I Want to Become a Whale for Big Man! - 2
Here’s how it all started.
[General] Title: Has crypto gone up or something lately?
Some weirdos I’ve never seen before keep showing up in this tiny stream I watch all the time and tossing around 2.5 million won like it’s nothing, and it’s freaking me out. Did stocks or crypto suddenly moon or what?
“Bigman roleplay.”
It was something that people who couldn’t throw around 100 million won but could toss out 2.5 million had started doing. The method was simple: just walk into some random tiny stream and drop a huge donation. That was it.
They admired Bigman.
They wanted to be heroes to the small-time streamers.
“Bigman2 has donated 2 million won!”
“Gasp... c-could it be Bigman?! Wow, thank you so much!”
“Bigman11 has donated 1.5 million won!”
“Oh my gosh, really? Seriously? For real? Wow.... Thank you—!”
“Bigman34 has donated 1 million won!”
“O-oh?! Bigman oppa?”
There wasn’t any special reason for it.
It was just a side effect of Bigman becoming famous.
“I want to be Bigman when I grow up!”
“He’s so freaking cool!”
Giggle giggle!
That much was just one of those ordinary internet trends. But once a few teenagers started using their parents’ credit cards to play “Bigman roleplay,” the story changed.
Parents began flooding the net with complaints and worries.
“My kid went into a girl streamer’s room and threw money around with my card!”
“They’re all copying what bad adults do online!”
Every newspaper and media outlet picked up the story.
The news spread like wildfire, stoking the anxieties of parents all across South Korea.
“What are we supposed to do if our kids see that and start copying it—?”
“....”
The whole thing got way out of hand.
But by then, it was too burdensome to turn around and start cracking down on giant streaming platforms like HighTube or Pazijik. The cure had become more trouble than the disease.
The review board gritted its teeth.
Grrrind...!
“A no-name, second-tier streaming site with the guts to disrupt market order...!”
So the board made its choice.
They decided to beat down Live Future and no one else.
The blade called regulation came flying down.
Clang—
“W-what is this? Why are you handing a sword to someone like me...?”
“Kill yourself. It’s your fault.”
“This is outrageous! Compared to the pittance we get from the honorable lords of HighTube and the elder gentlemen of Pazijik, what we take in is just pocket lint! We’re under stricter regulations than they are!”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Please, have mercy...! Compared to the earnings from that old Paprika man’s girl-streamer rooms, we barely have anything left as it is...!”
“Do you know why you’re being punished?”
“...!”
The board’s voice turned cold.
“Because you gave birth to the traitor called Bigman.”
“That’s...!”
In the end, Live Future’s head was hung in the marketplace for the crime of daring to disturb market order. That was enough to calm the furious public mood among the parents.
“Bigman roleplay is over!”
“We’ve crushed the traitor house!”
“Long live South Korea! Long live! Long live!”
*
That was the end of the operations manager’s explanation.
“....”
“....”
I scratched my nose and boiled it down to the essentials.
“So basically, you’re saying you got hit as the example, right?”
“A lot got left out... but yes.”
“I see. So it was just a hobby, but I never imagined people would start copying it. I don’t even check social media or community sites.”
In the previous loop, I hadn’t been donating regularly to livestreams like this, so Bigman had never become a social phenomenon.
Maybe I just didn’t know because I never bothered to check.
I was terrible at keeping up with what happened on the internet.
So I apologized.
“Sorry. I guess this is my fault for causing trouble.”
“H-huh—?!”
The operations manager jolted in alarm when I apologized. He looked like he was terrified that his precious VIP member might have been hurt emotionally.
“N-no, no! Bigman, you haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Ah... okay. Got it. Anyway, thanks for answering.”
I hung up.
“....”
The donation limit had been cut again.
At first it had been unlimited, then 2.5 million won a day, and now it was 2.5 million won a week.
Split up in every direction, that worked out to about 1 million won a week.
Honestly, if I sent that much regularly, it would still be a huge help to the ABCD members.
And if I really wanted to, I could always use alt-account shadow clone jutsu and send about as much as before.
But...
Once donations are capped and you’re stuck on some tiny backwater platform with no traffic, is there even any reason to stay? Unless they’ve got you by the contract, the smart move would be to get out.
The dead-end traffic problem that came with small streaming sites.
That was the biggest reason ABCD had been slowly suffocating.
And they were about to debut in 3D, too.
Either way.
If they were going to get regulated no matter what, it was better to play in a wider pond.
As a fan, that was the thought I had.
“Hmm.”
Well, I’m sure they’ll handle it themselves.
We had promised.
Just like I promised Aki-chan.
I would follow them to the end and keep watching over them. That was all there was to it.
I stayed in my room and watched ABCD members’ streams at my own pace.
“Still, I should donate, right?”
So I leisurely made some alt accounts. But every name from Bigman2 to Bigman56 was already taken. I only managed to pull off the clone technique after changing the pattern.
“Big123456man has donated 2.5 million won!”
“Big654321man has donated 2.5 million won!”
“Big123321man has donated 2.5 million won!”
“Big654456man has donated 2.5 million won!”
