Mysterio became a sensation.
But, unsurprisingly, not in the way he had hoped.
Humans have an odd habit: they like big things, and they like things that weren't big but became big—which carries no negative implications; it is simply a fact.
For instance, have you ever considered enlarging your house cat by 20 times?
Yes, some pragmatists might think that such a cat could kill its owner with a single swipe of its paw, making it far too dangerous. But if we dismiss such hazards on a hypothetical level, who wouldn't want to pet a cat that is 20 times larger?
Most things humans find cute, funny, or beautiful are like this. We think a tree is pretty, so in the realm of elves, we imagine a World Tree that holds up the sky. We find the flight of birds aesthetically pleasing, so we enlarge them into Phoínix or a Phoenix.
From a visual standpoint, the bigger something is, the more it captures attention. People like their attention being seized in such a manner, which gives them a wonderful sense of immersion.
Emojis are the same.
There's no denying that from tiny emojis to widely used memes and stickers, one easy-to-miss fact is that the latter are a lot bigger than the former.
Bigger means more impactful, it draws the gaze, and it better expresses one's feelings, so stickers gradually replaced emojis, becoming a more joyful tool for self-expression on the internet platform.
But what if you magnified an emoji by tens of thousands of times?
Again, people are first hit by emotion before they engage in logical thinking. In the strike of emotions, the most simple and primal impacts come first, followed by the appreciation of more complex ones.
Compared to meme images, emoji expressions undoubtedly convey more straightforward emotions. When people use these icons, they don't think about the logic behind them but simply want these digital symbols to replace their own facial expressions.
And if it's free from the drawback of being too small and inconspicuous, the emotional impact it brings is much stronger than that of stickers.
That's how these two giant emojis got so popular.
Miles, being a good young man of the new era, did what all young people would do when they feel powerless over a situation: he took out his phone with the house on fire and he started snapping pictures.
The video he uploaded received millions of views within minutes, and after fermenting overnight, it topped the trending list. "New York Sky emojis" also firmly occupied the top spot in the trending searches.
Even without delving into the intricate psychological and visual theories, the mere fact that two emojis nearly the size of 40-story buildings were floating above a city was very appealing to the younger crowd because it was so damn abstract.
Now, whether it was emerging short video apps, American traditional media, or places like Moments, these two giant faces were everywhere.
They were even Photoshopped into various locations, with the classics being Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty. Then, the halo behind the Virgin Mary got replaced with a grinning face, the Moon that Apollo landed on was replaced with a grinning face, the sphere in the middle of Saturn's ring was replaced with a grinning face, and even Vin Diesel's bald head got replaced with a grinning face.
Indeed, emojis, which had gradually receded with the emergence of stickers, flared up again and were increasingly popular as everyone thoroughly enjoyed playing with this meme.
In the end, it even got to the point where if a sports star or athlete wasn't Photoshopped between the two gigantic grinning emojis, it meant he wasn't truly popular.
And the unlucky guy who was edited out was Mysterio.
It wasn't that no one investigated who the little person flying between the two giant emojis was, but Miles wanted to capture the whole of the two giant stickers in his frame, so he pulled back the camera, making Mysterio very small. It took a lot of zooming in for people to barely make out who he was.
After figuring it out, people were somewhat disappointed. So it's just a superhero, huh? And here I thought it was something special.
Mysterio's outfit was indeed quite cool, a design Beck invested a lot of time in creating, aiming to catch the eye instantly.
In fact, the design was quite successful, incorporating many attention-grabbing elements, such as the helmet that constantly shifted with mystic scenes, the retro yet suave and crisp armor, and those special effects that often surrounded him, making him stand out among the multitude of superheroes.
Iron Man's armor was shiny but lacked special effects, Doctor Strange could use magic but dressed too retro, Captain America had a shiny Shield but his uniform was visually fatiguing, and Spider Man's appearance had nothing eye-catching—in a superhero looks contest, he didn't even make the top ten.
By the way, Scarlet Witch is currently ranked first because she resembles a traffic light's red signal.
So, if all these superheroes were together, it'd be easy to notice the uniquely handsome and cool Mysterio. And when the superheroes weren't around on Earth, Mysterio's distinctiveness was even more prominent.
But alas, Shiller never played by the book.
Creating a terrifying monster at this time would be pointless, because when faced with evil and justice, people naturally choose justice; the more evil the monster, the more it highlights the hero's righteousness—exactly the effect Mysterio was looking for.
But what if the monster was purely for laughs?
Let me put it this way: If a Jerry popped out of the tunnel Andy dug in "The Shawshank Redemption," it would have to chase a mouse around the prison like Tom Cat, and if the first name on the list in "Schindler's List" was Mickey Mouse, it would have to grab a cane and join the officers in some song and dance.
That's the power of comedic characters; any literary work that touches on comedy can basically be said to have nothing to do with words like "epic," "grand," or "documentary."
Mysterio thought his approach was very advanced, but in Shiller's view, he was more like the latest generation of iPhone—only updated, not innovated. Put it next to the previous generation, and you cannot say there was no change, only that it was not obvious.
He was always trapped in the mindset of a superhero: I am a hero, I have a power, so I fight a monster. But Shiller was very clear, that's not the trend of internet evolution.
Later on, the internet would develop into: I am a hero, I have no powers, but I still have to fight a monster, and then it would become: I am a hero, I have no powers, and I don't fight monsters, and finally, it would become: I am not a hero, I have no powers, and I don't fight monsters.
The faster the flow of information, the quicker the classic scenes of traditional stories pile up, and the quicker people suffer from aesthetic fatigue. To chase traffic, the speed to break from tradition also accelerates.
In the end, it evolves into breaking traditions at every turn, which then becomes the new tradition, only to be disrupted by something else—a process that in the new internet age might only take 2-3 days.
So, as time goes on, many internet memes are already at version 5.0 or 6.0 by the time they are released, and then they evolve into 7.0 or 8.0.
If superheroes are the most traditional 1.0, then Mysterio is 3.0. If we continue to deduce in this manner, it would take hundreds or thousands of cycles of internet forgetfulness and recovery to evolve into the abstract era of superheroes and super villains doing memes.
But Shiller bypassed this process entirely, skipped the lengthy EA tests, and launched a final version directly, leading Mysterio, even though he was more advanced than the average superhero, to appear as outdated as asking "Are you a boy or a girl?" when texting in 2020.
Netizens mercilessly ridiculed Mysterio for being out of touch.
While everyone else is already flying around as emoji stickers, you're still wielding fiery dragons and ice cones. How outdated can you get?
Are they supposed to fight you? They're challenging you to a meme battle!
Even my mom and dad can send me a hammer-on-the-head emoji. