A fly won't sting a seamless egg!
Upon realizing that ShowMe could become a "very dangerous" enterprise, Roger Consius set about organizing an infiltration plan. He first tried to use threats and hints to recruit several technical staff with criminal records, but they were entirely uncooperative. He then contacted Rowan in the marketing department through a family relation, only to be rejected again.
Two failures made him realize that ShowMe would not be easy to penetrate. It was at that moment that Robert Downs appeared.
The former financial genius was now an employee.
Not everyone can endure such dramatic ups and downs in life.
Roger Consius didn't believe Robert was without ulterior motives, and a quick check confirmed it.
The guy was actually colluding with his enemy, Falcone, intending to seize ShowMe. The funny thing was that the self-proclaimed brilliant Luke Shaw hadn't noticed and had even handed over the company's finances to him.
Idiot!
Roger couldn't help but want to laugh. He was eager to see the expression on Luke Shaw's face when he discovered he had been betrayed by his subordinate.
ShowMe 2.0 Launches
After a night of sleepless confusion, Robert showed up at Sea Prosperity Building right on time the next morning.
He pushed open the company's main door and was immediately met with a clamorous scene.
The sound of fingers striking keyboards was nearly a continuous line. Technical and marketing staff were huddled together, conducting final tests for the new version. Judging by the stack of paper cups and meal boxes in the corner, many people had pulled an all-nighter.
Luke Shaw was among them. At this moment, he lacked his usual flair, sporting dark circles under his eyes, sitting in front of a computer, frantically typing.
His fingers moved incredibly fast, like an octopus.
A few heavyset technicians surrounded him, occasionally pointing at the screen and discussing something, apparently a recurring bug issue.
Everyone was deeply engaged and full of passion, as if they were working on something magnificent.
Robert, who knew nothing about computer technology, didn't interfere. He walked into his office with his briefcase tucked under his arm.
As the door closed, the intense atmosphere vanished.
He leaned back in his swivel chair, staring blankly for a long time before picking up the phone and dialing the number for Dominic Sidney, the president of Gotham Central Bank.
While Batman's statement caused an uproar, ShowMe, as the social platform, maintained silence throughout.
This stance deeply hurt its users.
Many people discussed the issue, unable to understand or explain why ShowMe seemed so "cowardly" and what they were afraid of.
At 2:00 PM, amid a wave of criticism, ShowMe 2.0 was launched.
The 900MB installation package brought dramatic changes to ShowMe. The interface was smoother and more stylish, with a light blue background, a mechanical art style, and a simple, grand format that was instantly appealing.
The original ShowMe was already trendy; this update elevated it to a new level, like a work of art.
The users' dissatisfaction instantly evaporated. No wonder ShowMe didn't speak up; they were preparing for the new version. Driven by curiosity, they began exploring the new ShowMe.
Dozens of plug-ins were launched in the expansion center, many featuring functions users had never seen before. The most interesting were the View Editor and the Rating System.
The View Editor is a modification tool for videos and images. It has no limitations or strict boundaries, making it a platform for completely free creation. You can do anything you want on it—for example, giving your girlfriend an elephant's trunk, putting a friend's head on the Statue of Liberty's backside, censoring inappropriate videos, and so on. If you can imagine it, someone can create it.
The function was an instant hit.
Young users spontaneously recommended it to their friends and classmates. In just half an hour, tens of thousands of "original views" appeared on ShowMe.
Compared to the View Editor, the Rating System was simpler—an auxiliary program that allows you to rate views uploaded by yourself or others. Works with high scores automatically enter the recommendation page, making them visible to more people.
Although simple, this function is highly social. Which creator wouldn't want their work to receive a higher score?
The two functions complemented each other perfectly.
The Coffin Meme Takes Over
Yale University men's dormitory.
Most of the summer vacation had passed, but Andrew Gatch, a third-year film student, remained at school, preparing for his first feature film. The movie was a Western, but due to funding and equipment issues, the footage included too many elements that didn't belong in the 19th century, such as flashlights, toilet lids, and cameras.
These elements turned the Western into a hilarious time-travel comedy.
Andrew was desperate, unable to imagine his professor's reaction upon seeing the sample footage.
Just as he was preparing to pay out of his own pocket to reshoot, his roommate recommended a feature called View Editor. After trying it, he was stunned. The software could perfectly clip out the anachronistic parts of the sample footage and paste new flow patterns onto them. The two layers matched perfectly, leaving no trace, making the film look brand new.
His roommate, Tommy Eugene, patted his shoulder and smiled.
"Well, is it awesome or what?"
Andrew gave a thumbs-up. "I've never seen anything so incredible. Where did it come from?"
"ShowMe!"
Andrew paused, blurting out, "ShowMe has a feature like that?"
He logged into his account, and when he saw the updated interface, he couldn't help but exclaim: That's cool.
The View Editor was in the first slot of the expansion center. The recommendation count below the text description exceeded three thousand, and hundreds of comments praised the plug-in.
Just then, his girlfriend, Lisa, sent him a video link with the title: The Death Call - The Black Coffin Dance!
Curious, Andrew clicked the link.
Six Black men wearing black shoes, black trousers, black suits, and black sunglasses carried a coffin and danced awkwardly in the street. Their movements were strange and funny, and when paired with the music, they created an inexplicable sense of rhythm. The scene shifted, and under the gaze of serious-looking Black men, several young people rode bikes off a cliff, followed by a melancholic Scottish funeral tune.
Andrew burst out laughing, and his roommate was equally amused.
"Where did this video come from? That's hilarious."
"Lisa said she downloaded it from ShowMe."
Opening the recommendation page, sure enough, "The Black Coffin Dance" was in the top spot, with a high rating of 9.0 and a click-through rate far exceeding the second-ranked funny quotes about Batman.
After watching the original material, Andrew had an idea: I can also use the View Editor to create my own funny video.
He immediately got to work. Two hours later, the Western-style Black Coffin Dance was born.
Andrew uploaded the video to his space. Unexpectedly, the click-through rate exceeded ten thousand in just half an hour. What surprised him even more was that, with the combined efforts of his many friends, the video actually made it onto the recommendation page.
The clicks began to surge: ten thousand turned into twenty thousand, twenty thousand into fifty thousand, fifty thousand into one hundred thousand... It was incredibly fast.
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