Chapter 25: The Grainy Noise
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Michael woke up on Monday feeling exhausted but satisfied. The weekend had been a success. He had finished the song Sodium and had recorded his first music video with his new friends.
He felt like a true artist.
He arrived at school, his body moving through the usual routine, but his mind was elsewhere. It was on his laptop, where the finalized video file, sodium_vhs_final.mp4, was ready to be uploaded.
After his shift at the Burger Barn that night, he went straight to his studio. It was time.
With a sense of anticipation, he uploaded the video to YouTube. Then, he uploaded the MP3 to SoundCloud. Finally, he opened his new Twitter and Instagram accounts and posted the link on both, along with a grainy frame from the video.
“sodium. link in bio.”
He leaned back in his chair, refreshing the page. And waited.
On Tuesday morning, the first thing he did was grab his phone. He opened SoundCloud.
Plays: 150. Likes: 12. Comments: 2.
He frowned. That was... slow. Much slower than Star Shopping.
He read the comments.
The first one was from Chloe: "The video is so cool! Very dark vibes. I like it."
The second one was from a random user: "what is this noise? can't hear the voice lol"
Michael felt a pang of disappointment. Ghost Boy and Star Shopping were confessions. Sodium was a statement of style. He had thought that the aesthetic, the video, the atmosphere... that people would understand it.
On his break at work that afternoon, he looked again. Plays: 210. Likes: 15. Comments: 4.
"dude, turn up the vocal volume" "this sounds like you recorded it with a microwave"
Disappointment was turning into humiliation. 'What did I do wrong?' he thought, smoking his cigarette in the alley. 'The video is great. The song is a vibe. Don't they get it?'
He thought he had made his first big artistic mistake. That he had been too experimental, too weird. That he had scared off the small audience he had worked so hard to build.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Michael was on his shift at the Burger Barn. It was eight in the evening, the rush hour had passed. He was in the back, scrubbing a griddle with a cleaning brick, the smell of chemical and burnt grease stuck in his nose.
He felt completely defeated. His VHS-trap "masterpiece" had been a failure. People thought his microphone was broken. He felt like an idiot.
"Hey, Zombie," said Sal, the cook. "Take your ten."
Michael nodded without saying anything. He put down the brick and went out to the back alley. The night air was cool, but it didn't help remove the heat he felt on his face. He sat on his usual milk crate and took out a cigarette.
While he smoked, he took out his phone. He didn't know why. It was masochism. He opened YouTube, expecting to see the same depressing number of 200 views.
The app took a while to load. And when it did, Michael almost dropped the phone.
He looked at the screen. He blinked. He looked again.
The video for Sodium, which this morning had 210 views, now showed a number that made no sense.
50,000 views.
He froze, the cigarette halfway to his mouth.
'It's a mistake.' He thought. 'A YouTube glitch.'
He exited the app and opened it again. The page reloaded. The number had changed.
51,240 views.
His heart started beating hard against his ribs. He exited YouTube and opened SoundCloud. The song, which barely had 150 plays, now had 30,000. His phone was flooded with notifications of new followers and comments.
'What the fuck happened?'
He ignored SoundCloud and went back to YouTube. He needed to know how. He clicked on the video statistics. The traffic source. He saw a massive spike that had started around noon. Most of the views came from an "External Link".
He clicked on the link.
It took him to a music blog he had never heard of. It was called "Aesthetic Collective". It was a website with a minimalist design, dedicated to vaporwave, lo-fi, and internet culture.
And at the top of the main page, was his video.
The video was embedded in the article. But it was the post title that made Michael understand everything.
"Is this the birth of VHS-Trap? The most ingenious home video we've seen this year."
Michael read the article. The critic didn't mock the quality. He praised it. He spoke of the "bold decision" to use a real VHS camera, of how the "visual noise" fit perfectly with the "narcotic soundscape".
He went back to his video page and opened the comments. The tide had turned. The confused comments from before had been replaced by an avalanche of praise.
But these weren't like the comments on Star Shopping. They weren't emotional. They were analytical. They were from connoisseurs.
"GOD! This aesthetic is perfect! 100% TeamSESH."
"The bars are apathetic, the sound is narcotic. This guy understands the mood."
"The tape hiss in the mix is intentional. It's crazy."
"The video is ingenious! Using a real VHS camera in 2015! This guy is a genius!"
"Finally, something that doesn't sound like everything else. New fan."
Michael stared at the comments, the cigarette burning down between his fingers.
He hadn't made a mistake. He hadn't failed.
Simply... he had been showing his art to the wrong audience.
Ghost Boy and Star Shopping were for the sad kids, for the lonely souls. They were for Chloe and Victor.
But Sodium... Sodium was for the art nerds.
For the aesthetic purists. For the people who understood that grain and hiss weren't mistakes, they were the message.
A slow smile appeared on his face. He finished the cigarette in one drag.
He had just discovered, by accident, that he had a second audience. And he had just proven that he could create not only for the heart, but also for the head.
Thursday, August 6 - Friday, August 7, 2015
Michael woke up on Thursday feeling different. The world had changed.
