Chapter 106: Good Press, Bad Press

Niall’s interview had only been up for two hours.

Yet, it had already accumulated well over 3.5M+ views with a staggering 536K likes to 3.89K dislikes ratio.

In addition to that, Starlight Magazine’s ViewTube channel had gone from a previous 479K subscribers, right into half a million subscribers in that very same time.

The comment section had blown up even more with over 10K+ comments, further driving traffic to the video and pushing it up on the platform’s algorithm.

The top comments especially, pretty much reflected everyone’s general thoughts on the 45-minute viral interview.

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MayaTheWitch: The title of this interview should’ve been "Niall Parker Accidentally Gives Everyone Therapy for 45 Minutes."

BluntBellina: ’Not yet, but I’m sizzling,’ is now my new favorite phrase. Also, what do you mean ’It gets better the longer you hold on.’. That’s just diabolical! He’s definitely having fun torturing us with the wait for the next book!

TroyInTheMiddle: We need to talk about how refreshingly normal Niall is. No ego. No weird superiority complex. No ’I’m better than everyone.’ energy. Just a fellow dude who clearly loves making things. This is the kind of man I aspire to be folks!

Carmen Rider: If you think about it, Niall literally put the philosophy behind naming his song [Aperture], into practice here by talking about himself without actually giving away everything. This man is amazing! Thank heavens he also didn’t go for [Leave the Light On], lol.

Generational_Tyler_Hater: I just know most of those dislikes came from those rabid Tyler fans. Sucks to be you guys, you got absolutely mogged by everyone else! Better go manage the PR disaster that Tyler’s embroiled himself again in.

Niall_Nation: I came here to watch Niall speak for 45 minutes straight... but somehow, someway... I’ve found myself watching this video for the past three hours.

Danny Boi: ’Stay out of the spotlight when you’re not needed. Own it completely when you are.’ That’s the typa shit that’s going on ma wall. Oh and by the way, SAY IT LOUDER FOR DEM NARCISSISTS IN THE BACK!

Elvis Parsley: He’s what, in his twenties? And he already has this kind of perspective on life and fame? Meanwhile grown celebrities are ’fighting’ paparazzi in parking lots every day of the week.

John Sanders: This young fella never ceases to impress me. He’s mastered the difference between being private and being secretive. He revealed a lot without actually oversharing, and you as a fan leave knowing more about his mind, and not his private life and you’re fine with that.

Music Nerd: I really like that he credited Midnight Avenue for helping him reshape [Aperture] instead of acting like he created everything by himself. Says a lot about him. The B-string story had me in shambles too. Calling Midnight Avenue ’brutes’ is just icing on top.

BookTocBaddie: Niall saying he doesn’t care about living up to expectations because he wants to impress himself first is actually such a healthy mindset to have for someone in his position.

CriticEye: The chemistry between Tom and Niall was actually so good. You can tell both got more comfortable with each other as the interview went on.

Snoop Dawg: "I’m not a penny pincher, but I sure as hell won’t allow anyone to cheat me if I can help it." Niall’s a bargain hunter too?! Dawg’s one of us frfr!

Linkin Bark: This interview somehow made me like him even more and he barely talked about his personal life. Take notes Hollywood! THIS is how you do celebrity interviews.

Bob Marbles: 10/10 interview. No manufactured drama. No awkward personal questions. Actual discussion about his work. And Niall was clearly comfortable. If Starlight keeps doing interviews like this, I’mma be subscribed forever.

ProfessionalLurker: Despite all the hype for this interview, I didn’t really get or feel much for it. After watching it though, I completely understand why.

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With how viral the video was going, and people uploading snippets of it onto various social media channels, some of which Starlight Magazine themselves partook in, it really didn’t take long before #Niall Parker and #Starlight Magazine became the number one and two trending topics on TweetTalk for a few hours.

Naturally, that meant more traffic for the company, and even more awareness on whom Niall Parker was to the general public.

It also helped that it sparked a new wave of discussions and excitement about Niall’s next projects.

[The Tree of Fate], the curious new project he was working on, and most especially, his role in the upcoming and highly anticipated movie from one of Hollywood’s most renowned director, [Rink].

All of it served to fan the flames of his fame yet again, so much that Hollywood press companies--despite Niall having rejected a good number of them--couldn’t even be bothered to remain prideful.

Afterall, when several other outlets were jumping on the bandwagon to pump out articles about all of his recent statements in the interview, they were forced to fight for a piece of the pie themselves.

A rather lucrative one at that too.

