Chapter 590
Chapter 590
The day TeSTAR’s variety show training camp came to an end.
After rushing to deliver the Doll Hunter OST by the deadline, we spent the final day burning with passion, just as a variety show should.
“And, ‘If the current TeSTAR wins, filming ends immediately’… Whoa! If we win, we get to go home right now!”
“Oooooh!”
We spent the day playing various games with a punctual clock-out on the line.
The segment was titled: ‘Beat TeSTAR!’
If we could surpass the best records we’d set in variety shows we appeared in in the past, we were free to go.
In between, we played PPL games for our basic necessities, but even those had been changed into wholesome cooperative games—like diving into a hot spring to find balls with ingredients written on them.
Well… in a sense, they were slightly less ‘wholesome.’
“The fans… they’ll probably like this, right?”
“Yeah.”
Mm, there would be a demand for it, just in a different way.
‘Anyway, the overall structure is solid.’
The first half showed TeSTAR suffering, lowering the barrier for the general public with traditional variety show tropes. The second half appealed to viewers by showing our professionalism as we dove into serious composition.
And the finale was designed so people could just laugh without thinking.
“That was fun!”
“No regrets~!”
And so, with the haggardness of the early days—where we looked ready to murder the production crew—nowhere to be found, TeSTAR successfully clocked out before sunset, full of joy.
—Nooo!
Leaving behind the PD, who was screaming that it ended too early, felt magnificent.
It was a refreshing conclusion.
‘The quality should be good.’
I roughly sketched the picture in my head, calculating the potential profits from this variety show, which would soon be airing to great acclaim.
However, after returning home.
Kim Rae-bin, who had logged onto the internet saying, “I want to look up critiques of the existing Doll Hunter OSTs,” happened to stumble upon the reaction to the variety show first.
It was through the popular posts about TeSTAR’s variety show that were being uploaded one after another.
Apparently, the moment he clicked on those posts, he was struck with horror.
“…!!”
Our variety show staff were being absolutely roasted!
“…So, you’re saying you’re worried the production crew and the CM song representative might be in a tough spot.”
“Exactly!”
Kim Rae-bin nodded vigorously.
I nodded back.
“I see.”
“…….”
I got it.
“Ah… are you not surprised?”
“I am.”
That was a lie.
‘Why would I be surprised by something so obvious?’
In the first place, Writer Ryu Seo-rin’s specialty was creating a villain for the viewers to get over-invested in.
She probably framed the shots so subtly that they’d take some heat, intending to consume all that backlash as buzz for the show.
It meant they had brought this on themselves on purpose.
“If they wanted to, they could have edited all of that out. The fact that they didn’t means they have a plan.”
“But still….”
Even so, Kim Rae-bin’s expression didn’t brighten much. It seemed to be weighing on his mind.
Well, if that was the case.
“Let’s take a look.”
“……! Yes!”
I took his smartphone.
I had to at least pretend to check for him to feel at ease.
‘While I’m at it, I’ll check the show’s buzz levels too.’
I scrolled through the screen leisurely.
Public opinion would settle down as the show continued to air anyway. Since the production crew were the ones taking the hit, they surely would have kept things within reasonable limits and—
“…….”
Wait.
‘What is this?’
It was a total mess.
Only then did I realize that Kim Rae-bin hadn’t been shocked out of the kindness of his heart because people he knew were being insulted.
It was just… a literal inferno.
“…….”
How cold!
The production crew and the PPL representative were being burned at the stake, practically beaten to death by the fandom.
‘To this extent?’
Feeling slightly flustered, I rewatched the first and second episodes that had aired.
However….
‘The level of intensity seems fine.’
In the world of variety shows, being boring was the ultimate sin.
If it’s boring and the cast suffers, it’s painful to watch. But if it’s funny and the cast suffers, doesn’t it just become top-tier content?
The parts where TeSTAR couldn’t eat well or other potentially uncomfortable scenes were edited appropriately and matched with TeSTAR’s interviews or the village dogs, making us look funny and pitiful.
‘We were only pissed because we were the ones involved and hadn’t agreed to it….’
Honestly, from a viewer’s perspective, it was fun. At this level, they should have received enough cover from the general public.
The production crew must have made it with that in mind as well.
‘What’s going on?’
I went back to the viewer reactions and looked at the related posts more broadly.
And finally, I found the reason.
[Idols composing while receiving weird feedback until 3 AM.jpg]
This specific clip, which cut out only the part where TeSTAR received feedback for their first CM song.
Beyond community board captures, this was spreading everywhere—from WeTube to Inheart—edited into Shorts by all sorts of content creators.
The reaction was… very intense.
“…….”
That was it.
Netizens were enthusiastically joining in on the fans’ anger.
They weren’t showing the typical general public reaction of, “Ugh, idol fans are being so extra.”
Usually, people would take the opposite side, saying, “Are you uncomfortable? You guys are the reason variety shows are boring.”
The reason was….
“…….”
‘So everyone has been through this….’
It was workplace PTSD.
