You Had Me Blacklisted, So I Built TikTok. What Are You Crying About?

Chen Mo transmigrates into the body of a recent computer science graduate. After he comments on a celebrity’s post, “Is taking a flight at dawn really that hard?” He gets doxxed and cyberbullied, and his parents become the target of all kinds of edited-image mockery. One of the celebrity’s brainless fans even pulls strings through his father and orders the entire internet industry to blacklist him. All the years of effort he put in are reduced to a worthless diploma! He thinks things couldn’t possibly start worse, but then he realizes this world is a little different. It has Kuai Jiao, but no Douyin. It has Tao Bao, but no Pinduoduo. It has Hungry Yet, but no Meituan. It has Knife Tower, but no League of Legends. As it happens, the big shot who had him blacklisted owns shares in all those companies. Chen Mo sneers. One month later, Douyin bursts onto the scene! Livestream battles, livestream sales, and big-data algorithms reshape the short-video industry, and his net worth soars to hundreds of billions! Two months later, Pinduoduo launches! Group purchases, cash rewards for inviting friends, free items after enough price cuts, and tens of billions in subsidies. Boss Ma admits he can’t compete! Three months later, the era-defining game League of Legends is released! The executives at Knife Tower chuckle, “What do you know about games?” A year later, Tianmu Capital goes bankrupt after all of its investments lose money. Chen Mo stands in Lujiazui, gazing down at the nighttime view of the Huangpu River. “Blacklist me? Then you can go to hell!”