The Birth of a Fandom

The moment she hit refresh, the comments came pouring in. By now, every upload of Pachehi was clearing an average of three hundred thousand views — a sure sign that a real audience of viewers was following the series week after week.

Buzz— buzz— buzz—.

Right on cue, a message had arrived from Ae-ta-mi's friend — a fellow hardcore superfan. Ae-ta-mi's fingers flew across the keyboard.

Right now, at this very moment, it felt as though the entire world simply had to be talking about Pachehi.

"I'm dying of curiosity."

It wasn't only Pachehi, either. Ae-ta-mi had grown curious about Yeo-reum herself. How did the girl slip so effortlessly between her dead-fish eyes and her sparkling heroine eyes? How did she deliver a performance that should have turned any viewer into a cynic, and somehow made them laugh instead?

"This kind of thing really comes down to the actor. How on earth did they manage to cast someone like her?"

Ae-ta-mi marveled all over again. The difference between a drama you watch for the cringe and a drama so cringeworthy you physically can't watch it had always been made or broken by the lead actor.

"The vocal delivery, the expressions... not one single thing feels off."

Dead-fish-eyed Pi Chae-won and fresh-eyed, sparkling Pi Chae-won. Neither performance was excessive; neither felt like a burden. As if Pi Chae-won had simply always existed, somewhere out in the world.

"God, seriously..."

Phone clutched in hand, Ae-ta-mi ended up reading every last comment on the latest episode. Which left exactly one thing to do.

"I'm dying of curiosity."

Search: Han Yeo-reum

And there she was — Han Yeo-reum the actress, plain and simple.

And so began the fan journey that would go down in the history of Ae-ta-mi's life.

"Hey. You guys seen that thing?"

"What thing?"

"The shoot they did at our school!"

Pachehi episode 4 had settled firmly onto the trending videos chart. Viewers were flooding in from every direction — people who stumbled across it on their feed, people who wandered in through a community post, people who pressed play on a friend's recommendation.

"At this rate you're probably the last person on Earth who hasn't seen it."

Tae-yang's schoolmates had spent the past weeks happily uploading every behind-the-scenes photo they'd snapped during the Pachehi shoot. Their stories, naturally — plus Tritter, and even written-up sighting reports on community boards.

The students of Tae-yang's school scattered their hoarded photos far and wide across the internet. One girl had just opened her gallery to attach her Pachehi behind-the-scenes shots to a post when—

"Got anything better than that? A sharper shot?"

"...Huh?"

Startled by the voice behind her, the student nearly dropped her phone. Han Tae-yang — a boy she'd barely exchanged two words with in her life — was peering down at her screen.

"No good. Give me your phone."

Having skimmed the screen with a practiced eye, Tae-yang took the phone from her hands, then pulled out his own and opened his gallery.

...What is this?

The student could only gape. Rows upon rows of his gallery were filled with Pachehi behind-the-scenes photos. Judging by the sheer, absurd volume, he must have collected them from the entire student body.

"Here. Upload this one."

Tae-yang kindly sent over the photo in which Pi Chae-won looked her best.

"Um... thank... you?"

He jerked his chin: post it, now. Before she knew what she was doing, the student found herself uploading the photo Tae-yang had sent. The notification chimed almost immediately.

Tae-yang, who had been watching the notification alongside her, sent over another photo without a word.

"Relax. Just relax."

I'm sorry, Tae-yang, but I am not even a LITTLE bit relaxed...

Only after her second upload did the student finally escape Tae-yang's grip.

"Ugh, Han Tae-yang is so weird.... Like, hundreds of Pi Chae-won photos, just shoved at me."

"You didn't know?"

The students still didn't know Yeo-reum's actual name. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, quite literally, Pi Chae-won herself to them.

"Han Tae-yang is famous as Pi Chae-won's most hardcore fanboy..."

And so it was that Tae-yang became Pi Chae-won's most rabid fan.

Once episode 4 of Pachehi went live, the very flow of the story changed the game.

Web dramas had, as a rule, been built on the 'slice' format — self-contained episodes that snapped off one after another like brittle segments. Pachehi was the only one to break that mold, approaching its material the way a proper television drama would: as a single, continuous narrative.

"Our subscriber count is rising steadily. If you look at this data—"

It stood apart from the existing Snack Culture, where watching the next episode changed nothing and skipping it cost you nothing. For the first time ever, someone had produced a web drama that left viewers aching to know what came next.

