Original Content
Money is the greatest — and the cruelest — invention ever born of humanity's capacity for abstract thought.
In modern capitalist society, one might call it the most powerful and omnipotent instrument of all, the thing that has taken the place of God.
In the past, invoking the will of God was enough to justify nearly anything. Now money occupies that seat.
Attach the condition "I'll give you five hundred million won" to any task you want someone else to perform, and even the most immoral act will give almost everyone pause for at least a moment.
Yesterday's me had been no exception. Presented with the tidy sum of 2.45 million won, I had gladly become a clown spouting nonsense in front of ten thousand people.
But the settlement system of the streaming platform Vivid was demonstrating the coldness of capitalism with perfect clarity.
I couldn't withdraw the money yet.
I hadn't known, but cash settlements only processed the following month… and the platform's cut wasn't small, either. Partner streamers got reduced fees, or so I'd heard — completely irrelevant to someone who'd only streamed once.
Just as people in the Middle Ages always needed God, living in a capitalist society meant I needed money.
And yet I didn't even have enough cash on hand to get through the day. I had to liquidate something somehow.
Which was why I found myself ransacking Jeong Eun-gyeol's one-room apartment from corner to corner all over again…
In the end, I turned up a mechanical keyboard that looked reasonably expensive and a wireless mouse. She must have upgraded her computer while preparing to become a VTuber and replaced the keyboard and mouse with new ones as well… When I plugged them in, both worked fine.
I can sell these.
I photographed the keyboard and mouse, then checked the going rates. Keyboards were selling for around fifty to sixty thousand won; the mouse was fairly high-end and sat at ninety to a hundred thousand. If I could get full price for both, it was enough to survive a week or two by tightening my belt.
Eager to sell fast, I listed the keyboard at fifty thousand and the mouse at ninety thousand.
About an hour later, a message came through.
A bundle deal? Always welcome.
I hammered out a reply at once.
NyanKachu… Must have been Jeong Eun-gyeol's naming sense.
What? Lowballing me by twenty thousand out of nowhere?
I was about to hit send when—
Grrrooowl—!
A thunderous noise rose from my stomach.
Ah, damn it. Right. I didn't even have bus fare. I couldn't go anywhere.
The buyer absolutely had to come to me… but just rolling over for 120,000 still felt wrong…
A student driving over in a car?
If you're going to lie, at least make it plausible… Or maybe it's his dad's car?
Either way, if it wasn't 130,000, pride alone would keep me from selling.
Honestly, I just wanted him to buy it. Unlucky listings could sit for days without a single bite.
About five minutes passed.
"Whew."
I exhaled in relief and sent him the address of the convenience store in front of the one-room building. Pulling on a hooded zip-up and sweatpants, I grabbed the shopping bag with the keyboard and mouse inside and headed out.
I arrived at the convenience store and waited a short while. Then, with a noisy blast of exhaust, a white midsize sedan pulled up in front of me. The door opened, and a man who looked to be in his early twenties climbed out, dressed to the nines.
"Uh, are you the used—"
He started toward me, then froze the moment he got a look at my face. Eyes round, mouth slightly open — thoroughly startled, by the looks of it. Once again, I was forced to appreciate Jeong Eun-gyeol's looks.
I held the shopping bag out to the man standing there in a daze.
"Here. Keyboard and mouse."
"Ah— yes!"
He jumped and took the bag. Even while checking the contents, he kept sneaking glances at me. Completely obvious.
"Condition looks great. Could I get your account number?"
"…One moment."
Right — I didn't know the account number. I opened the banking app, checked it, and read it off to him.
Ding—
130,000 won has been deposited.
I smiled contentedly at the notification. That should keep me alive for a week or two, one way or another.
With the deal done, I turned to head home.
"W-wait!"
The man called after me in a rush.
"Yes?"
What now? Surely he wasn't about to start haggling after the fact.
"Uh… about earlier, when I said I was a student to get the price down… it's kind of embarrassing, and I'm sorry, so…"
He scratched the back of his neck and put on a smile that looked like it cost him something. Probably thought it was a charming one.
"I know a really good pasta place nearby. As thanks for the cool deal… I'd like to buy you a meal… What do you say? It's two minutes by car."
