94: Chapter 94 Weekend Signals

After a full day of unwinding yesterday, the atmosphere in the safe house no longer felt like a wartime command post; it had gained a bit more of a grounded, lived-in feel.

In the morning, Alex participated in the final full-process signal stress test with Organization D as usual, confirming all emergency contingency plans.

After lunch, instead of immediately returning to music or tactical work, he curled up in the most comfortable sofa in the living room with his laptop, leisurely browsing the newly uploaded content by users on the "Voice of Truth" platform and the trends on major social media.

This was a form of alternative "field research."

He needed to touch the most vivid pulse of the current internet—the lighthearted, quirky, meaningless, yet vibrant parts.

The 【Cultural Trend Anchoring】 ability bestowed by the system was operating passively at this moment, helping him filter out the noise and perceive which elements were quietly sprouting among young people at the end of 2011.

His gaze finally settled on a photo submission campaign initiated by a user on the platform: #MyWeirdWeekend.

Everyone was sharing various boring or interesting little things they did over the weekend: arranging cereal into strange shapes, dressing pets in funny clothes, or making faces at the mirror for selfies.

The participation was high, overflowing with pure, unadorned joy.

A thought bubbled up like a bubble.

He needed a bit of "noise," a bit of "noise" belonging to ordinary young people that could gently pull him down from the pedestal of the "compassionate memorialist" and the "serious challenger."

At the same time, this was also a silent reminder—reminding everyone, especially Universal and Northrop, that his sense for pop culture and his ability to create viral spreads had not faded in the slightest due to his involvement in social issues.

He put down the computer, picked up his smartphone (a 2011 iPhone 4, the camera was barely passable), and winked at Taylor, who was checking the schedule nearby: "Do me a favor? One minute."

Taylor didn't understand, but she walked over anyway.

Alex thought quickly.

He needed a movement that was extremely simple, repetitive, slightly funny, and capable of triggering imitation.

Countless future internet memes flashed through his mind, and he finally locked onto an idea that would only explode in popularity after 2012 due to a certain movie and later short-video platforms, but was absolutely fresh in 2011 and required minimal shooting conditions: a short looping clip of "pretending to be suddenly 'hit' by background music and reacting exaggeratedly to it."

The key lay in the background music.

It needed a short, intensely rhythmic, pure music clip that sounded a bit "stupid" but was very catchy.

He quickly searched through his memory of the system's music library, avoiding the complex songs he had already used, and found a magical electronic sound effect from a future video game trailer that would later be widely used in short videos—a few repetitive synthesizer notes that sounded like laser gun "biu biu" sounds, accompanied by a heavy kick drum.

"This is it." He decided in his heart and ran that few-second melody through his mind.

"I need you," he said to Taylor with a mischievous smile, "to hold the phone and film me. Don't stop no matter what I do, just film for fifteen seconds. We're going to post something fun."

Although puzzled, Taylor was infected by his relaxed mood, took the phone, and opened the camera function.

"Ready? Action."

Alex walked to a relatively open area of the living room, turned his back to the camera, and pretended to be casually looking at the map on the wall.

Then, he raised his hand, imitated the action of playing music on a phone, and tapped lightly.

Immediately after, that short and magical "biu biu biu—thump!" electronic sound effect was simulated from his mouth with extreme precision and rhythm! (In reality, he would add the soundtrack when releasing it in the future.)

The moment the "sound effect" rang out, Alex's body jerked violently as if struck by an invisible electric current, then he turned around to face the camera, making an extremely exaggerated, twisted expression on his face that mixed shock, ecstasy, and "this music is so catchy," while his shoulders and neck began to shrug and twist rapidly and stiffly in a funny rhythm that was perfectly synced to the "biu biu" sound.

The movement had no aesthetic beauty and was even a bit "silly," but precisely because of that, it had a sense of authenticity and comedic effect that broke through his idol image.

Taylor behind the camera couldn't help but laugh out loud, yet her hand held the phone steadily.

