If You Keep the Cringe Going, It Becomes Art
At first, I meant to run a perfectly ordinary sponsored stream.
The idea was to set the Emerald Tablet in my memory against the Emerald Tablet of now—more or less the same feeling as the last Water Gun Melt Down 2 ad stream.
But who am I? A monster of creativity who strikes fear into even the gods.
And so I went and did it.
The thought, I mean: If I weave a concept stream together with the ad, won't something incredible come out of it?!
Just like that, two whole advertising proposals were born. Plan A, to be played straight and safe, and Plan B, to be played as a concept stream.
And Plan B was the one they picked.
Astonishingly enough.
…Honestly, on a personal level, I'd wanted B to win, so I did pour a little more effort into it than into A. I spent far more time writing B than I had writing A, and in sheer word count B ran about twenty percent longer, too.
Even so, I never actually thought they'd go and pick B….
Don't sponsors like the safe option? Had that been my mistake?
Anyway. Once it was decided I'd be doing a concept stream, I made up my mind to plant my feet and do it properly. Content the viewers were enjoying, content I was having fun making—was there any reason not to commit to it for real? Not particularly.
And so the story of Emerald Tablet and Märchen—one you probably couldn't hear dry-eyed—came to grace the opening of the concept stream———
“Kono bangumi wa goran no suponsaa no teikyoo de okuri shimasu.”
A line I felt like I'd heard at least several thousand times, and now it was coming out of my mouth.
With that, the opening I'd labored over came to a perfect close.
It was time to begin the concept stream in earnest.
I spread my right hand wide and brought it up in front of my eyes, then drew the palm back until the tips of all five fingers were a breath away from gathering at a single point. An utterly simple little sequence, and I repeated it again and again. A hand gesture for sinking into a performance—something I had seen somewhere, though I had absolutely no memory of where.
…Good. I think I've roughly caught the emotional line.
I nodded, booted up Emerald Tablet, and turned the camera on. The broadcast filled with the game's title screen, and with my face.
As calmly as I could manage. Voice dropped a notch, the smile pared back to something reasonable, emotions pressed flat, the feeling of pretending I was perfectly at peace….
“It's been a while…. I didn't think we'd end up meeting like this.”
…There.
A pretty satisfying start. Part of me wanted to praise my own acting to the heavens, but this was a concept stream, and the concept had to be kept. Outwardly I held the expression and the mood, and as naturally as I could I slid my eyes toward the chat.
Faced with this all-soul performance, what would they do? Gasp in awe? Or tell me I was being ridiculous? Both seemed possible, and I couldn't get a read.
Let's see….
DiehardMarchenFromToday donated $75!
By all appearances, our viewers were far more interested in how I looked than in the performance I had poured my soul into.
I looked at myself on the broadcast screen again. A neat, tidy office look, and light makeup on top of it. It was, without question, a look that sold the concept of having met for work—enough that I could feel it had been worth it. A human being who had never worked a single day in an office, digging through the clothes at home and taking Eunha's advice, all to put on one enormous tryhard production.
I'd expected a fairly decent reaction. Something along those lines.
ICantBelieveIt donated $8!
ChairmanForADay donated $150!
But I hadn't expected it to go this far.
It wasn't even cosplay. It wasn't even cosplay!
Important, so I said it twice.
Had my standards climbed? Well, I'd recently had a professional styling and seen my looks upgraded to a full kore ga watashi level. My eye was already high. Of course it would climb higher still.
…When that music video drops later, isn't the chat just going to explode?
Plan A and Plan B—the advertising proposals my sudden flash of inspiration had set against each other.
At a glance, the two looked like rivals. Look closer, though, and sibling was the fairer word, because the heart of both proposals was almost the same. Set the Emerald Tablet in my memory against the Emerald Tablet of now, and sell the improvements. Tempt people who had quit the game, the way I had, and turn them into returners. And at the same time, for viewers who didn't know Emerald Tablet at all, plant a favorable impression: the company actually does things for its players.
Which was why———
“Returner rewards, the 1.5-year anniversary rewards, even a free hundred-roll…. You never used to hand out rewards like this. …I see. So you made it, too.”
“The event story, available all the time now? …Are you doing that for me? For me, who abandoned you and missed a year and four months of story? …Right. You were always that kind of game.”
The moment Plan B was chosen, the script I prepared filled up with lines I had written myself and couldn't help thinking were absolute gems.
Honestly, even while writing it, I'd worried I wouldn't be able to hold the laughter in…. Fortunately, I managed to smooth it over at the level of a twitching corner of the mouth.
And fortunately, the viewers' reaction was on fire.
There's a saying: keep the cringe going, and it becomes art. So hadn't my ad stream just touched the realm of art? Befitting a Märchen ad stream in pursuit of high class, high quality, and high efficiency.
Thinking that, I carried the cringe—no, the art—onward.
“They've added a lot of pretty skins, haven't they? The reason I started you, this game, was that the art was beautiful. To think you'd come even further than back then….”
Anon donated $1!
“Right. You can take the stockings off, too….”
…What?
“…Huh? No, wait a second. Is that for real?!”
“Concept cancelled! Does the concept matter right now?! It's common sense that stockings matter way more than the concept!! Excuse me, Sponsor! Why didn't you tell me about that!!”
I said it while hammering the mouse in a panic, but it was useless. Until you bought a Latudi skin and actually put it on the character, you couldn't see a single interaction. And I, who had quit Emerald Tablet for a year and four months, didn't have a character to put that skin on. Even if I bought it with my own money, it wouldn't mean a thing.
…I can't take the stockings off?
I just sit here sucking my thumb and then turn the game off?
For real?
“…Right, the super account! I got a promo super account!”
When they said they'd give me one, I'd let it in one ear and out the other, since I could just use my own account for the concept stream…. I never dreamed it would be used like this.
Had the sponsor seen this far ahead and handed me the super account on purpose? To drag a genuine, unfiltered reaction out of the ad stream?
Was this the divine authority of the great and glorious Sponsor…?!
I hurriedly swapped over to the super account and stripped the stockings off at once.
“…Nice.”
If I hadn't seen that, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.
So. I'd seen what I came to see, which meant I ought to pick the paused concept stream back up and carry on….
…Except there was no way a skin like that was the only one.
“All right! Mid-roll ad time! I'll run a few skin ads and then we'll get back to the main broadcast! …I mean, this is an ad stream. It'd be a little weird not to have an ad break, wouldn't it?”
“Excuse me, personal agenda? This is a perfectly legitimate advertisement! …So, which Latudi skins have an interaction like the stocking thing just now? …I'll say it again, this is not me indulging myself! If we're promoting anyway, we have to show people the best product, or the promo won't work!”
And so, nothing like the original plan, I went and invested thirty minutes of the ad block into appreciating skins.
Ah—but they say the sponsor was extremely satisfied with my genuine reactions.
It had drifted a little from the plan, but I'd satisfied the sponsor anyway….
Once again I had defended the honor of Märchen's signature, deeply dignified ad stream! Incredible. Me!!