episode_0012

In fact, Yoon Yi-seo was not really aware of her own popularity.

That’s because no matter how much people on the internet rave about [God of computers, God of the internet, God of games… where on earth will Yoon Yi-seo end up?], it feels a lot better when someone right next to her praises her by saying, “”Oh my, is this a game? Yoon Yi-seo is amazing!””.

That is why Yoon I-seo, who has a narrow network of connections in Korea and hardly ever meets people who would worship her, is simply dumbfounded when she sees foreigners habitually worshiping her on the Internet.

In fact, if you just fly to England right now, the team at Nervous Lee will be able to

“Kkiyaaaa …

“Ugh, light light light, I can only see light!”

“Worship! The British Empire is once again the empire on which the sun never sets!”

He would say all sorts of things, but Yoon-seo had no intention of going abroad, so of course she would not be able to see such a sight.

Anyway, Yoon-seo wasn’t particularly interested in the Internet’s reactions to her.

[Korea should be thankful that it has Yoon Yi-seo]

[I’m planning to board a flight to Korea and am looking for someone to go with me]

He simply joked that he had already become an object of worship among Internet pioneers.

Above all, the side effect of SimCity becoming a game that anyone can play if they have internet access is the connection between variables that Yoon-seo and Im Jin-bae were so obsessed with…

“Hey, George. That Excel you told me about last time? I tried using it… What does it do?”

“Oh, don’t you know… This is called [SimCity]. It’s a basic city-building simulation game. It’s a game, but it’s fun, unlike the 80s?”

“What the heck…”

“Just catch it once, churai churai.”

It was spread to the economics department by computer science professors who were working on collaborative projects using the power of computers, such as economics and accounting.

“… Might be worth a try?”

The savvy economics professors fell in love with SimCity,

“Starting today, classes will be held on computers.”

“Oh, finally using a computer calculator and Excel? As expected, it’s our school. You’re quick to catch on to trends! I booted up my computer, what do I turn on first?”

“SimCity.”

“…Huh?”

“SimCity.”

At a prestigious university in the United States, SimCity was upgraded to the SimCity-Education version, modified by computer science professors with Yoon’s permission, and used as a teaching material.

The birthplace of SimCity, which became such a huge hit. Korea was recognized as a leading country in the Internet by being the country with the most Internet users.

One site even went so far as to check whether there was Korean in the code comments of other websites and collect links to websites that were presumed to be Korean, which resulted in three-digit number of visitors per day.

Then, suddenly, another link was added to the site.

SounDrive

Naturally, internet ghosts accessed the link and spent the whole day listening to the sample music uploaded by Yoon Yi-seo, and that day, Yoon Yi-seo had to spend the whole day just maintaining the server.

This event later went down in Internet history as the world’s first DDoS attack.

After that, Yoon released FL Studio, which he created, as an open source project and even added login and music upload functions to SoundLive, opening the era of great internet music where everything was left on the website.

Naturally, this time even the music school professors became followers of Yoon Yi-seo, and the professors couldn’t help but be amazed at the fact that she was still a college student.

***

Kim Moo-sik sent me an email saying that he was returning to Korea. It seems that the environment in a foreign country and studying in general were not compatible.

It doesn’t really matter to me, but I still feel a little sorry that I can’t buy comics. If I had known this would happen, I would have asked the president to open up Japanese culture a bit when I met him.

“I’m back!”

There was no flashy initiation ceremony for Kim Moo-sik at Incheon Airport… It ended with a surprise meeting of the programming club. As expected, we had lunch at a noodle restaurant, and this person ate dumpling soup again. Did they store the places that sell dumpling soup in the database? Where do they keep finding places like this?

“By the way, what happened to the Expo? I forgot to ask about that.”

“It ended well. It was so crowded that I almost died. Oh, and I also got to help the president experience it…”

There was more to the story than I thought. The club members next to me also listened with interest.

“Kiya~ As expected, it’s Seo-ssi. If you’ve gotten that far, then a formal club? That would be good too, right?”

“No? It’s disbanded.”

“?”

