Opportunity in Crisis

"Ah! Shit!"

Too late. She snapped back to her senses and slammed the window shut, but she never stood a chance of dodging the hammer. It felt like someone whispering Too slow right against her ear.

The amount Choi Yeram had loaded for this content: thirty million won. Add the VAT and it was thirty-three million. A gap of mere seconds, and thirty-three million won — tens of millions, if you counted the expected value — of content vanished in a single instant.

"Wah! Waaaah! Aaaaagh!"

Staying sane would have been the strange part.

Suspended. She opened the email and found it was a one-week ban. No streaming until it was over. She was going to lose her mind.

This project had been a great step toward the future — a plan to lock down a promising small-time streamer early and push on to the next stage. That grand stride toward a bigger dream had stepped on a glass bottle the moment it left the ground. The bleeding was considerable. They might have to overhaul the entire plan. What they needed was a countermeasure. Something that could keep the damage to a minimum.

"I'm gonna lose it."

Choi Yeram muttered it under her breath and called a meeting. It was going to be a very long one.

Two people who handled planning and editing, one who made thumbnails and also edited, two managers, and Choi Yeram herself. Six people in all gathered in the conference room. A heavy mood settled over the table before Choi Yeram opened her mouth.

"It's a one-week ban."

"Ah…"

"We're in trouble."

"……"

Everyone wore the same grim face. In the middle of it, senior manager Gwak Hyeona muttered under her breath.

"If she'd just closed it in time… or at least put an age restriction on it beforehand…"

"Ahem."

Choi Yeram cleared her throat and slid a sideways look at her.

"Hyeona?"

"Yes?"

"Got any good ideas?"

"Ideas about what?"

"A truly astonishing idea that might get us out of this."

Gwak Hyeona's brow furrowed. The look on her face asked, quite plainly, why that question was being aimed at her. You got yourself banned and now you're taking it out on the nearest target? Holding a grudge over one comment? Wow. Real thin-skinned. And this is a million-subscriber YouTuber?

Choi Yeram was the first to look away.

"I only asked because this is our problem, so I figured you should think about it too…"

"Yes. I'll give it some thought."

She had spoken up only to lose her principal, and she cleared her throat. Hyeona was still hard to handle, after all.

Gwak Hyeona had been with Choi Yeram's studio for over two years now. Diligent on the clock, razor-sharp with the work — but just as strict about keeping business and personal separate, so the two of them still used formal speech with each other. You couldn't have told who was the employer and who was the employee. Choi Yeram still found Gwak Hyeona intimidating.

After a furtive glance to check Hyeona's mood, Choi Yeram turned to head editor Shin Doyeon.

"Doyeon. How far along are we on the videos we're supposed to upload?"

"The two going up this week are in the final stages. Sehee's already started the rough cut on next week's."

Two or three videos went up on the Nellka YouTube channel every week. One had already been posted, and two more were scheduled two days apart. This week would be fine. Next week was the problem.

"If we want to keep the upload schedule, we'll need to film something extra, won't we?"

As things stood, the day after the ban lifted was an upload day. The next stream was a week away. Editing a single video took three or four days. Even if they streamed the moment the ban came off and cut the footage immediately, the upload would still land a day late.

Subscribers and followers would understand, given the suspension. Choi Yeram herself would not. Unless a natural disaster hit or some unspeakable personal circumstance intervened, the upload schedule had to be kept. A mere ban was not going to stop her. On top of the videos already in the pipeline, they needed one more. The question was what to film.

Choi Yeram sank into thought, and the staff, reading her mind, did the same. For a long while the only sound in the office was breathing. Senior manager Gwak Hyeona was the one who broke the silence.

"Yeram. You need to see this."

What she held out was her phone. Choi Yeram took it and looked at the screen.

Those were the posts circulating on the community boards. Choi Yeram skimmed the ones with the most upvotes and drifted into thought.

This… we can use this, can't we?

Something — something enormous — had started to take shape.

There are people who get banned on a test stream that isn't even their first real broadcast.

That person is me.

Park Beomjun!

The Tricky nickname I never got around to changing: also Park Beomjun! Beom from "exemplar," Jun from "outstanding"! Become an outstanding man who sets an example for others!

And yet: broadcast suspended for pornographic content. On day one. I had no face left to show the parents who had given me that name. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I, who had never so much as tossed a scrap of trash on the street, had gone and made a mistake like this.

A suspension meant you had done something wrong, and punishment had been handed down. By breaking the rules and getting banned, I had only put more distance between myself and the kind of person who could serve as anyone's example.

"Well."

But it wasn't too late. If you did something wrong, you owned it and you reflected. People made mistakes as they lived. Everyone had a first time, and anyone could slip. What mattered was carving that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mistake into your chest and never forgetting it. I had to use this as a chance to become a little more mature, a little better than I had been. That was how you set an example for other people.

I wrote an apology.

I had failed to properly learn the broadcasting rules and received a suspension as a result. I had also caused harm to another streamer. I acknowledged all of it, and I was sorry. I offered my deepest apologies to that streamer and to the viewers. That was the substance of it.

Plainly. With my whole heart. I finished the apology and posted it as a notice on my personal channel.

Gwak Hyeona lifted her eyes from her phone and looked at Choi Yeram. The meeting had entered its final stage.

The ban had put the YouTube upload schedule ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the verge of collapse. They needed a countermeasure, and in the middle of that crisis a single idea had jumped out of Choi Yeram — one line, after she looked at the phone Gwak Hyeona had handed her.

"This Park Beomjun person — can we recruit him?"

That set the direction, and the real meeting began. Ideas came one after another, and a skeleton of a plan took shape. Once you could see the road, it did not take long to reach the destination. Flesh went on the bones, then skin, and before anyone quite noticed, a full content plan had been knocked together. There were still rough edges to sand down and holes to patch, but for something built in such a short time, it was an excellent piece of planning.

"Good work, everyone. We'll pick up the rest tomorrow."

That evening, instead of a statement going up on Nellka's official account, a single comment appeared under the apology on Park Beomjun's channel.

The comment racked up a considerable number of upvotes and rose to the top of the apology thread.

The reaction was pretty decent.

Probably.