Pilot Program (4)

“Why? Did something happen?”

Iseo said this as she looked at Suyeon’s phone—the video with the peculiar title [Sultan of Swing Korean girl Cover - Best one EVER!!].

The image quality clearly showed that it had been recorded with a phone camera. Only a tiny portion of the beginning of Sultan of Swing had been recorded, and the vocal section appeared only briefly.

But perhaps that was precisely why the title seemed more genuine.

The video, uploaded with no context or explanation as nothing more than a recording of a broadcast at home, had been chosen by the algorithm—whose workings not even a daughter-in-law could know—and its view count was climbing steeply. Even as they watched it, they could see the number increasing.

“Do you know them?”

“No. It just showed up in my recommendations, so I watched it—and there I was. But ‘Best One Ever’ is a bit much…”

Suyeon muttered that. Iseo patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Have some confidence!” before looking at the comments. She couldn’t really understand what they said since they were in English, but with comments like [Fucking insane], [Awesone], [Brilliant!], and [Expert performance!!] flooding in, they certainly seemed to be praising him.

“What’s wrong with calling good playing good?”

“I can’t deny that I play well, but…” At Suyeon’s words, Seoha casually muttered, “What an asshole.” “I’m definitely not the best in the world. The original artist is still alive, for starters.”...