A question mark appeared on Kim Moo-sik’s face, which always had a smiling face. I didn’t know this person could make such an expression.

“Why not? You even met the president?”

“I don’t know. Either the student council is a bunch of idiots or the professor in charge of the club is blinded by jealousy.”

“Oh my, that must have been hard. Mom! Here, a bottle of soju!”

“Why are you ordering alcohol?”

“When you feel dirty, have a drink, Seo-ssi. Just drink as much as you want, and don’t get too drunk. There are no women here, so if you pass out, Seo-ssi, there’s no one to take you.”

Kim Moo-sik was a very sweet man.

“Hi~ Originally, we had something to talk about when we met, but I’m leaving. This is totally.”

“What were you trying to say?”

“That thing at the Expo, right? That Expo Special.”

“…?”

“I was thinking of developing it a bit and running it permanently. But it would be difficult if the club was disbanded, right?”

I felt the alcohol wearing off.

“Tell me more.”

The first and largest www-based public Internet community, [Digital Inside], was being born.

***

Meanwhile, in the office of a professor at KUST, a month before the start of the semester.

Professor Park Myeong-gu was worried.

As a professor in charge of clubs in the Department of Computer Science, he was able to participate in the voting process for formal club evaluations and even exert pressure on other clubs.

That’s why he was worried. No, it was closer to conflict than worry.

It is often said that the head and the heart are separate.

The direction your head leads you to and the direction your heart wants are different. Park Myeong-gu was in exactly this situation.

He was a great bookworm. At that time, he was considered a talented person and an elite who was believed to be the future leader of the country, to the extent that he went to study abroad in the United States.

20 years ago, when he was studying abroad, dictatorship and democratization movements were taking place in Korea.

Park Myeong-gu decided that it would be better to pursue his dreams in the United States rather than returning to Korea, and he successfully applied his abilities to IBM, achieving the feat of being featured in newspapers in both Korea and the United States.

And at the time, games were played on popular home game consoles in a game club within the company.

At first, it was just fun. He thought games were the future of computers.

But every time he brought in a new game cartridge, his hopes faded. He became disillusioned with the 80s game market that only aimed for stimulating and sexual elements, and eventually experienced a revolution called the Atari Shock.

His team’s decline in work efficiency and the resulting failure to be promoted from assistant manager to manager were due to the new employees who were addicted to low-quality games at the time, and the growth of Apple, a rival company, was also due to people turning their attention from game consoles, which were flooded with low-quality games, to computers.

To him, the social evil of gaming, which had ruined the digital market and his own promotion, was nothing more than a target for eradication.

As he was approaching his 40s, these thoughts grew like a tumor in his head, becoming confirmation bias, and soon the university job offer that came his way was an opportunity for him to liquidate everything and escape from the disillusioned American society.

Park Myeong-gu, who had reached this point, was conflicted because of that.

While he was checking the course registration system in the computer room, he discovered a game plan that had planted a preconceived notion about the temporary club in his mind.

Obviously, the Internet is the future of computers, and I haven’t seen any documents related to Internet contributions to the student council, but the club that contributed to it is pretty good.

But is the Internet really the future of computers? Just as I mistakenly thought games were the future of computers, isn’t the Internet also just a flash in the pan?

In the first place, is it okay to just sit back and watch such a social evil being created? Korea, where games have little influence, has only entered the arcades. If we leave that club alone, Korea will follow in the footsteps of the United States and have a second Atari shock, and the youth of Korean society will be immersed in low-quality games, isn’t that our fault for not being able to prevent it?

The club was dangerous because they were competent. Their high level of skill reminded me of Atari, which had grown tremendously with Pong as its representative. His lesson that the IT industry can go up in an instant but can also go down quickly was being applied in vain.

The irrational fear and stubbornness engraved in his heart caused him to ignore the guidance his brain gave him, that they were the future of the Korean IT industry, and made decisions that were the complete opposite of the rationality and competence he had been pursuing.

In doing so, he ended the conflict that had been plaguing him for days.

The reason of a person whose brain was hardening was disappearing along with his hair.