154. The Fall of BigCatTube
154. The Fall of BigCatTube
***
Every NewTuber's channel had its own distinct character, but given the nature of NewTube, where so many people gathered.
It was always important to know the current trends.
What meme was going viral right now, what was happening in the hit drama, or which celebrities were hot.
The world changed faster by the day, and the people who gained popularity were just as varied.
In that sense, NewTube's "Trending" category was worth checking from time to time.
With one light click, you could get at least some sense of what the trends were, even if not everything.
On top of that, you could also see negative issues like incidents and scandals, which served as a reminder of what to be careful about.
......
Park Soyul had gone into NewTube's Trending category to check the current trends, as she always did.
Her eyes soon went wide, as if she had spotted something astonishing.
"...Big Cat?"
Someone she had never expected was in the Trending category.
And no wonder—she hadn't seen Big Cat in the Trending category even once in recent months, so seeing him there now was surprising in itself.
She had known for a while that BigCatTube was on the decline, so she'd assumed she would never see him in this category again.
Even the thumbnails and titles of the visible videos all looked strange.
*
————
[20310814]
BigCatTube 470K views 17 hours ago.
————
*
The video title looked like a date had just been written down, and the thumbnail image showed no effort whatsoever—just a captured frame of Big Cat streaming.
Thumbnails were the absolute basics of NewTube. The carelessness of the setup was baffling, and what was even funnier was that the view count still reached nearly 500K.
"How does a title and thumbnail like that get this many views?"
Ever since she started working as an editor, checking a NewTube video's thumbnail and title first had become something of an occupational habit, but right now everything was so incomprehensible that it only made her more curious.
After quitting BigCatTube, she hadn't even tried to watch Big Cat's videos, but the video now in front of her was at a level no editor could resist clicking.
Click.
The moment the NewTube video started, Soyul blinked, unable to shake off a deep sense of bewilderment. The video's timeline stretched over several hours.
"A four-hour video?"
Even the industry norm was to keep videos under twenty minutes, no matter how long-form they were meant to be. A four-hour upload made no sense at all.
Setting aside the countless problems, Soyul clicked through the timeline to check quickly, and within a few minutes she scrolled straight down.
474,366 views.
└ 1.7K likes 12K dislikes
[Wow......]
3.2K likes
▽ View 172 replies.
[I clicked the video wondering what was up, but I figured it out from the comments. It's really scary what people's true nature is like lololol]
1.6K likes
▽ View 56 replies.
[4:25, 6:53, 10:11, 14:32, 16:33, 18:05... I tried to write down every part where Big Cat curses someone out, but I just gave up]
1.7K likes
▽ View 253 replies.
[So the nice-guy image really was all fake, he curses constantly, wow. Was Big Cat really like this?]
2.2K likes
▽ View 79 replies.
[What did he do to his editor? This looks like pre-edited footage, and they just uploaded it as is]
1.0K likes
▽ View 38 replies.
[I mean, people really aren't just what they show on the outside, but no, this is too much. I'd been watching him consistently all this time, and the sense of betrayal is huge. I'm so disappointed...]
1.3K likes
▽ View 45 replies.
[From the way he talks, it sounds like he's into crypto? No wonder... I thought the videos had been getting a little weird over the past few months, but whether he was always like this or not, hearing him curse really shows what kind of person he is lmao]
2.0K likes
▽ View 81 replies.
The like-to-dislike ratio. After checking that along with several comments, Soyul let out a small sigh at the end.
"He was into crypto?"
Click. Click. Click.
As she skipped through the video following the comment with the timestamps, each time Big Cat would stop playing the game, look toward something invisible on the monitor, and spew vicious words.
From ranting about some coin, to sell walls, to the wick looking like crap, to saying a bunch of assholes were manipulating the market—along with every kind of profanity.
Then his expression would suddenly shift, and he'd laugh or look on the verge of tears, and the changes looked outright grotesque.
He was probably looking at a coin chart on another monitor. But when it repeated dozens of times at the very least, Soyul felt that Big Cat was not normal.
"Even for a recorded stream, this is too much. How often is he checking the coin chart?"
NewTubers weren't like streamers who did real-time broadcasts with viewers. Depending on the NewTuber, many recorded their content and uploaded it afterward.
In fact, she knew some people actually got more energetic that way, so recorded content itself wasn't a problem at all.
But. Big Cat checking the coin chart even during a recorded stream was a huge problem.
His expression changed by the minute, and whether the price had dropped or not, he would curse nonstop for minutes at a time. Seeing that so rawly exposed on video was enough to make anyone frown.
Then, with his emotions swinging back and forth, he'd go back to playing the game, and naturally his energy was inconsistent, so viewers couldn't possibly find it entertaining.