Excuse me? First you're a broke student, and now you're pulling this routine?
I looked at him with a blank face, then spoke.
"No, thank you."
"Ah, we can eat quick and I'll drop you—"
"Use the money you were going to spend on pasta to pay full price on your next cool deal. Have a good day."
Left with nothing to say, the man fumbled for a moment, bowed his head, and drove off.
With 130,000 won sitting in my account, I felt rather good. I headed back to the one-room apartment humming under my breath.
Maybe I'll order delivery tonight?
One week later.
"…Human desire is nothing more than the desire for the desire of the Other. Jacques Lacan. That concludes today's lesson."
Viewer count: 184.
A pitiful number next to the twelve thousand from the first stream. Call it the concrete foundation left after the raid hype had fully drained away.
I wasn't disappointed, though. Obviously I had never expected all twelve thousand people who watched that stream to keep watching mine. And the donations the remaining viewers kept sending every day added up to roughly a hundred thousand won a day. If I streamed every day without taking breaks, that came out to about 1.8 million a month after fees.
Even so, there was no telling when they might leave… and it made sense. A full week of the exact same content — nonsense, basically — and some of them were starting to get bored.
"To be honest, even I'm starting to find it tedious, cracking open a philosophy book and talking every single day."
Question marks flooded the chat at my words.
"My mechanical skill isn't good enough for games, and singing…"
Back when I'd been a man, I'd gone to karaoke now and then. But what was Jeong Eun-gyeol's singing voice like? I'd only ever hummed, so I had no idea.
"We'll keep that one on hold for now."
"I need your strength. I need content that costs not a single won, requires no physical labor, and can be done with nothing but this three-inch tongue of mine. Any ideas?"
The chat paused for a moment after the question, then started scrolling again at speed. Not much of nutritional value, though. For a full hour it was nothing but useless messages about wanting me to insult them or play yutnori.
Then one chat caught my eye.
"Sweet and sour pork, soak versus dip…"
I looked into the camera and smirked, and the pink magic cat on the monitor wore a matching cynical smile.
"A thoroughly unnutritious question, to be sure… but shall we examine it philosophically?"
"The dip camp prizes the inherent nature of the crisp fried batter — the unchanging essence. Essentialists in pursuit of the Form. The soak camp, by contrast, affirms the change that occurs as sauce soaks in and softens the batter, and the process itself. Existence precedes essence: thoroughly Sartrean existentialists."
"From the standpoint of Hegelian dialectics, dip as thesis and soak as antithesis are merely a struggle toward a new synthesis. Only stir-fry — in which sauce and batter attain the state of oneness of self and object — is the manifestation of Absolute Spirit and the true completion of sweet and sour pork."
"The perilla leaf debate."
I snorted a quiet laugh. How was I supposed to interpret this one?
Hmm…
"Approaching the perilla leaf debate as a matter of jealousy is far too one-dimensional. It should be read through Kant's categorical imperative. 'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.' Helping a person in difficulty before your eyes can be called a universal duty. Demanding that someone abandon courtesy out of jealousy is nothing more than a selfish attitude that treats a partner as a means to one's own emotional security. Feeling insecure over something as minor as peeling a perilla leaf is, in the first place, mere fussiness born of emotional incompleteness."
"Setting philosophy aside, however, my personal position is this. The true culprit of this tragedy is the shared side dish that leaves room for another person's chopsticks to intrude in the first place. Therefore, when lovers and friends dine together, eat gukbap, where each person is guaranteed one individual earthenware pot. Only an utterly solitary, independent, existentialist meal — eyes fixed solely on one's own pot — can put this debate to rest."
Oh.
The reaction was pretty good, wasn't it? Viewers were spamming lmao and setting the chat on fire. This could definitely become content — a one-person version of those old "debate useless topics" videos, maybe?
"Very well. Since you all seem to enjoy it, starting tomorrow we will establish a new regular course. Strike while the iron is hot, as they say."
I immediately posted a notice on the channel board.
We accept every dispute the world has to offer.
Judgment will be rendered without mercy.
It was the first original content I had attempted since becoming a VTuber.