Cuteness Knows No Borders

"Everyone heard that, right? I started a WeTube channel."

"My friends said they'd handle the editing, too. I didn't think they'd finish and upload it in a single day."

"Yesterday's stream was super short, so they could cut it pretty fast."

"It was my first broadcast, but the response was so good. I'm really grateful."

The plan was for Minjeong and Minji to edit, and for Mina to do a final review before uploading. Had Mina gotten the footage from the two of them, gone home, and stayed up late going over it? I really couldn't do any of this without my friends. Especially Mina — without her, how would I have even started streaming? I wouldn't have thought of it in the first place. The fact that I was on the air at all was entirely thanks to her. Streaming by myself had been unimaginable.

"The editor seats are already locked down by my real-life friends."

"Our WeTube editors enjoy some pretty great employee benefits, too."

We had benefits at our WeTube? Besides actually paying them, what benefits was she talking about? Was this some perk only I didn't know about? Mina was cheerfully explaining editor benefits I had never heard of.

"Mina, what benefits?"

"During lunch, Minjeong and Minji got their healing time."

"Ah, that's the benefit? They just used my lap as a pillow and hugged me in the chair."

That counted as a benefit? The two of them had insisted that editing was exhausting and they needed healing, then demanded skinship. It had been a little more intense than usual, but it hadn't really bothered me.

"Our WeTube pays a little differently. Right now the revenue is small, but it'll grow over time."

I'd always heard that you set a fixed salary and paid that. Our WeTube, though, had decided to go by percentage. They'd insisted they would only take about seventy-five dollars, and we'd pushed them until they agreed to ten percent.

"Come on, how am I supposed to become a ten-million WeTuber? Even a million would be hard, you know?"

When had the viewer count passed four thousand? Four thousand in two days. Even knowing WeTV had a lot of viewers, four thousand was still staggering.

"Wow, thank you so much for watching from the United States. And thank you for the donation."

"American people watch my stream too? That's so wild."

"I really think scientists are amazing."

I had no idea what any of them were talking about either. How had we gone from racism to scientists to Einstein? Well, if some nasty viewer started being racist on my stream, I could just ban them on the spot. Racial discrimination in here meant a permanent ban, period.

The real-time translation system. That was exactly why WeTV stood so far above every other platform. Other sites could copy everything else, but they could never copy this. It was a WeTV-only feature — and it was how foreign viewers flowed so naturally into Korean streams.

"Once you're on our blacklist, we have no intention of ever letting you off."

"And of course, those viewers will get banned on WeTube immediately too."

"That's what's nice about WeTV and WeTube being linked. Ban someone on one, and they get banned on the other."

"Our viewers are all good people, right?"

H-huh? Why were they suddenly like this? If a stranger came running at me out of nowhere, I was pretty sure I'd be terrified. Should I just kick them all?

"Why is everyone suddenly like this?"

If someone was really determined to do something awful to me, I might not even have the strength to fight them off. If I were walking down the street alone and a stranger stroked my head, pinched my cheek, and ran, I might be too scared to even go outside after that. Mina wasn't by my side twenty-four hours a day, and I didn't have the power to shake someone like that off on my own. Please, viewers. Don't ever joke about that again.

"I'll let it slide this time, but please hold back on the extreme jokes."