Season 4: Chapter 62. Almond Soup (2)
The sponsored stream by Bubblegum and Almond reached nearly nine hours. Frankly, it couldn't even be called a proper advertisement. Nothing went the way the advertisers had intended.
The Ghostwo Busters development team had to pull all-nighters from that day onward just to fix various bugs. The Kim duo showed up the next day with empty boxes in hand.
“Uh, you?”
“Huh? You too, Manager Kim?”
“Yeah...”
“I see...”
The two faced each other with empty boxes and tired, awkward smiles. They began packing their things into the boxes.
The company had emptied its entire marketing budget for the ad, which turned into a complete disaster. They could never walk into the office again with their heads held high. They just wanted to pack up and leave before running into the CEO.
“Sigh...” Assistant Manager Kim glanced around nervously.
The atmosphere in the office, visible over the partition, was ice cold. No one asked them why they were packing as if everyone was either swallowing their rage or afraid it would spill over onto them.
“What’s this? Where do you think you're going?”
Tap.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Gasp?!
Assistant Manager Kim’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was the last person he wanted to see.
“B-Boss...”
“You two. Be in the morning meeting.” The CEO left without another word.
The Kims stood frozen.
“Did he say... meeting?”
“Yeah...”
“Not the CEO’s office?”
“Looks like it?”
The CEO didn’t demand their resignation. He told them to join a meeting, but the marketing team had no business being in meetings right now. Their department wasn’t on high alert. In fact, marketing had nothing left—no budget, no plans, and no purpose.
‘Don’t tell me...’
Assistant Manager Kim had a sudden thought and quickly pulled out his phone.
‘I think I saw something last night...’
He recalled a few videos uploaded on Almond’s channel. The views were decent.
[#1 Real-Time Trending Video]
‘No way.’
A Ghostwo Busters clip was the top trending video.
“When did that happen?”
“Wait, what? No way. That video wasn’t even supposed to blow up...”
***
Crash!
As usual, Sang-Hyeon poured almond cereal into a bowl and added milk. With a spoon in his mouth, he absentmindedly scrolled through his phone. He was checking the performance of the videos uploaded the night before. After a few scrolls, he tilted his head.
Was it always like this? Even with record-breaking viewership, ad videos generally had view count ceilings. The moment a video had “Paid Promotion Included” at the start, most people would instantly lose interest. All of these videos had been tagged like that.
[South Korea’s birth rate EXPLODES!]
[Hey, Angler~ you better behave over there!]
[Investigation needed? Just call Almondoyle!]
[Getting kicked for being ugly (featuring real reaction)]
Ji-Ah edited and uploaded these clips for one reason: to increase livestream viewers. They weren’t meant to be successful on YouTube. Each video even had a comment pinned with a live stream link.
‘But now... the roles are reversed.’
Once the live stream ended, these clips gained more traction than expected. Memes spread throughout online communities, and the algorithm picked up on them for more exposure. Eventually, one of those videos did the unthinkable.
[South Korea’s birth rate EXPLODES!]
[#1 Real-Time Trending Video]
The viral keyword “birth rate” had explosive synergy with a thumbnail Ji-Ah made of a baby Almond crying. By morning, it had firmly claimed the number one spot as an advertisement video.
— WTF how did this happen lol
— LMAO
— Oh, this is what I saw on the forums!
— This is nuts fr
— Almond got BORN like a boss
— This game is GOAT-tier now lmao
— If babies like this are born, RIP men
└ Fr lol
└ Might have to immigrate
— I thought it was a news channel at first
— Breaking: Surge in foreign female immigration
└ LMAO
└ For real tho
└ Someone in Denmark is probably...
Comments flooded in alongside the exploding view count. Even search engine trending rankings now listed Ghostwo Busters. Not even giant corporations could buy this elite-tier exposure with their unlimited budgets.
“Wow...”
Crunch.
Almond crunched on his cereal and scratched his head.
‘What the heck?’
He hadn’t planned anything about these videos. Not the titles, the thumbnails, or even the content. Somehow, they still shot to the top. Even this wasn’t intentional. Everything related to Ghostwo Busters was chaos.
***
A paid promotion reached number one on YouTube trending. It was far crazier than Sang-Hyeon imagined while munching his cereal.
“What? An ad video hit first in the charts?!”
“That’s insane... Is that even possible?”
“Wait, for real? It’s not just a brief spike?”
“We need to recalculate his tier.”
