Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 80- 50 Ranks

An alarm sounded over the campus in the morning to notify everyone that the top fifty ranks would be announced today. The air was slightly stale this morning. Whether that was due to yesterday afternoon's events or a result of the show ending its final stages, I wasn't quite sure.

All I knew was that these last few weeks after the fifty ranks were called out was that everyone thought that these weeks would be short and even more shorter for those going to the university. Afterall, today was the day that we'd be allowed full access to the internet once again. We'd be able to see if our songs on the show are selling and how well they're selling for. We'll be able to watch everyone's and our own streams -if we had enough time- in order to sort out misunderstandings. It will be a revealing time that has often come with people changing their characters that they'd desperately tried to sell to the audience.

If I remembered clearly it would track the social change in this world well too. It had reached the social level of my last world about a few years ago. For example, a character idol wannabes orbited to were the ambiguous types that could make cannons between the same sex with ease and not have the majority of the keyboard warriors being homophobic. It was still toxic, imagine doing well on an idol show only to have the thunder stolen from you. Then imagine that your reputation was damaged by an idol who didn't have as much talent as you, but acted well enough to promote themselves as the lover you didn't know you had. Sexuality was always difficult, but watching Idol Effigy in those years when this was the go to move to rank high in the show was tough.

On a show with so many cameras aimed at you, yet people believe something untrue without even looking at your cameras or asking for your side of the story. And when you are asked it makes everything worse, because it's not the answer people were looking for.

In simpler terms I have always loved this show, because it showed best how people are. People come to watch a drama, they don't come to look into the story until that story becomes the drama after people believe the original drama was true. It was a strange and confusing balance that I didn't understand. I often wondered if this is how it works for famous people who'd sell their hype through publicising their private life in order to make themselves look innocent or for fame. A kind of processed talent that I couldn't possibly get without a traumatising event happening. But even then I would be sorely bad even if I did gain an ounce of that talent.

This show was full of that kind of talent. In fact at times when I thought about this show's appeal or 'real' aim under all the conspirators I thought up about it. Maybe it was better to say that that type of social balancing talent was tested more in front of the 'camera's' here than any other idol quality.

As I look at it all now it makes sense. Idol Effigy was strange, but fit perfectly with making an idol in how vague an all encompassing word that profession was. This reality competition show somewhat emphasises on all parts, but social balance or acting in front of viewers eyes seem to take the cake. There were even a couple of idols that married early illegally and originally played it off as a childish love affair by one party in the near future. All whilst the other party didn't know that they'd been divorced until it came to the top fifty ranking and they found out when they got access to the internet.

Could you as an outsider find out who was right or wrong and when you do pay attention do you think you could overwhelm what people have presented as the truth as false with evidence that people need to care about? No. There's even something to say about the first one to speak, directing the image of the second. So, I never tried to entertain the thought of running a play by play in a script intended to showcase to people as real.

If this had come out in my old world on TV, I don't think that I'd need to guess which of my classes would have brought it up to analyse. Although there would be alot of them, namely Psychology, Philosophy, Religious studies, Media studies and English, to name a few. It's great to play god and the devil. But the most joy is found when covering ignorance with new found knowledge that's a comfortable distance from the self. So the stagnant and slow drawl that everyone seemed to visibly carry with them was there.