My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 74

Something no one had expected happened.

“This is insane. What’s with the ratings? Isn’t this manipulated?”

The viewership rating for <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> climbed to 8 percent. Originally planned as a 16-episode series, the sudden surge in popularity even led to articles about considering additional episodes.

[The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much! Considering Additional Episodes… Public Broadcast Drama’s First Feat in 3 Years]

[Drama Queen Writer Seo Eunyoung’s Glorious Return, “Grateful Though Caught Off Guard by Unexpected Popularity”]

[Active Use of PPL, Now a Plus Rather Than a Minus? Drama Industry “Buzzing”]

[Unhidden Indirect Advertising, The Virtue of Honesty….]

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

Do people these days really enjoy watching the male lead sit in an imported car, cry, and apply multi-balm?

Like someone left behind by the times, I clicked on a few news articles related to <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!>. They had crammed in indirect advertising so haphazardly, yet somehow it had become a hit.

Was this what they meant by “a stroke of luck”? The broadcasting station had also expected it to fail and deliberately taken on a ton of PPL, but lo and behold? Instead, it had actually become a form of marketing and generated buzz.

Especially among the younger generation who binge-watch television dramas in 20-minute chunks on YouTube, <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> was being evaluated as a meme-generating drama.

[Drama value 0, meme value 100]

└[Out of how many points?]

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

└[A cinephile has appeared]

└[Lol you idiot, cinephile is for movies]

[Honestly, it’s true there’s no artistic merit, but it’s funny]

└[Go ahead and make people laugh all day, they’ll still criticize it for lacking artistic merit]

└[Wait, why would you expect artistic merit from a plagiarist writer’s drama? It’s fine if it’s just funny lol]

└[It’s dramas like this that are ruining Korean dramas]

└[And you’re watching the binge-cut on YouTube too, you bastard]

I quickly skimmed the comments on the YouTube binge-watch of <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!>. Fortunately or unfortunately, all I saw were people talking about the drama’s artistic merit, and nothing about what I had been worried about.

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

[Didn’t they just swap out the Gongjindan that was on that show for a nutritional ampoule? Amazing, as expected of a plagiarist writer’s class]

Of course, there wasn’t no mention at all of my clinic and the Gongjindan I had created. <I Want to Know Everything> was just too famous. Plus, the Gongjindan I had made was one of the few cases where that show had aired a correction.

[I see the clinic PPL too, so the station must have gotten a lot of money from the clinic]

No. I was the one who took money from the station.

But people weren’t interested in such detailed background. At this point, I started to worry about having crammed PPL into the drama out of necessity. Wouldn’t this look to outsiders as if I had conspired with the station?

Producer Lee Minsoo had completely blocked my contact after the drama became successful. Quite the nerve. Having paid the material usage fee and fulfilled the indirect ad request, he must have thought he’d done his part.

Since no major problem had arisen immediately, maybe if I just kept my mouth shut, it would quietly blow over.

“Those goddamn broadcasting station bastards….”

Every time I get involved with a broadcasting station, problems keep arising. It’s true that initially, I had wanted to appear on a show to promote Gongjindan. Since pharmaceuticals can’t have TV commercials, I was trying to pull a trick by getting invited onto a program. What’s wrong with wanting to make money?

But <I Want to Know Everything> and <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> were not of my volition. Why should I be agonizing over those station bastards taking my Gongjindan and messing with it however they wanted? I clutched my burning stomach and closed the YouTube app.

The real problem occurred after <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> ended.

Despite the popularity that’s not easily achieved by a public broadcast drama, let alone a Wednesday-Thursday drama, <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> ultimately ended its 16-episode run without additional episodes.

The female lead falls into a coma after a car accident, and her soul, having left her body, actively helps the male lead, who has become an alpha, with his new business. Then, due to the shock of an earthquake, she regains consciousness. As a result, instead of the soul wedding ceremony they were in the middle of, they hold a real wedding ceremony—that was the final episode.

…What on earth does that mean?

No matter how I think about it, it’s only normal not to understand this. Even I have no idea what that plot was.

[No wonder they didn’t add more episodes—from exactly episode 8 onward, the drama went full makjang]

[They’ve opened a new horizon for makjang dramas]

[They already stretched an 8-episode story to 16, so when talk of additional episodes came up, the writer must have been trembling in fear]

[Writer: Ah; I have nothing left to plagiarize anymore]

└[Writer: Fine, I’ll give you an earthquake ending]

└[It’s not even an earthquake ending—it’s an earthquake followed by a soul wedding ceremony ending]

[Well, no one expected a good story from the start]

└[Wasn’t it okay up to episode 8?]

└[Excuse me?]

Naturally, the drama’s reception plummeted to the worst. Even my mother, who generally enjoys all romance dramas, said, “The ending was really strange.”

[It seems a plagiarist writer can’t help it lol]

[Don’t think of it as a drama—think of it as a promotional script for a nutritional ampoule, and it’s a masterpiece]

└[Lololololol nutritional ampoule promotional script lol how much did they get paid by the hospital]

└[Wasn’t it a Korean medicine clinic, not a hospital?]