— Bigmen
— Bigmen
— bm
— bm
— But the alt-account names are actually hilarious lol
…
…
…
“I didn’t expect the limit to apply to the whole account family instead of each individual one.”
*
In the long run, staying on Live Future was a bad bet.
1. There was barely any traffic.
2. Partnerships were hard.
3. Collaborations were even harder.
No matter how crowded the red ocean was, once you’d branded yourself as a company, you had to move to a major platform.
If things kept going like this, they’d slowly suffocate to death...
CEO Baek Su-cheol understood all of it.
Even so, they had no choice.
“....”
He muttered in a bitter voice.
“Who could’ve guessed that a corporate restructuring at the parent company would hit us right then and force us to go independent? We just needed to get some kind of platform partner creator contract fee in a hurry.”
Since it was a devil’s contract, the creator perks were sweet.
They got a 10% discount on settlement fees.
And for twelve months, they were paid a monthly signing bonus of 3 million won.
After the parent company’s restructuring, the company had been in such immediate danger that they had no choice but to take it.
“!”
Aki, who was attending the meeting, finally seemed to understand the full situation and looked shocked. She glanced around at the employees gathered nearby.
“So that’s why there were ten employees?”
“No, the full-time staff are just me, the general affairs lead, Min-young, and Eun-bi. The rest are short-term hires and non-regular employees. ...And outsourced workers.”
“Ahh...”
At that, everyone let out a wry smile.
It was like pouring hot water on frozen feet—something that helped, sure, but only barely.
That was Aurora Prism Entertainment’s situation.
Until Bigman appeared, that is.
After he showed up, life began to seep back into the company that had been dying on its side. Enough that it could stand up and start walking forward again, instead of simply lying there and waiting to die.
Manager Go Min-young said, “But now even Bigman can’t donate like he used to, right? That’s looking pretty grim. It’s a little much for a company to rely on an individual’s donations, but still, that’s just how it is. Realistically, it means the last reason to stay on Live Future has vanished.”
“....”
Choi Ye-seo, the eldest member and effectively the deputy manager and editor, murmured, “And this is exactly the time we’re supposed to handle the 3D debut and showcase, too. Maybe...”
The youngest member, Kang Do-dam, quietly raised her hand.
“Yesterday, Bigman came in through an alt account and dropped 2.5 million won each time, you know.”
“....”
Manager Go Min-young laughed awkwardly. “Um... I’m grateful and all, but if he keeps going that far, it’s kind of scary. We’re already getting a huge amount of help from the massive electronics donations.”
“Bigman—”
“....”
Ignoring Do-dam, who had started praying again, Min-young steered the conversation back on course.
“Anyway! After talking it over for quite a long time, here’s what the boss decided.”
“?”
“?”
“?”
CEO Baek Su-cheol said solemnly, “We’re leaving Live Future. We have no more business here!”
“!”
“!”
“!”
He went on as the startled employees stared at him.
“If you set aside the settlement-fee discount, our contract period is up, so there’s no reason to stay. And let’s be honest—aside from Bigman, there aren’t any donations anyway, right? So we’re going to use the 3D debut as our starting point and begin again on a new platform.”
Kim Ae-ri raised her hand carefully.
“Then which platform are we moving to? One of the big two, HighTube or Pazijik?”
“That’s the problem.”
“Huh?”
“We haven’t decided yet.”
“....”
“Instead, I wanted to gather everyone here and figure it out by combining the members’ and employees’ opinions.”
“!”
Kim Ae-ri immediately spoke up. “Honestly, HighTube is pretty overwhelming in terms of recognition and traffic because it’s global, right? Personally, I think it’d be much better for us. International traffic is nothing to sneeze at.”
Choi Ye-seo and Kang Do-dam opposed her.
“It’s too crowded there. And unless the algorithm decides to favor you, especially with short-form content, it’s hard to get chosen. If you’re not going in with a large-scale plan, it’ll be rough.”
“To be honest, Pazijik is just as crowded. But for gaming broadcasts and performance streams, a domestic platform would probably be better. It’s also easier to do all kinds of collaborations there.”
The meeting went on for a long time.
In the end, after all the adjustments, the mood tilted toward a domestic platform.
CEO Baek Su-cheol nodded. “I see. A domestic platform, then. It’s actually not a bad choice, considering Romantic Drive uses it as their home base. We were on the verge of collapsing and then managed to recover, while they’re the ones who’ve been maintaining stability all along. We can learn from watching them.”
“....”
“The only thing left is...”
“?”
He let out a sigh.
“Whether Bigman follows us.”
“....”
“....”
“....”
A chill silence settled over the conference room.
No one could bring themselves to speak lightly. Because he really was like a natural disaster—something a normal human being could barely even imagine.
Aki looked down at her phone.
“....”
It was a newly unwrapped smartphone.
Clean. Cute. So much more convenient than her old one, which had been cracked to pieces all over.
Someone who listens so closely after hearing just one complaint about discomfort... would that person really pretend not to know us just because the platform changed?
It was a spoiled, childish thought, maybe.
But for some reason, Bigman didn’t seem like someone who would leave so easily.
I’ll keep watching over you.
“....”
His words felt heavy.
And sincere.
Aki decided to believe him.
“He’ll come with us.”
Because...
We made a promise.