Chapter 31: The Great Heat and the Showdown (Part 2) (First Update)

  First update, seeking recommendations~

  It's late, I was busy today, and I just finished coding this chapter when I got home!

  Thank you for the rewards from three classmates: Royyi, Beifeng Qianqi and Wuyude Menchao.

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  The media has always been afraid of the world being too peaceful, and if the whole world is harmonious, how can they make a living? Not to mention that this time, the opposition between the two drama fans was stirred up by them, so it's only natural that there's no reason to stop halfway. Therefore, on the next day, the increasingly intense conflict between the two drama fans online, as well as the so-called competition between seniors and juniors, were prominently displayed on the headlines, widely publicized, and sparked heated discussions among more citizens.

  This is also what the TV stations want to see, someone helping to promote and increase attention for free. Whether it's KBS or SBS, they can't ask for more, so naturally they won't use their PR power to interfere with these hot topics, but instead push them from behind, making their impact even wider.

  For a time, the internet and reality were filled with noise and excitement. As next week approached and the weekend drew near, the massive "waste people" group began to mobilize all fans of "Sorry, I Love You" on the internet, hoping they wouldn't watch "The Last Dance" over the weekend. Among them, Ahn Jun-hee's fans were the most active, not caring about seniority or anything else as long as their idol's TV drama could achieve good results, and they didn't mind using any means to do so.

  And so, pushed by the media to be a scapegoat, Ryu Jin suddenly had several anti-fan clubs, with rumors about her being a "socialite" and having a "messy private life" spreading wildly. Although these anti-fans did not explicitly state whose fans they were, at the most intense moment of this conflict, it was clear to everyone that they were absolutely developed by enthusiastic "trash people" and Ahn Jun-hee's some crazy fans.

  It seems that they want to start by tarnishing her reputation and bringing down the ratings of "The Best" drama. This approach is very immature, not to mention whether anyone believes it or not, at least they haven't succeeded yet, but first brought some negative impact on Ahn Jun-hee.

  Some people on the internet have expressed their hope that An Jun-hyeok will restrain his fans, while others sarcastically said that liking ANTI is probably a monopoly of SM Entertainment's fans.

  When An Junhe learned about these things, the Liu Zhen Anti-Club had already grown to 5 or more, with preliminary statistics showing that at least over 2,000 people were involved.

  "It used to be me being an anti-fan of others, but I never thought there'd come a day when my own fans would become anti-fans of someone else." Ahn Jun-hyuk said with a self-deprecating smile as he received the call from Kwon Bo-geun. This is how Korea's entertainment industry has always been - passionate fans often do irrational things, not to mention the harm caused by being an anti-fan of others. In fact, fan behavior can also cause trouble for idols because in a country where star-chasing is prevalent, idols must take responsibility for their fans' words and actions, or else they are considered irresponsible and unworthy of admiration.

  He let out a slight sigh and then said to Quan Baogen on the other end of the phone, "Get in touch with Jin Liu Zhen senior for me and help me apologize to her. I'll go online now and restrain them."

  "Can it be restrained?" Quan Baogen asked worriedly, if the restraint is not effective, it will provoke those crazy fans instead, and they may also become Ahn Jun-hee's anti-fans.

  "No problem!"

  An Junhe smiled, his confidence was not blind, but the result of his efforts all along. Whether it was the earliest "An's Little House", the official fan club, or other small fan clubs that developed later, over the past two months, whenever he had free time, he would go online to post some selfies and chat with them, treating fans as if they were close friends. This equal and friendly attitude not only solidified his popularity but also made many of his initial ordinary fans become extremely enthusiastic about him. In other words, most of his hardcore fans now are completely from the beginning, guided by his personal charm, having nothing to do with his works or achievements, and naturally they listen to him more.

  Hang up the phone, An Junhe logged in to "Anjia Xiaozhu", after the official fan club developed, this place not only did not decline, but instead became more prosperous, after all, the official fan club needs to pay fees, while here does not need.

  Similarly, this place has also become a stronghold of crazy fans. About half a month ago, when the community's population grew rapidly and had to expand its management team, a fan with the ID "Youzhen" entered the administrator ranks. Her first move after taking office was to thoroughly renovate the community, establishing a hierarchical system divided into ordinary, VIP, senior, and crazy levels.

  "Ordinary" means that fans are only registered in the community and have no contribution to An Junhe or the community, nor have they entered the official fan club.

  The inclusion criteria for "VIP" is having an official fan club account. Whether the fee is continuously paid or not is not taken into consideration, as long as there is an account, it represents that a contribution has been made.

  The conditions for "senior" are more stringent, requiring not only an official fan club account but also ensuring monthly continuous payment and frequent participation in community activities. Additionally, the ID sequence number of the community account and the official account is required, with earlier numbers being easier to be included.