└[Check out this article—W Korean Medicine Clinic in Gangnam]

└[Isn’t that the place? The one that was on I Want to Know Everything?]

└[Yeah lol Ah~ I totally get the vibe, right? You can guess the price, can’t you? How much did they get lol]

This is insane, really.

The drama flopped, so why are the arrows coming back at us?

After that, our Korean medicine clinic enjoyed another unprecedented boom. Because netizens had once again unearthed the alpha-making Gongjindan.

They say that even for idols, when haters and fans come together, they become superstars—and the Gongjindan I made was no different. Viewers who noticed the similarities between <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> and Gongjindan began criticizing it as viral marketing orchestrated by our clinic.

In fact, thanks to the drama, Gongjindan sales increased exponentially. It got to the point where Nam Jungyoon alone couldn’t handle it, and we had to hire more contract staff.

While the surge in Gongjindan sales was a boon, the clinic’s once-damaged reputation showed no signs of recovery. Whatever was spreading on internet communities I couldn’t access, YouTubers with personal filming equipment started lurking around the clinic.

“Our clinic must have picked the wrong location.”

Kim Miyoung murmured with a sigh. I was thinking the same thing. It’s not easy for an ordinary Korean medicine clinic to generate this much buzz.

I might have said this before: successful doctors often show their faces on TV. But having your face all over the media is never a good thing.

Because most doctors who appear on TV consistently end up ruined in the end. Once you become known to the public as an expert in a field, no matter what you do, you’ll get cursed at.

And now our clinic had become too famous as “W Korean Medicine Clinic in Gangnam-gu.” All because I had inserted PPL into <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!>.

It was something I’d done just to give a little grief to the station that had taken my material without a word, but I never expected the drama to do so well. And I never expected it to have such a makjang ending either.

[I work at a broadcasting station and I’ve confirmed that the clinic sent multiple emails]

[I heard the director of this clinic is loaded]

└[Yeah, there’s a rumor he’s the son of a politician]

└[Wow, so if you’re a rich heir, the station will even produce a drama to promote your store]

└[Money talks]

Isn’t that ridiculous? Both my parents are Korean medicine doctors—what’s this politician talk?

Like a snowball rolling over a snowy field, people’s speculation and rumors about our clinic kept growing. A comment asking how an omega could develop an alpha-making Gongjindan got about 800 likes.

[But there actually was someone who became alpha after taking this—there was that anonymous interview, J]

└[(Interview URL link)]

└[It’s fabricated, fly high fabrication!]

└[No, it’s not fabricated—J goes to H University’s physical education department]

[J really did change from beta to alpha—I was in the same class as him in high school senior year. He presented as alpha on the day of the college entrance exam and collapsed, causing chaos at school]

└[He presented on exam day? Lol wtf how did they not get sued by the parents’ association? The developer of Gongjindan really must be a politician’s kid]

└[I can’t go into detail because it might be too revealing, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that J is doing well thanks to becoming alpha. That’s why I think Gongjindan is real—he was already presented as beta and changed to alpha]

└[Idiot, it’s just a late presentation. Believing in a coincidence like that]

└[The guy who commented must be a beta who couldn’t become alpha]

└[Reporting you for beta discrimination]

To summarize the situation:

<The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> became far more popular than expected. It went viral not for artistic merit but for its PPL memes, even though the final episode had an earthquake ending.

The problem was that the earthquake ending was too shocking.

It’s a medical romance, but there’s out-of-body experience. After the out-of-body experience, the male lead’s business succeeds. And then, during a soul wedding ceremony, an earthquake hits, and the female lead regains consciousness, so they have a real wedding.

It’s a happy ending, but it’s bound to be controversial. If I had been Writer Seo Eunyoung, I would have just ended it early instead of that ending.

Anyway, thanks to the writer who delivered that phenomenal storytelling, our clinic came back into the spotlight. The whole affair of squeezing usage fees and inserting PPL to spite the broadcasting station had come full circle as a butterfly effect.

As a result, the Gongjindan episode of <I Want to Know Everything> resurfaced.

Strictly speaking, that was also Producer Kim airing a correction on his own, but netizens unaware of the circumstances transformed my parents’ occupations into politicians. Ah! Our family is a Korean medicine doctor family! We don’t do politics!

And so, while the authenticity of Gongjindan was once again being questioned, Jung Pureum’s anonymous interview was re-examined. What’s more, people claiming to know Jung Pureum appeared and were revealing his personal information without permission.

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

└[Is this real?]

└[It’s real—if you don’t believe me, watch next year’s Olympics]

└[What sport?]

└[This comment has been blinded for violating platform policy.]

I reflexively clicked the report button.

These crazy bastards. They’re freely selling someone else’s personal information just because it’s free. Watching these people voluntarily rack up cyber karma made my heart sink.