to talk about before they would bother hating you.
Now that I had seen everything worth watching, I herded the members into their rooms like sheep being sent home.
Then I spent the night reading the increasingly overt reactions from the fans of each group as they began trying to check one another.
* * *
As expected, after the first episode, the buzz surrounding certain groups began to rise meaningfully.
The most conspicuous one was Parthé, without question.
Immediately after their performance ended, the brand and price of the clothes Parthé had worn for their first stage became a huge topic of conversation. Those guys really were wearing expensive clothes.
Good for them. Spark would have to wear the single-layer volleyball uniforms I had ordered by scraping together every last bit of money I had, which were currently in transit. Thanks to that, everyone was building up their arm muscles during every break as if they were prepared to die.
Aside from one group’s luxury clothing and another group’s forced controversy over one thing or another, there was also a controversy directly related to us.
Mr. Minil had apparently been flapping his hands around in a paid message after the first episode of A Wangsil.
Mean. 1
[Did you watch A Wangsil??]
[Oh dearㅠ You saw that part, huh]
[We’re okayㅋㅋㅋ We were so nervous when we entered that we didn’t even look properly at the others]
[If you get upset over things like this, it’ll never end! You know that, right???]
He was awfully slick with his words.
He made it seem as though they hadn’t merely been ignored by their juniors, but also had an ominous premonition that things like this would happen frequently from now on.
Thanks to him, within Parthé’s fandom, Spark had become “the delinquent group that half-assed their greetings and then did something else, despite even the most senior group entering nervously.”
There were also plenty of viewers who tried to watch broadcasts as broadcasts. A great many people knew that programs of this sort involved malicious editing and the creation of controversies.
Since it was rare for production staff to be punished for malicious editing—as opposed to outright fabrication—this kind of editing had long since become an established practice.
That was why, whenever a controversy erupted, people would say, “Let’s wait and see for now.”
So I had intended not to respond to a certain degree of malicious editing.
But things changed when one of the cast members themselves started running his mouth.
From that point on, comments like How could our boy make something like that up? and He’s still a rookie who’s extremely conscious of the broadcasting station—would he have done this for no reason? were bound to pour out.
I hadn’t intended to upset the fans with something so trivial right from the beginning. I felt uneasy.
All I could do was leave a message in the messenger……
Iwol
[We all watched the broadcast together!]
[We’re really good at greeting people, so please don’t worry too much. Please consider it editing for the sake of making the broadcast more entertaining!]
[Thank you so much for watching the live broadcast with us until this late hour.]
……and that was about it.
Even the screenshots fans uploaded, saying, “This is why you have to hear both sides!” eventually suffered digital decay and began receiving comments like, “You call this an excuse? lol”
“If they keep this up, the fans are going to get really upset.”
“Then don’t give them anything to be upset about.”
“But we can’t go over there and flatter them, only to become a stepping stone for another team.”
I’d dragged you guys, who had lived in pristine waters, into a place crawling with manipulation and malicious attacks. Could we afford to achieve nothing? You had to gain as much as you lost.
“Enough. Let’s practice. We need to show them something good.”
I stood up and patted Lee Cheonghyeon’s shoulder.
Even when they grumbled among themselves, a single word about practicing was enough to make them get up on their own. It seemed their attitude was still in the right place, at least.
And so, Spark would leap forward more energetically than anyone else and excitedly prepare for the first preliminary round…… or so I thought.
“Hyung, could you do that move one more time? With the facial expression, too?”
That didn’t happen.
The color drained from Kang Giyeon’s face as he watched me, hardening just as it had when I first showed him my dancing at UA.