When he walked through the school hallways that morning, with his usual hoodie and sunglasses, something was different. The invisibility he had gotten used to had cracked.
People were looking at him.
It wasn't just the trio of Leo, Sam, and Nate. It was people who had never said a word to him. Guys in Thrasher shirts and girls with dyed hair. The "alternative" crowd of the school.
He heard whispers when he passed.
"Hey, that's him. It's the guy from the Sodium video."
"Really? The one that looks like it was recorded in the 90s. It's crazy."
Michael kept his head down, headphones on, but he could feel their stares. It wasn't the silent connection he felt with Chloe. It was something new. It was fame. It was loud, it was strange, and a part of him enjoyed it.
He arrived at the lunch table. Leo, Sam, and Nate were already there, and Sam was vibrating, unable to sit still in his seat. He didn't even wait for Michael to sit down.
"DUDE!" shouted Sam, causing several tables to turn. "IT'S EVERYWHERE!"
"Lower your voice, idiot," said Michael, sitting down, but he couldn't hide his smile.
"No, seriously!" insisted Sam, waving his phone in the air. "Leo showed me last night! The blog 'Aesthetic Collective' posted you! It's like... the Pitchfork of weird music! My phone hasn't stopped ringing!"
Sam shoved the phone in Michael's face. "It already has 200,000 views on YouTube! Two hundred thousand! Yesterday it had two hundred! And the comments! People are losing their minds over the VHS camera!"
Michael looked at Leo. Leo, the cynic, the purist, was leaning back in his chair with a smirk of superiority he rarely showed.
"I told you," said Leo, his tone was one of absolute pride. "It was the aesthetic. I knew it would work. Those idiots at the parties wouldn't have understood, but the people who know... they do."
"The video is great," added Nate, his longest contribution of the day. "It looks dirty. I like it."
Michael leaned back. He didn't know what to say. The success of Ghost Boy and Star Shopping had been silent, personal. This was different. It was public.
"It's... it's crazy," admitted Michael.
"It's more than crazy!" said Sam, almost shouting. "We did that! We recorded that! I held the light! Nate drove the car! We are... we are a production team! We are like Spike Jonze!"
Michael laughed. Sam's joy was contagious.
Sodium was, without a doubt, his most viral song yet. It wasn't the deepest, it wasn't the one that hurt him the most, but it was the one making his name appear on music blogs he didn't even know existed.
He realized that people in the cafeteria were watching them. Watching his table. The island of outcasts had suddenly become the center of attention.
The feeling was strange. It was powerful. And it was a little terrifying.
He realized the game had changed. He was no longer just "Glasses Boy" who slept in class. Now he was Michael Demiurge.
Friday, August 7, 2015 (Night)
Michael was in his makeshift studio, the door closed. Outside, in the living room, he could hear the sound of his new roommate, the social worker the state had finally assigned, watching TV. He was a decent guy, but he was still a stranger in his house.
He put on his headphones, the beat of Sodium playing at low volume. He looked at the YouTube page on his laptop. The video had just surpassed 300,000 views.
It was a number his brain could barely process. Less than a week ago, he was celebrating having 50 plays. Now, hundreds of thousands of people had seen his video. They had seen his face, or at least, his grainy silhouette.
He was in a state of shock. Fame, even on this niche scale, was a strange and addictive drug.
He closed his eyes and summoned the System interface. He was anxious to see his reward. If a deep connection like Chloe's or Victor's was worth 100 IP, how much would 300,000 views be worth?
Cyan light filled his vision. He looked at the top right corner, where his balance was. And his heart stopped.
The number wouldn't stop going up. +1... +1... +1...
He looked at his total balance.
TOTAL BALANCE: 3,214 IP
Michael stared at the number, his mind working at full speed. He did a quick calculation. His previous balance was 214 IP. He had just earned... 3,000 Impact Points.
He opened the transaction history. It wasn't a lump sum, like Chloe's. It was a constant trickle, a flood of small rewards.
+1 IP (Source: Massive Views) +1 IP (Source: Massive Views) +1 IP (Source: Massive Views)
The pattern was unmistakable. 300,000 views. 3,000 Impact Points.
'One hundred views for one Impact Point.'
He understood. The System didn't just value deep impact on a soul. That was the fast track, the "quest reward" for a perfect connection.
But this... this was the other side of the coin. The grind. The massive reach. Hundreds of thousands of "superficial" plays could, over time, add up to a significant amount of IP.
He leaned back in the chair, a slow smile spreading across his face. He wasn't disappointed. He was... enlightened.
Although the song didn't cause as much personal impact as Ghost Boy or Star Shopping, its aesthetic and sound had impressed thousands of people. He had created a viral moment.
He realized he didn't have to choose a single path. He had two weapons in his arsenal:
Songs like Star Shopping, which were surgical. Designed to hit a person in the heart and generate 100 IP at once.
Songs like Sodium, which were grenades. Designed to reach as many people as possible and generate thousands of IP through sheer volume.
Fame and impact were not enemies. They were two different strategies for the same game.
He looked at the ten-dollar VHS camera resting on his desk. It had been the best investment of his life.