Which meant the current of the industry itself was beginning, slowly, to turn.

'InTube is InTube, and broadcasters are broadcasters. In a market where the line between them was always crystal clear — if InTube keeps climbing from here...'

...then the world would see the birth of broadcasters of an entirely new form. Ones standing on a stage built to devour the existing networks whole. It was impossible not to covet it.

'Now is the moment to carve out our own independent path.'

Jegal Rok gazed at the PPT slides spread before him. Team Leader Seong of the newly launched Web Content department was presenting the interim results.

"Episodes 3 and 4 landed on the trending videos chart back to back — episode 3 at number seventeen, episode 4 at number nine, and both climbing steeply. Community mentions and reactions are positive as well."

"Revenue?"

"As the graph shows, sales of Brand N products worn by Han Yeo-reum in her role as Pi Chae-won have risen slightly month over month, steadily, since episode 1, and the proportion of customers purchasing through the product link—"

Jegal Rok arched a single eyebrow at results that had outpaced his own projections. Interesting.

"Brand N has also sent in a proposal to run PPL in our next production. They've raised the offer twenty million won above the Pachehi rate."

The final episode hadn't even been uploaded yet. For them to move this fast on concrete numbers could only mean one thing.

'Brand N has caught on, too.'

They wanted a seat at the table for the web dramas JC ENM would make after Pachehi's run. Jegal Rok gave a short nod.

"Tell them we'll discuss it later. The next project hasn't been decided yet."

"Yes, understood."

Scheduling leverage, advertisements that could be slipped in along the way, and on top of it all a trendy, modern image—

'This is fun.'

The presentation at last drew to a close. The results exceeded expectations on every front.

"Director. May I ask about the label matter?"

"Which part of it?"

"I heard you're reconsidering the original plan of turning MCN-affiliated influencers into actors."

Team Leader Seong put the question to Jegal Rok point-blank. So — are you bringing Han Yeo-reum in, or aren't you? That was what lurked beneath the words. Rumors really did travel fast in this business.

"That's right. But I want to think on it a little longer."

"Quite a few people have been asking me about Han Yeo-reum's agency situation. Sooner or later, you'll be receiving business cards from every direction."

"Team Leader Seong. If JC pushes someone, anyone can become a star. And even a celebrity riding high will plummet straight down the moment they switch agencies—"

Jegal Rok's index finger rose toward the ceiling, then dropped flat against the desk.

"You're aware of that, I trust?"

Jegal Rok was confident in his ability to raise a star. What he wanted was to gauge, in advance, just how far that ability of his could reach.

By that measure, Han Yeo-reum was undeniably promising material — but still.

"How much do we have to pour into her? We need the framework set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the very beginning. Poking at things with a toe in the water is nothing but a waste of time."

Whether she was fit to be the first runner in opening up JC ENM's new content market remained to be seen.

"...Yes. Understood."

Jegal Rok begrudged even the walk back to his office — he switched on his tablet in the elevator. On the screen appeared the Pachehi script reading video uploaded that very day.

Han Yeo-reum's voice came through the speaker.

Calling that sound quality would have been an act of generosity.

And yet — the power to make a listener picture the entire scene from a single line of dialogue. That was what deserved to be called resolution. Every moment Han Yeo-reum appeared, the picture quality simply changed.

"Hello, it's Jegal Rok."

He picked up his phone and called the newspaper directly.

"Set up an interview for our web drama — this production, at the earliest possible date."

And just like that, Yeo-reum's first interview was arranged.

Here we were — Jongno-gu. I paused at the front of the building for a long, steadying breath. Above the entrance hung a nameplate bearing the company's name.

A newspaper that specialized in entertainment news. And at long last, I was about to do my very first interview.

I really... really feel like a celebrity now...

This was the schedule Team Leader Seong had passed along to me a while back.

"Yeo-reum, you've got an interview lined up for the lead role in Pachehi."

Incidentally, I recorded that phone call and use it as my alarm tone. No matter how dead-tired I am, those words alone make me leap out of bed, bright and bouncy.

But knowing that today was the interview, my heart was pounding so hard I'd ended up arriving far earlier than my appointment time.

"Ahhh... the air of a true protagonist..."

I was standing there drinking it all in when a Carnival van pulled up and stopped, right in front of me.