Chapter 265: Leaks
[Ding!]
[I think I’m Better Than You! It’s Not Bragging, It’s Not Pride, It’s Confidence! - Complete!]
[Reward: +2 Charm Stat Points]
[Ariel Matisse]
[Age: 18]
[Vocals: A+]
[Dance: C]
[Visual: A]
[Rap: C-]
[Charm: S-]
[Skills: JukeBox(A), Picky Listener (B), Pen Pal (C)]
"Oh, nice. My first S rank stat. I wonder what triggered the completion? NOVA? Any explanation?" Ari glanced at the notification in surprise before turning to watch the PD speaking with the firefighters, some of whom were running into the building in full gear.
[Check the Internet.]
[It’s currently on fire.]
[Just like the building.]
"Hmmm, should I..."
As much as Ari wanted to check it out, since the inside of the dorms was currently getting an impromptu shower after a failed cooking attempt, he figured it would be a little difficult to do that.
Yawning to himself, Ari settled in for a long wait, "I’ll just check it later. DJ TV probably had a moment of self-reflection and realized he was hating on Levi for no reason, and anyone with ears could tell that Lil Pumpy’s song was bad. Including him. It’s called growth as a person."
[Your loss.]
[I assure you, it’s quite entertaining.]
[Your Poor PD]
***********
"Got you."
The moment the livestream ended, Grace Choi began clipping the unseen conversation between the PD and Ari in preparation to share it across her contacts before starting to type up a new article and templates for others to send to the production team with demands for better treatment of the contestants.
But before she could even send it, she saw that the community was currently blowing up with her notifications constantly going off.
Thinking that it was about the recent livestream, she clicked into it and quickly scanned through the top post before laughing at the bad luck of the production team.
It seemed that they were living out the saying that when it rained, it poured because currently, her timeline and all the popstar communities, regardless of contestant support, were talking about one thing.
Leaks.
Hundreds of hours of footage had been anonymously leaked, and it was speculated that the leaks came from disgruntled staff members who had been fired without warning.
Everything, from discussions among staff members on which contestants to highlight and hide based on orders, to what issues to dramatize, to videos of some staff members laughing at contestants who couldn’t speak English properly, had been shared.
It was evidence that painted the production team in a bad light and shed light on things that were only speculation before, which ignited people who were previously watching the Ari’s Angels community fight against production from the sidelines since it had nothing to do with their contestant.
People began digging into the videos to try to verify the authenticity, and even though face blur was applied to some staff members, internet detectives had already started working to expose who was who by using physical features and other tools.
There was even a leak of an early draft of episode 11 showing the entirety of Lil Pumpy and Producer Benny’s conversation with Ari’s team, as well as the comments made by DJ TV in the midterm evaluations of the contestants, including the things he had said to Levi, which drove his fans crazy and validated their feelings that he wouldn’t blow up for no reason.
So right now, the Pop Star Academy Communities have turned into a beehive of activity as viewers begin going through the footage and clipping the interesting scenes.
Accusations and complaints were flying and conspiracy theories grew at a fast pace.
"Oh, you’re done. At this point, I don’t even need to do anything. You’re going to self-implode."
Grace muttered as she rushed to download as many files as she could, knowing that inevitably things would be deleted.
She would keep the files and review them later for more damning evidence, but now was the time to fall back and let the fans of other contestants do the heavy lifting in pressuring the production team into issuing a statement.
And pressuring they did.
Across social media, the official pop star academy accounts were being tagged by angry fans to state an explanation for comments made by staff, unfairness of treatment, and even the unprofessional way the producers treated the contestants that they were supposed to be mentoring.
Lil Pumpy was also being harassed, mainly because of the leaked video where he praised himself as a talented rapper and hitmaker while putting down the contestants who couldn’t perform his trashy song well.
The clip of Ari calling out not just Lil Pumpy, but other rappers to perform to the song Lil Pumpy created had begun trending, along with Levi’s cocky rebuttal to the rapper’s words.
The clips of their performance also began trending as a result, with people putting their team’s performance side by side with the original song, with polls asking which one was better.
A couple of hours later, the two rappers waved the white flag.
Lil Pumpy came out to do a mini livestream, stating that he was proud of the talent he was seeing in the contestants and that it was secretly a test he was giving them to prove their skills so he could give his approval to the next generation of rappers.
Naturally, he was unmercifully roasted in the comments until he turned it off and quit his livestream.
As for DJ TV, he quietly made a post stating that the performance was good, the contestants were talented, before turning off his comments entirely.
Producer Benny made his page private.
And the production team?
They stayed quiet as they scrambled in the background to figure things out.
But with reduced staff members, actual leaks, water-damaged equipment, and a severe lack of time, it was too late to edit the episode, so when it dropped, the fury of the fans were ignited once more as they saw how twisted the editing was, which painted the producers in a good light and some contestants as rebellious or even took away their screen time all together.
That, combined with carelessness displayed in the live stream, led to stress building until finally....
They caved and put out a statement.
[From The Pop Star Academy Production Team]
[Dear Fans and Supporters,
[It seems that you have been disappointed lately, and we apologize for that. We, as a staff, cherish and value the contestants and always want them to do better. While our actions may seem harsh, it’s said that iron sharpens iron, and the finest steel has to go through the hottest fire. Know that we have heard your concerns and are revamping internally.....
We vow to do better in the future and to be fair in our treatment of contestants, so please continue to support these contestants.]
It was a nothing burger of a statement that took no accountability and vaguely vowed to do better.
While many fans were disappointed with the vague apology that didn’t really take responsibility for anything and just vaguely promised to do better, others were satisfied because this was the first time that such a show admitted its faults and promised to be fair.
With accountablity taken, the noise began to die down.
So just like that, the final ranking ceremony would begin before the contestants had to fly to Korea.
*****
"Are you ready?" Jamie asked Ari as he adjusted his school uniform, which was uncomfortable on his body.
Despite his best effort with keeping up with his weight training and eating enough protein, the sheer amount of cardio that they did through dance practice meant that he had lost size and was much leaner than before, making the uniform that had been tailored to his larger size, much looser than it was.
"I guess? Hopefully, I didn’t drop below rank 30 and get eliminated." Ari replied while clearing his throat.
He was still a bit under the weather and had a slight cough that wouldn’t go away, no matter how much tea he drank.
Truly, he was suspecting that the PD was secretly poisoning him; he just had no way to prove it yet.
"I think you should be fine? After the leaks, people were going after the production team for mistreatment."
"People being mad at the production team doesn’t mean that they switch over and support me. I am apparently a very polarizing person who doesn’t respect my elders, needs to learn not to be cocky, and should definitely not speak my mind."
"You have every right to be cocky, though," Jamie replied honestly, "I think you’re one of the most talented people here, and you keep getting better. People should put you in their top 3. In my opinion, with your current trajectory, you should be number 1."
"I think you’re too nice. There’s no way I can become number one with monsters like Benjamin and Daniel. My goal is not to get eliminated now and to make it into the top 7 with you safely. That way, we can debut together. Either way, let’s sit and get this out of the way. And don’t look at me like that, it’s gross."
Ignoring Jamie’s overly touched expression, Ari took his seat.