As soon as fifteen seconds were up, Alex instantly reined in all expressions and returned to normal, as if the funny person from a moment ago wasn't himself.

"Perfect, thanks." He took back the phone and walked quickly into the small room temporarily serving as an editing room.

In less than twenty minutes, a fifteen-second short video was born.

In the footage, he turned his back to the camera, turned around, was hit by the "music," and began his magical shaking, looping twice.

He added clean subtitles to the video: "When the weird music of the weekend suddenly grabs you... #MyWeirdWeekend #AlexSu".

Then, he logged into his "Voice of Truth" platform account and his newly registered Vine short-video account (it had just launched in 2011 and was in need of content) and posted the video simultaneously.

There was no trailer, no explanation, just like any ordinary user sharing a moment of boredom and happiness from their weekend.

After finishing all this, he seemed to have only completed a trivial little thing, stretched, and said to Taylor: "Alright, let's continue working. It's time to look at those 'profound' themes we preset."

The rest of the team didn't even notice this little episode until an hour later.

Marcus was the first to discover the anomaly from the data backend: "Wait... Alex, did you post a short video on the platform and Vine half an hour ago? About... weird weekend music?"

"Yeah, a little experiment." Alex didn't even look up, busy sketching out a melodic motif for one of the preset themes on paper.

"This 'little experiment'..." Marcus's tone became strange, "On our platform, it broke half a million views in half an hour, and the like and share indices are abnormally high. Over on Vine... it just rushed onto the tail end of today's trending topics! The comment section... see for yourself."

Alex finally opened the platform.

The video's comment section had been completely flooded with "hahahaha" and various imitation and derivative creation comments:

"Help! Is this Alex Su? The one who sang 'See You Again'? The contrast is so cute it kills me!"

"This shaking is so soulful! I've already done it ten times, I can't stop!"

"What about the music? Please, BGM! This sense of rhythm is amazing!"

"Suddenly feel he is so approachable... So superstars are also this boring and happy on weekends?"

"Imitated! [Attached a video of my own shaking]"

The topics #AlexSuWeekendShake and #SeekingWeirdBGM began to quietly sprout.

Many young fans attracted during the "Uptown Funk" era seemed to have found a new connection point and were having a blast.

And some senior users in the core community also left messages saying "relieved" and "looks like you haven't been crushed by the pressure, it's good that you can still play around."

This wave of lighthearted, nonsensical traffic was like a clear spring, injecting itself into the slightly serious and tense public opinion field.

More subtle effects appeared a little later.

Kyle Jenkins actually called on his own initiative, his tone no longer one of urging or pressure, but with a sense of inquisitive interest: "Alex, I saw that... little video you posted just now. Very interesting. The young people in the marketing department are all passing it around. It reminds me of that ability to capture the current mood in 'Uptown Funk.' Very good, keep this internet sense, it's important for maintaining public popularity. It seems you really have your own unique understanding of the 'interaction' and 'immediacy' elements for next week's live broadcast."

Even the "Front Row Audience" sent a text message, the tone rarely carrying a hint of teasing: "A certain music critic funded by Northrop just complained in a private group, saying, 'The target has suddenly released meaningless content, disrupting the rhythm of the excessively serious analytical article about his work originally scheduled for release earlier this week; need to re-evaluate the public opinion environment.'"

A casually posted, mere fifteen-second "weird" video was like a small pebble thrown into a lake, stirring up ripples that exceeded expectations.

It relaxed the fans' mood, reminded his partners of his pop acuity, and even unintentionally interfered with the opponent's public opinion deployment.

Alex looked at this feedback, smiled, and closed the webpage.

He turned his gaze back to the whiteboard in front of him, which had the several core thematic directions he had preset for the live broadcast written on it, each one teeming with undercurrents, pointing toward deeper expressions.

The sky outside the window was gradually darkening, and the relaxed interlude of the weekend was about to end.