Super Spender

Chapter 409: 403: A Spitter

Translator: 549690339

“Or is it that you’re purely trying to enhance your ‘Prodigal’ reputation? You’re squandering money just for the sake of squandering money? Also, about that game video you’ve produced – forgive my bluntness – you’re planning to release it, treating it like a film? Do you think your audience are idiots? Do you think all of them can be easily manipulated?”

“Hmm, lately I’ve seen what I guess are his fans, posting insulting comments in my feed, and some have privately messaged me, saying I can’t afford to offend him. Sorry, but I’m the sort who likes to tell it as it is, and I’m not afraid to offend people, at least I’m not breaking the law, am I?”

Finn Lewis scrolled through this guy’s recent micro research posts, all of which were published in the last couple of days, likely after the end of the WY video competition. Once WY’s official site announced that they would be seeking to screen the winning video on their platform, this guy started blasting insults.

After reading everything, Finn Lewis became a bit pissed off. Whoa, this guy really has quite a knack for blasting indiscriminate insults, doesn’t he? Finn Lewis hadn’t known about him before, but given his substantial fan base, he must have blasted plenty of people in the past. Finn quickly browsed through some of his old micro research posts and realized this guy had also blasted him before, especially when Finn made extravagant purchases since he acquired T Company and other assets.

In many of his comment sections, Finn saw numerous fans defending him. However, without Finn’s direct involvement, these defenders were soon silenced by the wave of counter-attacks from the critic’s fans.

After reading several hundred of this guy’s micro research posts, Finn finally understood what kind of person he was dealing with. Plainly speaking, he’s nothing but a clown stirring up controversy for attention, criticizing anything and everything that is news-worthy. He conducts himself as if he holds the moral high ground.

If Finn knew about this guy before, he might have followed him, but now? Finn had a clear picture of what this guy was really about. Dammit, what does my spending have to do with you? Damn!

Moreover, Finn noticed that a lot of this guy’s posts were being reposted by various online media outlets. A lot of uninformed netizens were now questioning Finn’s motives and joining in on the criticism for not spending his money properly.

“I only recently noticed the existence of this keyboard warrior. I never knew what high-level trolling was until now. He says I treat my audience as fools? Our video competition was a way of showing appreciation to our gamers. How dare he accuse us of pandering? We have millions of players. We launched this competition for them. What’s that got to do with him? He should shut his mouth.” Finn was not one to hold back. He logged onto his micro research account and immediately posted a response to this person.

Finn is not the type to take verbal abuse without retaliation. Moreover, he’s got plenty of fans too. While he might not post on micro research frequently, it does not suggest he’s lacking attention. Finn’s followers might not add up to three million, but they are almost all active followers, none of them are inactive or zombie followers. Finn boasts a fan base of over 1.2 million.

After Finn posted on micro research, in mere minutes, it got over ten thousand comments and shares. This goes to show just how active his fans are and how daunting their number is. Most people, despite having millions of followers, wouldn’t garner responses this quickly.

However, what Finn didn’t understand was that he was preoccupied with other matters and hadn’t been online for the past few days, yet his squabble with this critic had caused quite a stir online. The critic had a strong online presence and was known for his long-range online attacks, which is why he was so popular. He had blasted almost every celebrity in Flame Nation’s entertainment industry.

He often magnified small, inconspicuous details in news stories and sparked major online discourse. His influence was not limited to the country; he also had a significant influence and fanbase in Pearl Island City. Many celebrities in Pearl Island City didn’t dare to offend this guy. Rumor has it that he was a former professor of a prominent university, and is now supposedly a freelance writer.

The suicide incident involving a young model that was widely discussed some time ago was largely associated with this individual. The model had just attended one slightly explicit anime convention and, due to the unique angles of some photos which were published by news outlets, this guy got hold of them and spun them into a story about morality and parenting.

As you can imagine, his significant influence in social media and the digital media landscape meant his commentary prompted countless netizens to launch attacks against the young model. The storm quickly made its way offline where the model’s family faced heavy pressure from people around them, even familiar faces from their neighborhood joined in passing judgments.

In the end, the girl’s parents were infuriated and unfortunately said some things they shouldn’t have, which led the girl to jump from the twentieth floor, bringing her young life to an untimely end.

Truth be told, cases like this were not uncommon. Many harmless situations are blown out of proportion by the media, leading to tragedies. Maybe the modeling gig was slightly risqué, but she was making a living with her own skills. Even if she dressed in revealing attire, she wasn’t hurting anyone, right? At least, that’s what Finn thought. To him, she was a lot better than those who made a living by incessantly stirring up controversy.

Finn was not aware that his dispute with the critic had caused a big commotion on the internet because he hadn’t been keeping tabs on online events lately. While he didn’t explicitly instruct Olivia Thatcher to do so, she also didn’t pay attention to it, so Finn was in the dark about the situation. But Finn had a considerable number of fans and, moreover, what was his current status?

Finn held the title of the world’s richest person. Even though the annual wealth ranking is published every March, he was still a few months away from having his position in the rankings officially confirmed. Nevertheless, his current net worth was easily calculable, so his title as the world’s richest person was inevitable. When a prominent micro research user like the critic attacked the world’s richest person, the media was not going to let it go unnoticed.

With the media promoting it so much, ordinary netizens naturally took a greater interest, so the incident gained a lot of traction. However, Finn was absent from the scene, and with just the critic’s one-sided attacks going on, it was like an argument with one party not retaliating – boring and pointless.