  As for "frenzy"…

  An Junhe recalled that it was half a month ago, the nervous "Youzhen" who contacted him in the community, hoping he could help set up a bank account and persuade him to accept and support this hierarchical system.

  Because the inclusion criteria for "Frenzy" is based on "Senior", an additional fee must be paid every month, which will be kept in a bank account provided by An Jun-hyeok as a development fund for the community. In return, the benefits of "Frenzy" are also very good, and when An Jun-hyeok releases albums or posters, not only can they be pre-purchased first, but also signed by him. If any limited edition items are released, "Frenzy" will also receive half of the quota, etc.

  At that time, An Junhe was still very busy. Seeing her message, he thought this little girl was quite interesting and casually agreed to set up a bank account for her. After handing it over to her, he became busy again and didn't pay attention anymore. However, unexpectedly, she actually developed the system into reality and used the first income from "crazy enthusiasm" to hire someone to develop new forum source code and establish various levels of special editions.

  The most concentrated place of An Junhe's crazy fans is now the "Crazy Version", and the one who created this scene and became the first "Crazy" level "Youzhen" is indeed the leader of the crazy fans.

  Using his authority, when logging into the "Frenzy Edition", there were indeed many posts in the section calling on everyone to go against Liu Zhenyu. An Junhe blocked all these posts and posted a topic with the rough meaning of not casually slandering others, which was topped in the section.

  His appeal was indeed strong, and soon after posting the topic, many people replied, saying they would no longer continue to oppose Liu Zhen, and then as the number one crazy fan "Youzhen" quietly contacted An Junhe in the station, explaining: "Everyone just wants Brother's TV series to do better, nothing else."

  "Don't do anything else if you don't mean it, do you think others won't know if you don't say it?" After sending this private message, An Junhe stopped paying attention to her. He had already started considering whether he should remove this slightly overzealous fan from the management team.

  In another part of the city, in a girl's bedroom, a delicate girl looked at the pop-up internal message on the screen, with a slightly melancholic expression and bewildered incomprehension. She then put away these emotions, closed the webpage, remotely logged into a server, shut down several community program pools inside, and deleted the database...

  At the same time, Yoochun's several ANTI clubs disappeared simultaneously. Just as this newly risen and not yet subsided wave of controversy was about to dissipate, the ratings collision between "Partner" and "The Best" arrived once again. On the weekend, "Last Dance" perhaps gained the support of Yoochun fans, and its ratings not only did not decline but continued to rise, proudly leading the same time slot with a score of 22%.

  And on Monday and Tuesday, episodes 13 and 14 of "Sorry I Love You" also showed strong power with ratings of 25.8% and 26.2%, living up to its reputation as a "ratings killer". Meanwhile, other dramas in the same time slot, even those with larger investments like "Harvard Love Story", only had ratings of 14%, being miserably defeated. Especially "Heroic Age" was directly kicked out of the top 10 most popular dramas.

  The media was shocked again, amazed at the sharpness of this butcher knife "Against", and those who supported "The Last Dance" were also somewhat disheartened. They had tried their best, but the gap between 22% and 26% was just too big. From a national perspective, even if they doubled in number, they couldn't fill that nearly 5% void.

  But of course they wouldn't concede, when the "trash" people proudly presented the ratings data in front of them, most would deliberately say with disdain: "What's the use of being high now? We can broadcast until next year, what about you? You're ending next week, and even if we're a little behind, we'll quickly catch up. Who knows who will have the better final result?"

  It was as if a thunderstorm had struck on a clear day, and many "waste people" suddenly realized that the comment that triggered this conflict in the first place said that the longevity of "The Last Dance" was due to this, and that's why the comment said it might laugh last.

  Facing such a result, many people are at a loss for the time being. In terms of broadcast cycles, there is no comparability between the two sides. The broadcast time of "The Best" drama is so long that even if it is 5% higher than it, it may be able to catch up. Does this mean there's no hope?

  But apparently not everyone thinks so, someone uploaded a newspaper headline "Sorry I Love You" ratings soared, expected to break 30%, and said: "Continue to promote it, the ratings are not who lives longer, who is higher, otherwise there would not be so many bad dramas, I firmly believe that "Sorry I Love You" is a classic, it still has a lot of room for growth, as long as we continue to make noise, continue to promote, let more people know, then as long as next week's finale ratings can pull away from the competition, 28%, 29%... even over 30%, I don't believe it will be able to catch up!"

  One sentence awakened the dreamer, and a large-scale publicity campaign began to unfold on a grand scale. This time, the main force was no longer limited to "废人" (waste people), but also included many ordinary drama fans who joined in the promotion. They cut out many classic lines, paired them with pictures, and spread them everywhere, and the tragic storm spread wildly to every corner of the internet.