This happened right before a massive shake-up in the streaming platform ecosystem. For high-tier streamers, ad revenue made up a significant chunk of their income. Naturally, platforms had to assess them partly based on ad performance. Hitting number one with a paid promotion was a big deal.
“Uh, what now? We need to revise our budget projections.”
“Do it. Redo everything.”
Shuffle!
Platform executives scrambled to revise their strategy.
Bzzt bzzt.
A staffer’s phone buzzed from an unknown number. They nervously picked it up.
“Yes, this is Cheese... Huh?”
It was perfect timing.
“You’re Almond’s manager? Ah, yes, yes... you’re calling about the email? Hahaha! No, no, it’s fine! We were just talking about that!”
Caught completely off guard, they picked up Ju-Hyeok’s call without any preparations.
***
It wasn’t just the platforms that went on high alert. Unsurprisingly, Ghostwo Busters’ developers also went into full crisis mode.
“Wait, the ad video hit number one, and the game is trending. Why is that a crisis?” Someone would inevitably ask that.
They would’ve gotten their answer as soon as the CEO began the emergency meeting.
“Thanks to all that, now the whole country knows our game is garbage.”
That was his opening line and the core of the issue.
Only silence followed. The moment they walked into the conference room, they sensed a distinct madness and venom in the CEO’s eyes. He had the same look when he first announced their new game. Now, he looked squarely at his employees with those eyes.
“There’s a famous line in marketing, right? Get famous first. Then, even if you take a dump, people will cheer for you. Sound familiar? You think it’s true?”
No one responded. Everyone just avoided his gaze.
“Well, okay. Let’s say that’s true.” The CEO nodded and answered his own question. “But for us, the order was reversed.”
What did he mean by that? Everyone stared blankly at the CEO, unable to grasp his meaning.
The CEO gritted his teeth and growled like a beast. “We took a dump first. That’s how we became famous.”
The employees’ eyes began to twitch.
‘He’s insane.’
‘He’s finally lost it.’
‘Damn, I was planning to get Indian curry for lunch today...’
The CEO’s voice grew louder as if fueled by rage.
“If you become famous, people will applaud even when you crap? Does that apply to people who get famous because they crapped themselves?”
His eyes didn’t just shine with madness anymore. They were practically on fire.
Flash.
“We crapped and smeared it all over the country! That’s how we got famous! So tell me. Can that be applauded?!”
The Kim duo, who had excitedly entered the room after seeing the viral video, turned pale. They were the ones who had hired Almond and Bubblegum, the special poop-flingers who had spread the mess far and wide.
‘Are we being publicly executed right now?’
‘N-No way... right?’
While the duo sat there sweating bullets, the real ones under pressure were the developers.
‘We’re screwed.’
‘If word spreads that it’s a crap game, we won’t even be able to switch jobs.’
‘No way... is it really that bad?’
Technically, the marketing team had done their job. They had let the world know about the game. The problem was that the world now knew it was garbage, but who had made it garbage? Who laid the turd? It was the dev team.
The CEO’s gaze swept over the entire development team.
Gulp.
Everyone swallowed dryly. No one dared speak.
“But...”
Bang!
The CEO slammed the table and stood up.
“We can’t give up here. We have to find a breakthrough! We have to buy time!”
Yes, they needed time.
“Y-Yes! You’re absolutely right!” One of the senior developers found the courage to agree.
No one needed more time than the dev team, but the question remained. How?
“Listen. The tide has come in, but the oar is broken. If the tide goes out before we fix the oar, what then?”
They couldn’t count on getting this level of attention again. The developers once again fell silent.
The CEO answered for them, “Then we have to keep the tide coming in.”
The answer was simple. They had to keep pouring water to keep the boat going, but how?
“Right. The ad is done. Contractually, the promotion ends once the game is cleared.”
The CEO’s gaze shifted to the Kim duo.
‘Gasp.’
‘Crap...’
They stiffened instantly.
“We have no marketing budget left. We blew it all. That path is done. Finished. We can’t count on it anymore!”
Where was this going? Was he actually declaring that everything was over? No one interrupted. Everyone waited anxiously for him to continue.
“Earlier, I mentioned that if you’re famous, people will applaud even if you crap. Nowadays, people are saying this instead...”
The CEO picked up a remote.
“Crap while clapping. That’s how you become famous.”
What on earth did that mean? Honestly... it kind of made sense.
Ping.
The answer came in the video he queued up on the screen with someone enthusiastically clapping.
“AHAHAHAHA!”
“DIE! DIEEEE!”
“Yeah! You crazy ghost freaks! Show us something wild!!”
It was a recording of the Kim duo.