ATGRA 74

Something completely unexpected happened.

“This is crazy. What’s with these viewership ratings? Isn’t this fabricated?”

The viewership rating for <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> climbed to 8 percent. It was originally planned for 16 episodes, but news articles even came out saying they were considering an extension due to its sudden popularity.

[B.A.T. Considering Extension… A Triumph for Public Broadcast Drama for the First Time in 3 Years]

[Drama Queen Writer Seo Eunyoung’s Splendid Return, ‘Baffled but Grateful for the Unexpected Popularity’]

[Active Use of PPL, Now a Plus, Not a Minus? The Drama World is ‘Buzzing’]

[Unconcealed Indirect Advertising, the Virtue of Honesty…]

[Now is the Era of Direct Advertising, a Time for Strategic Analysis of Drama Marketing]

Do people these days like to watch the male lead sit in an imported car, cry, and apply multi-balm?

Like someone left behind by the times, I clicked on the news related to <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> a couple of times. It seemed that despite cramming in so much indirect advertising, it had somehow become a huge hit.

Is this what they call a blind squirrel finding a nut? The broadcasting station probably thought it would fail and intentionally took on a lot of indirect advertising, but what do you know? It actually became a form of marketing and drew in buzz.

Especially among the younger generation who watch television dramas through 20-minute highlight clips on YouTube, <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> was being evaluated as a drama for producing memes.

[Value as a drama: 0. Value as a meme: 100]

└[Out of how many points?]

└[A drama that gets 100 out of 10,000 points]

└[Look at the cinephile]

└[lol you idiot, cinephiles are for movies]

[Honestly, it’s true it has no artistic value, but it’s funny]

└[Let them make you laugh all day, you’ll still complain it has no artistic value]

└[Why would you expect artistic value from a plagiarist writer’s drama? It’s fine as long as it’s funny lol]

└[It’s because of kids like this that Korean dramas are failing]

└[You say that while you’re also watching the f*cking YouTube highlight clips]

I quickly scanned the comments on a YouTube highlight clip of <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!>. For better or for worse, I only saw people talking about the drama’s artistic value, and the things I was worried about were not noticeable.

[But this seems like that show <I Want to Know Everything>]

[Didn’t they just take the Gongjindan from that show and change it to a nutritional ampoule? Amazing, the class of a plagiarist writer is on another level for sure]

Of course, there wasn’t a complete absence of mentions of our clinic and the Gongjindan I made. Since <I Want to Know Everything> is so famous. On top of that, the Gongjindan I made was one of the few cases for which that program issued a correction broadcast.

[Seeing as there’s even PPL for the traditional medicine clinic, the broadcasting station must have gotten a lot of money from them]

No. I squeezed the money out of the broadcasting station.

However, people weren’t interested in such detailed backstories. At this point, I started to worry about having insistently crammed PPL into the drama. Wouldn’t this look to others as if I had instigated the broadcasting station?

Once the drama became successful, Producer Lee Minsu blocked my number. What incredible nerve. He probably thought he had done his part since he paid the usage fee for the material and also fulfilled the request for indirect advertising.

Since no major problems have arisen for now, maybe if I just keep my mouth shut, it will all pass quietly.

“Those damn broadcasting station bastards…”

Getting involved with broadcasting stations always leads to problems. It’s true that at first, I wanted to appear on TV to promote Gongjindan. Since medicine can’t be advertised on television, I was trying to use a loophole by getting cast on a program. What’s wrong with trying to make money first?

However, <I Want to Know Everything> and <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> were not my will. Why should I be worrying about something the broadcasting station bastards took my Gongjindan for and did whatever they wanted with it? Clutching my churning stomach, I closed the YouTube app.

The real problem occurred after <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> finished airing.
Despite the popularity that is hard to come by for a public broadcast drama, especially a Wednesday-Thursday drama, <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> ultimately ended with 16 episodes without any extension.

The female lead falls into a coma after a car accident, and her spirit leaves her body. The male lead, who has become an alpha, actively helps with the new business she started. Then, due to the shock from an earthquake, she regains consciousness. Thanks to that, they have a real wedding instead of the spirit wedding that was in progress. That was the content of the final episode.

…What on earth does that even mean?

No matter how I think about it, it’s normal not to understand this. Because I have no idea what it’s about either.

[It was right not to extend it. The drama went completely off the rails from exactly episode 8]

[She has opened a new horizon for makjang dramas]

[They already stretched an 8-episode drama into 16, so the writer’s hands must have been trembling when the talk of extension came up]

[?: Ah; I have nothing left to plagiarize]

└[?: Can’t be helped, I’ll show you the earthquake ending]

└[It’s not even an earthquake ending, it’s an earthquake-then-spirit-wedding ending]

[Well, I didn’t expect much from the story in the first place]

└[Wasn’t it okay until episode 8?]

└[Excuse me?]

Naturally, the reviews for the drama plummeted to the worst. Even my mom, who enjoys pretty much any romance drama, said, ‘The ending was really weird.’

[I guess a plagiarist writer can’t help it lol]

[Don’t think of it as a drama. If you think of it as a promotional ambassador for nutritional ampoules, there’s no masterpiece like it]

└[lolololol nutritional ampoule promotional ambassador lololol How much did they take from the hospital]

└[Didn’t they take it from a traditional medicine/clinic, not a hospital?]