Safe to say, Niall had long creeped into high-profile celebrity status a while back.

It just so happened that he wasn’t the type to bask in the spotlight, hence why the general public didn’t talk much about him as they would other celebs who often rode on that kind of publicity for as long as they could.

But with [Aperture]’s staggering metrics and his one-of-a-kind performance at Coachella, and now this viral interview and his unknown role in the upcoming Murray Goldberg movie, that status was all that more realized and established to several of them.

In contrast to all these positive receptions for Niall though, Tyler on the other hand, was once again getting flamed on all social media platforms.

It was also why, he happened to be trending as number three on TweetTalk as well, but for all the wrong reasons.

Given several individuals had been expressing their genuine disdain not just for the man himself, but also his performance at Coachella, many of them alongside fans of Niall and Midnight Avenue soon began to notice something rather curious when they rewatched the quartet’s iconic performance.

Niall and Midnight Avenue had only managed to spend about forty-five minutes on stage...

...something so many of them would’ve caught earlier if not for how effortlessly professional all four had hidden it behind their performance.

Naturally, it didn’t take long before they figured out just why.

That’s right. Tyler Kingstone.

His performance had overextended by a little over ten minutes, prompting the performers behind him to make do with the rest of the time afforded to them.

Time that should have been rightfully theirs.

And at first, it seemed like the internet was just trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill when they began calling out Tyler for his lack of professionalism on top of all the previous claims they’d been levelling at him.

There was also some metric of truth to this, initially, considering several of these individuals weren’t exactly certain if the set afforded to Niall and Midnight Avenue was actually an hour.

Really, they were only guesstimating that it was meant to be so as previous Coachella performances tended to give the last couple artists a longer set in comparison to the artists preceding them.

However, when one of the artists whom had equally performed on that very same stage--Lena Vale--had innocently let it slip on a popular music podcast that Tyler had purposely eaten into the quartet’s performance, all hell broke loose for the already controversial pop star.

That ’hell’, couldn’t have been more crystal when an extremely popular internet personality on TweetTalk known for shitposting all the time with the moniker ’The Real Shitposter’, made yet another low effort post;

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Tyler Kingstone when the clock hits the end of his set: One more song?

Coachella: No.

Tyler: What about a dance routine?

Coachella: NO.

Tyler: What if I—

Coachella: NIGGA GET OFF THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ STAGE!

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Naturally, the now viral post with 23M views, 54K likes and 28K retweets got several denizens laughing, their comments mocking, dissing and throwing shade at Tyler from any angle they could.

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TimmyTurner: This shit is so fucking funny! Funnier still when you realize that despite all he did, he got absolutely steamrolled by Niall and his former bandmates moments later with their first song, not to talk of the masterpiece of a show they gave with their performance of [Aperture].

Generational_Tyler_Hater: Repeat after me @TheTylerKingstone; ’Thirst trapping can only get you so far when you suck ass without any stage presence.’ Learn a thing or two from Niall and Midnight Avenue, please, and stop embarrassing yourself.

Professional Slanderer: I swear to God, Tyler cannot stay out of a controversy for one month to save his life. Literally. Even his very own digital footprint is currently being turned into evidence against him!

Get Ratioed: Well, well, well... what goes around, must come around, eh @TylerKingstone?

Chronically Online: Niall Parker and Midnight Avenue fans be sharpening and branding their pitchforks right now whilst reading this.

Bill Withered: What a lovely day~ we’re having. The grill has been prepped. The spices are ready. All that’s left, is for Tyler’s ass to get barbecued to oblivion. What a truly, lovely day.

Ice Cold Lamar: Man, fuck this guy! We could have had ten more minutes of peak, but instead, we had to watch this idiot’s yee yee ass performance and his yee yee ass fans fight for his yee yee ass cloth!

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As the post continued to blow, with more and more people turning Tyler into the internet’s newest punching bag, Tyler’s team themselves were running helter-skelter to mitigate the bad press coming his way and subsequently his record label’s--Vinewood Records.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t really much they could do, not when several denizens on the internet were always looking for a tangible reason to rip into Tyler without mercy.

The result of all this, was a furious popstar whom had literally brought what he was facing upon himself like the fool he was and a record label that had made a single decision behind closed doors.

Sideline Tyler Kingstone and focus their resources on their other musicians with reputable public images instead for the meantime.

Little did the controversial artist know... his career was now on track to taking a nosedive from here henceforth.

The likes that would make the graph of a crypto rug pull look cute in contrast.

Advance Chapters are available on Patreon!

/Caer07