Take the Whip!
The broadcast screen was still dark, and already the viewers were waiting on it.
Since my debut I had kept the streams going without a miss, and this was the first long hiatus I had ever taken. Isn't that how it always goes? You never know how precious something is while it's still beside you. Ten days of absence had driven the lesson home, and the viewers were in an uproar over it, swearing they would tighten the discipline so a break like this could never happen again.
Too bad for them. I had already seen straight through that pitch-black little scheme.
I can't just roll over and take this.
A big audience is a good thing. Having them nudge a broadcast in a positive direction is a good thing too. But that has to stay support, and nothing more. The one who holds the center of a broadcast is the BJ. Anyone toxic enough to try to shake that center was going to catch the iron hammer.
The question was how.
First I have to strip them of their justification.
There was a clear reason the viewers were riding so high. A curt, half-hearted notice dropped out of nowhere, with no warning at all, and then a hiatus that ran ten days. Through every one of those days, not a word of communication. I could plead that I had been focused on the tournament, but the excuse could just as easily blow back the other way: couldn't I at least have spared ten minutes to talk to them?
I had to read the situation carefully.
So that's really the only play?
The thought alone made me wince. I had already left two pieces of black history behind—Kitty Hani, the bunny girl—and I had never imagined I would be the one volunteering for a third.
A tasty carrot, offered up to furious viewers.
A Penalty Broadcast.
Once I've soothed that anger, I'll take the justification they've lost and make it mine.
Hand out the carrot, and the whip comes next.
Look forward to it, you toxic little bastards. My whip stings.
The broadcast began.
I had prepared a great deal for today. First I bought gifts and went around to the neighbors who had come complaining about the noise through the floor. I apologized—sorry for all the trouble I had caused. I would be moving within two weeks, so I asked them to bear with me just a little longer. And at the very end I added one more thing: today's broadcast was a special one, and it might get a little loud, so I hoped they would understand.
Once they heard I was going so far as to move over this very problem, their faces said they understood well enough.
With the neighborhood settled for the moment, I came home and prepared the carrot I meant to feed the viewers. I blocked off the background behind the camera with a green cloth, and then, so I would look properly respectful, I dressed in a women's suit and started the broadcast.
I was copying the apology video of a famous streamer with considerable clout on Tweet TV. Done this way, an opening that might otherwise feel stiff would loosen up at least a little. The thought landed dead center the instant the broadcast began and the viewers' chat came pouring in.
I waited at rigid attention, watching the chat from the corner of my eye. The viewer count still wasn't high enough. More of them needed to file in, and letting them see me hold a pose this uncomfortable would stir a little sympathy besides.
The moment I opened looking duly crestfallen, the toxic ones swelled with confidence and started running their mouths. The count ticked past two thousand, and the climb began, slowly, to ease.
It was time.
I faced the camera dead-on and lowered my head. I held the bow until the crown of my head showed, fixed there for about five seconds, trying to make the sincerity of the apology plain.
"Hello. I'm BJ Hani, broadcasting on Shindaeryuk TV. First, I want to apologize to every viewer who was disappointed, and made uncomfortable, by my half-hearted hiatus notice and by my failure to communicate at all."
I bowed once more, carefully, for them to see.
I could feel the angry viewers settling, if only a little. I didn't stop there. I threw the carrot I had prepared.
"As a way of truly reflecting, and of repaying the viewers who waited so long, I've decided to run another Penalty Broadcast. It will happen within this month, no exceptions, and once the date is set I'll post a notice."
The public opinion that had been packed so tight was finally starting to crack. Ordinary viewers were growing satisfied with my continued polite apologies and the promise of a Penalty Broadcast, while the toxic ones still wanted to knead the mood of the broadcast and drag it wherever they pleased.
I waited for the moment, then drew the prop I had prepared from my back pocket.
I put the glasses on and fastened the red bow tie I had prepared. Then I played the music I had set up in advance—the main theme of Detective Gonan, the kind that sets a heart hammering.
To viewers caught between suspicion and anticipation, I spoke in a low voice. From here on, I told them, I would broadcast with more sincerity, and with the viewers in mind. But no relationship anywhere is one-sided. The viewers had to hold up their end as well—basic manners toward a BJ, and basic consideration.
Onto the screen I put the most malicious of the posts that had occupied the board for the past ten days.
The mood changed. Viewers began to murmur. The toxic ones started to feel the hurry.
I mimicked Gonan's voice.
The mood flipped inside out.
Now it was time for the whip.
Intensity. The line. The standard. People have a great many words for it, and we hear them all the time. Keep it within bounds. Don't cross the line. This is as far as the standard goes. Put simply, a broadcast has a last line the BJ has drawn, and that line must never be handed over to the viewers.
It is the final bastion that has to be held. Give it away too easily, and the entire mood of the broadcast gets yanked around by the audience—and sometimes the thing grows into a serious problem. That is why veteran BJs guard this line without compromise. They were burned badly for it back when they were new, and they know better than anyone what happens once it collapses.
And yet, even for those veterans, holding the line without exception is no easy task. People love freedom. They hate being controlled. Telling someone to keep strictly to the line sits much closer to control than to freedom, and even if you're in the brightest mood, ready to enjoy yourself, you can never savor it completely while some part of it is being held in check.
For that reason the controls come loose now and then—and when they do, you get to taste a sweet fruit right away. New viewers flood in on the back of a provocative issue, a trending topic, or a collaboration broadcast. Views shoot up. Water Balloon income shoots up with them. In exchange, the newcomers chat and act in ways that cross the line, the boundary you built starts to blur, and the problems begin.
You either push that boundary outward for the sake of the broadcast's growth, or you seize the standard and set it straight again. There is no right answer. In the end you have to wait and see what the future actually shows you.
My position now was much the same. The relatively strict atmosphere I had set when I first started had grown considerably blurred, worn thin by the broadcast's sharp growth through collaborations and cam streams. Chats that made me wince had begun to appear here and there—and this time they had gone so far as to turn the station's bulletin board into a complete mess.
It was time to act.
I could already see the direction my broadcast had to go. And for the sake of that direction, today I had resolved to cut the toxic ones down.