└[Check out this article. W Traditional Medicine Clinic in Gangnam]

└[Isn’t that the place? The one from IWKE?]

└[Yup lolol Ah~ you get the picture, right? You see the estimate? How much did they get? lolol]

This is crazy, really.

The drama failed, so why is the arrow being pointed at us?

After that, our traditional medicine clinic once again enjoyed an unprecedented boom. It was because the Gongjindan that makes you an alpha was rediscovered by netizens.

They say that even an idol becomes a superstar when haters and fans come together, and the Gongjindan I made was no different. Viewers who discovered the similarities between <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> and Gongjindan started to criticize it, claiming it was viral marketing orchestrated by our clinic.

In reality, thanks to the drama, sales of Gongjindan increased exponentially. It reached a point where Nam Jungyoon couldn’t handle it alone, and we had to hire more contract employees.

The fact that Gongjindan was selling well was good news, but the clinic’s once-tarnished reputation showed no signs of recovery. I don’t know what kind of words were spreading on the internet communities I couldn’t access, but YouTubers with their own filming equipment started to loiter around the clinic.

“Our clinic, I think we chose the wrong location.”

Ms. Kim Miyoung muttered as if sighing. I was thinking something similar. It’s not easy for an ordinary traditional medicine clinic to get this much buzz.

I think I’ve mentioned it once before. Successful doctors often show their faces on television. However, having your face shown on TV a lot is never a good thing.

Because the majority of doctors who consistently appear on TV eventually end up ruined. Once a specialist’s name becomes known to the public, you get criticized no matter what you do.

But now, our clinic has become too famous as ‘Gangnam W Traditional Medicine Clinic.’ And it was all because I put PPL in <The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!>.

It was something I did to get back at the broadcasting station for using the material without a single word, but I didn’t know the drama would do that well. And I didn’t know it would have such a makjang ending.

[I’m a broadcasting station official, and I confirmed that the said traditional medicine clinic sent multiple emails]

[I heard the director of this clinic is super rich]

└[Yup, there’s a rumor he’s a politician’s son]

└[That’s crazy. If you’re the son of a rich family, the broadcasting station will even schedule a drama to promote your business]

└[Guilty if you’re poor, innocent if you’re rich]

How absurd. Both my parents are traditional medicine doctors, what’s this about a politician?

Like a snowball rolling in a snowfield, people’s speculations and rumors about our clinic kept growing. A comment asking how an omega could develop a Gongjindan that makes you an alpha got about 800 likes.

[But is there really anyone who became an alpha after taking this? There was that anonymous interview, Mr. J]

└[(URL link to the interview)]

└[It’s probably fake. Fly high, Phoenix!]

└[No no, it’s not fake. Mr. J goes to H University for physical education]

[It’s true that Mr. J went from beta to alpha. I was in the same class with him in our last year of high school. The school was in an uproar because he collapsed after becoming an alpha on the day of the CSAT]

└[He manifested on the day of the CSAT? lololololf*ck how did he not get sued by the parents’ association? The developer of Gongjindan must really be a politician’s kid]

└[I can’t say in detail because it would be too much self-doxxing, but I heard through the grapevine that Mr. J is doing well thanks to becoming an alpha. So I think the Gongjindan is real. Someone who had already manifested as a beta changed to an alpha.]

└[You idiot, he probably just manifested late. Believing in a coincidence lol]

└[The commenter must be a beta who couldn’t become an alpha]

└[Reporting for discriminatory remarks against betas, thanks]

To summarize the situation, it was like this.

<The Beta-Turned-Alpha is Too Much!> became much more popular than expected. It became popular for its indirect advertising memes rather than its artistic value, though it did have an earthquake ending in the final episode.

The problem was that the earthquake ending was too shocking.

It’s a medical romance, but there’s an out-of-body experience. After the out-of-body experience, the male lead’s business succeeds. But now, during the spirit wedding, an earthquake happens, and the female lead regains consciousness, so they have a real wedding.

It’s a happy ending, but it’s understandable that it’s controversial. If I were writer Seo Eunyoung, I would have just ended it early and not shown an ending.

Anyway, thanks to the writer who showed us such fantastic storytelling, our clinic came into the spotlight again. The act of squeezing out usage fees and inserting indirect advertising to make the broadcasting station fail came back as a butterfly effect.

Thanks to that, the Gongjindan episode of <I Want to Know Everything> resurfaced.

If you think about it, this was also something Producer Kim aired as a correction broadcast on his own accord, but the netizens who don’t know the circumstances transformed my parents’ profession into politicians. Ah! Our family is a family of traditional medicine doctors! We don’t do politics!

Just as the authenticity of Gongjindan was being doubted once again, Jung Pureum’s anonymous interview was re-examined. On top of that, people claiming to know Jung Pureum appeared and were revealing his personal information without permission.

[Mr. J, who went from beta to alpha, made the national team this time]

└[Is this for real?]

└[It’s real. If you don’t believe me, watch the Olympics next year]

└[What’s his sport?]

└[This comment has been blinded due to a violation of the platform’s operating policy.]

I mindlessly clicked the report button.

These crazy bastards. They’re just selling off other people’s personal information like it’s free. Seeing these guys willingly accumulate cyber karma made my heart feel heavy.