Suddenly, a piece of content had appeared that triggered the collective rage of anyone who had ever lived a social life.
These people were even more immersed in TeSTAR’s position than the fans, and they were savagely attacking the corporate culture of the company that made the product for the CM song.
With this, the fans didn’t even need to hold back.
Everyone who heard the news was of one mind, so furious they looked ready to throw the PPL representative into the middle of a bonfire as a sacrificial lamb at any moment.
There wasn’t even any worry about a backlash like, “Isn’t TeSTAR also at fault?”
The CM song representative wasn’t being cursed at because of TeSTAR; they were being cursed at simply because they were acting like a piece of shit….
‘In the first place, that person didn’t even know it was TeSTAR who composed it.’
Well… I’m sure they’re currently reflecting deeply on their life up to this point.
Furthermore, the other groups who had placed PPL were actually benefiting as the show’s viewership and attention spiked due to this controversy.
Thanks to that, no problems were arising in the PPL contractual relationships either…….
“Moondae-Moondae, we can just stay quiet, right?”
“Yeah.”
We decided to just eat popcorn.
Where would this situation lead?
And the following week.
Surprisingly, a brilliant move was made.
‘Oh.’
After much deliberation, the production crew made a choice.
Since things had already turned out this way, they decided to pass all the heat to the controversial Orensoda CM song representative.
Of course, they didn’t explicitly say, “This person is the most at fault, so please curse them.” They were still a representative of an advertiser, after all.
So, what did they do?
They simply… showed the decent feedback from another CM song representative.
‘Oh.’
They threw it out there for comparison.
On top of that, they even included the fun of revealing the famous identity of the anonymous composer to this person and capturing their reaction.
Wasn’t it heartwarming and fun?
They reinforced the idea that such a scene was only possible because this representative gave sensible and decent feedback.
Through the contrast effect, all the heat shifted to the Orensoda CM song representative, and the production crew narrowly escaped the clutches of the angry office workers.
Additionally, they balanced things out by airing the part where TeSTAR got back at the production crew using the walkie-talkies.
It looked like they had even pulled in content that should have been saved for the next episode to provide a satisfying ending.
They also inserted a preview aimed at reassuring the fans.
They crammed in footage of TeSTAR working with proper equipment in a comfortable environment to show it as clearly as possible.
It was as if they were screaming that.
And fortunately for the production crew, all these careful attempts more or less worked.
As the episode aired, fans seemed to return to enjoying the variety show with an attitude of, “We’ll keep an eye on you for now.”
They had narrowly succeeded in shifting the atmosphere.
And it seemed the production crew had also done some deep thinking about how this had been possible.
“Park Moon-dae. Um… I got a text.”
“Yes?”
A few days later, Bae Se-jin showed me a text he had received from the PD.
The long text that followed was about how thankful he was that TeSTAR had taken the variety show seriously and hadn’t just brushed things off.
Instead of the slickness he’d shown during our previous meeting to avoid the situation, his tone now clearly showed he was trying to speak sincerely as the representative of the production crew.
That seemed to be why Bae Se-jin was even more flustered.
“…I don’t know why he sent this to me. What… do you think?”
What do I think?
I shrugged and handed the smartphone back.
“He realized that thanks to you requesting that meeting, he now has a chance to fix the public’s opinion.”
“……!”
If it hadn’t been for that turning point, the production crew wouldn’t have actually cared about TeSTAR’s environment or tried to improve it.
‘They probably would have just stopped at making things slightly better while walking on eggshells.’
That would have been evident in the footage, and public opinion would have inevitably been even harder to fix, with people saying, “The treatment isn’t actually good; they just used editing tricks because they were getting cursed at.”
So, he had finally realized it firsthand.
That the meeting wasn’t just the cast demanding their environment be improved, but an opinion raised from a more macro perspective.
“I think the production crew is now admitting that they really did receive help from you, Hyung.”
“…I see.”
Bae Se-jin nodded as he took back his smartphone.
The look in his eyes was definitely one of pride.
He didn’t delete the text, and it seemed he replied quite well later on.
‘Well, that’s that then.’
Since the purpose of the variety show had been properly achieved.
The sense of familiarity from “They suffer like that too,” and the professional charm of “But they work hard on producing.”
We had gained it all.
I went back to my room, stretched out, and lay down on my bed.
‘The rest depends on how well Doll Hunter Season 2 turned out….’
That was something we’d only know once it aired.
Since we had even pushed back the OST composition portion of our variety show to Part 2 to match the broadcast, we’d have to wait a few more weeks to find out.
“I acted without regrets.”
“Oh… then that’s enough.”
Now, TeSTAR just had to focus on the tour while waiting for the later episodes of our variety show and Doll Hunter Season 2.
As winter ended, early spring arrived.
And there was something we encountered even before those two pieces of news….
Surprisingly, it was news of a vacation.
“Since we couldn’t rest for even a single day during the holidays, the suggestion came up to rest a bit now.”
“Oooooh.”
It was TeSTAR’s belated vacation in honor of the Lunar New Year.