Mysterious Assistant of the Washed-Up Queen-Chapter 498 - 325: The Start of Influence, The Name of the Queen

The reason they were so puzzled was simply because this trending topic was too odd. The trending search was titled: #Xu Qingqiu Wins Best Female Singer Again#.

At first glance, it seemed like positive news with no apparent problem. But therein lay the issue. If this trending search had appeared earlier, it wouldn’t have been strange. However, how long had it been since the awards ceremony? Almost half a month, right?

There had been so many domestic awards previously—Best Singer, Best Female Singer, Singer of the Year, Best Album, Most Influential Singer, and many more. It was just that at the time, considering the many events she was attending, the studio hadn’t marketed this aspect extensively. They had only picked a few representative achievements to announce, and those had hit the trending searches as soon as they were released. Even the trending search terms back then were not much different from now, which was why they felt a sense of déjà vu.

The current issue was that so much time had passed, and this sudden reappearance on the trending searches inevitably made them overthink. It was like digging up old news, especially in the internet age, when it’s easiest to sway public sentiment.

Everything has two sides. Sometimes the same video, like one about a DUI checkpoint, might have been met with praise a year ago—after all, strict management and the unforgivable nature of drunk driving are fundamental principles. But a year later, if the same video is re-released with even slight guidance of opinion, public sentiment can immediately transform. The screen would be full of scathing criticism of the officers, with sarcastic comments claiming they were just trying to generate revenue or make money for the New Year, and so on.

This demonstrates that even the same video, at different times and with different guidance, can produce completely opposite results. In this process, manipulators harbor malicious intentions, while those who follow blindly charge forward, willingly acting as disposable pawns. This was a true reflection of the world-famous works, ’The Ignorance of the Majority’ and ’The Blind Conformity of Netizens.’ And now was precisely such a situation.

As part of the entertainment industry, which stands at the forefront of public opinion, they understood these manipulations all too well and were therefore the most vigilant. Ordinary people might not grasp this; if a video they posted went viral a year or two later, they might be secretly pleased, thinking they had stumbled upon a stroke of luck and gained a wave of traffic. However, in the eyes of industry insiders, the first reaction would be to suspect that some group was trying to manipulate something to achieve a specific goal. After all, the three notorious tactics of the online world are hyping hot topics, guiding public opinion, and manipulating the masses into blindly following, all to achieve an end goal.

Now that such an old trending search had resurfaced after so long, their immediate reaction was definitely that someone was up to something. Therefore, they instantly wanted to figure out what was happening, who was behind it, and what their objective was.

"Let’s check out the content first and understand why it suddenly became a trending search now," Chu Tian said, picking up his phone to click on the third-ranked trending topic.

However, after clicking into it, the three of them examined it for a long time but still couldn’t identify any problem. In the comments section, there were no signs of opinion manipulation, and most comments were matter-of-factly discussing the awards. Content from the previous trending topic was mentioned from time to time, yet they found no explanation for why this particular trending search had suddenly appeared.

"Strange," one of them mused. "Could it really be a coincidence? But isn’t this delay a bit too long?"

"Should we ask Sister Hua?"

In the end, the three of them couldn’t find the reason and had to leave the problem for Sister Hua to solve.

"Sister Hua, have you seen the latest trending search?"

"Are you talking about the one about Qingqiu winning the award?"

"That’s right, Sister Hua, did you see it?"

"Of course. What do you think the public sentiment analysis team is for?" Faced with Xu Qingqiu’s naive question, Sister Hua naturally rolled her eyes at her.

"Don’t worry, it’s not a big issue. The reason has been found, and the situation is still being monitored. I will arrange for someone to provide guidance at the critical moment."

"Ah? So what exactly is the reason?" Hearing Sister Hua say that the reason had been found and it didn’t seem to be a major problem, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Xu Qingqiu, however, seemed intrigued and wanted to know what was going on.

"Well, this whole thing actually started with a post from a marketing account yesterday..." Next, Sister Hua explained the situation to them, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Recently, Xu Qingqiu had been continuously busy attending numerous award ceremonies, both domestically and internationally, because her two albums were indeed impressive, directly overshadowing all other albums from that year. Consequently, her influence was undeniable, and her name was inevitably tied to almost every award. Correspondingly, she won awards until her hands practically went numb.

If all these awards had been hyped one by one, the initial response might have been positive. However, eventually, mentioning them too frequently would not only lead to audience fatigue but also stir up envy. Winning one or two awards is fine, but winning a dozen or twenty is a different matter entirely; after all, jealousy often strikes without reason, and many people resent others’ success. Therefore, Sister Hua had decided at the time to only select a few significant awards, along with several well-known major awards suitable for domestic announcement, to publicize. The majority of the other awards, particularly international ones, were not widely publicized. This resulted in people’s impressions of her being limited to those few significant awards.

Then yesterday, some marketing account, from goodness knows where, found out that Xu Qingqiu had won awards in both Japan and Singapore.