View Black Market

Imagine a world where being an influencer and fluent in the social media world is the only way you would be able to sustain your needs. In this story it is a reality for people. Kai is a 16-year-old boy who has always lived in the aloof corners of the streaming world; the shadows where small creators are only able to scrape by on a few views per video. In a society that is powered entirely by views, memories, and attention, he is nearly bankrupt, just one bad day away from being on the streets and losing everything.

Views are the only type of currency that exists- you have to trade views for food, water, housing, ect. The twist is that not everybody works their way up fairly- they get the views by using the “view black market”. The MC is a small streamer who is barely able to sustain himself and he reaches a low that he wont be able to survive. Somebody finds him and tells him about the view black market. This market is able to get people fake views, stolen attention and even memories illegally. 

At first the MC is only using this in order to survive and get out of his situation, but he quickly realizes that if he keeps going he will be able to get a lot of views. As his success increases he soon realizes that with this system taking views, attention, and memories, it's being taken from other people and causing harm to others.The MC and his brother are close and the MC hides the fact that he is going to do this because he feels guilty about it. Every bought view takes a tiny bit of emotional energy but people have to get a lot of views. The more the MC gets, the more the world around him becomes bland and sad. 

The story escalates when their brother, who is backed by one of the big corporations is revealed to be the owner of the view black market. He is profiting off of others for his benefit while pretending like he wants to fight the battle against the other big corporations, but he really wants them gone so he can rule the whole world. The anti- villain that was discussed in the other idea (the one that causes chaos for attention and views) tries to expose this system but he makes it worse because people start to use the view black market as well and feed it more views. The MC teams up with the anti- villain and his other small streamer friends by making a system where creativity and community matter more than getting views does. The system is run by a server that is fueled by the view energy and every view adds to the network that keeps the economy alive. The only way for the server to crash is for someone to give it all of its views so it overloads. In the end the MC is the one who gives all of his views, so he loses his fame but he is keeping the world trapped. 

When the network crashes, all is forgotten. Everything that the MC went through, his reputation of helping the entire world, is forgotten and he is back to being poor like he was before. Nobody from before remembers him.