Even when they had worked together half a year ago, she had never seen this side of Big Cat's videos.
So while the video in front of her was surprising, Soyul also began to understand, piece by piece.
Big Cat wasn't a NewTuber who also streamed, so she hadn't been able to figure out why his form had fallen so much. Now she knew.
He had fallen apart because of crypto.
If he was checking the coin chart every few minutes like that, there was no way proper NewTube videos could come out in the first place.
After checking the comments for a few more minutes, Soyul turned the video off.
"Why. Why did he get into crypto."
Big Cat himself looked so pathetic that she didn't want to watch the wreckage, and she could also see the irresponsibility of the unknown editor who had uploaded the video without any plan. But as she gradually began to understand how that editor felt, she just... found it hard to keep watching.
Because it didn't feel like someone else's problem. The thought suddenly struck her: if I hadn't quit, I might have been the editor who uploaded this video.
"In the end... Big Cat is really finished now."
Big Cat's greatest strength.
His nice-guy image had completely collapsed with that one video.
The way he spewed vicious curses every few minutes without hesitation, or the way he swung back and forth because of crypto.
No matter what you looked at, the nice-guy image could no longer be maintained.
And that fact meant even the core fans who had kept watching his videos despite them not being entertaining would now fall away.
Likes and dislikes. Considering even the ratio, his life as a NewTuber was effectively over.
"Haa..."
Watching someone you wanted to fail actually fail stirred a surprisingly strange feeling.
The fact that Big Cat had failed was certainly satisfying, but the thought that a channel containing dozens of videos I'd worked on and uploaded had collapsed also left me with a complicated bitterness.
The care and effort she had poured into those videos easily amounted to hundreds of hours at the very least.
As emotions too tangled to sort into a single feeling mixed together, Soyul swept a hand through her hair and slowly organized her thoughts by letting out a breath.
Then, abruptly, she picked up her smartphone and looked again at a BaTalk message.
Rin.
[Icon of an otter holding a bundle of bills and scattering them]
【—Receive 6,000,000 won.】
Over the past two days, Soyul didn't know how many times she had looked at this message.
She had never received that kind of money from anyone, let alone as a bonus.
The "Accept" button on the message had now turned gray. Because this morning, after agonizing over it, she had finally accepted the money.
"Seriously, how did I meet someone like Rin?"
A person who stood in such stark contrast to Big Cat, whose image was plummeting to rock bottom in an instant.
Between Rin's attitude on stream and Rin in their messages, Soyul felt no difference at all.
If anything, in their private chats, Soyul had repeatedly felt a considerateness from Rin that she never saw on stream.
Rin casually supported her with money under the name of a company dinner, told her to take her time, and never attached any restrictions or conditions to uploading videos.
Rin simply spoke lightly, as if entrusting the NewTube side entirely to her.
Swish.
Soyul took her hand off the mouse for a moment, and mid-thought, a laugh escaped her for no reason because she couldn't believe this reality.
"...You're really too different."
In truth, Soyul had been wounded by the word "bonus" while working with Big Cat. Outwardly she had brought it up jokingly, but unlike when she ran BigCatTube, she had never once seriously brought up a bonus with Serin.
She had been cautious about anything money-related, worried that Rin might feel burdened or, worse, become disillusioned with her the way Big Cat had.
Because even after quitting BigCatTube, she had spent the past few months wondering quite a lot whether the problem might be with her.
Even though she knew anyone could see she was being treated unfairly, she had agonized over all sorts of things.
- Maybe the problem is with me.
- Maybe I put too much pressure on the NewTuber.
- Maybe that was why Big Cat treated me so badly.
Soyul, still not used to working with someone else, had naturally started thinking those thoughts as Big Cat's personality gradually changed.
"...What pointless thoughts those were."
Looking back now, she had just been agonizing alone and chipping away at her own confidence.
Staring at the message with the six million won, she felt grateful all over again for no reason.
Because since meeting Rin, she felt like her worth had finally been recognized again.
Park Soyul.
[Thank you. Rin]
So Soyul ended up sending another message with those words.
***
BaTalk!
Park Soyul.
[Thank you. Rin]
Serin, who had checked Soyul's message—sent to her personal chat, not the editor group chat—tilted her head slightly.
"No, why is she sending such a cryptic message? Seriously?"
Soyul's messages were sometimes hard to understand.
She had no idea what she was being thanked for, or why Soyul had sent that message, so she ended up overthinking all sorts of things on her own.
Serin thought for a moment, then immediately sent a reply.
Me.
[Soyul, what are you suddenly thanking me for?]
Park Soyul.
[Just... Rin, thank you for everything.]
"Ah, seriously!"
At Soyul's even stranger message, Serin chewed her lip for a second, then simply gave up on BaTalk with Soyul.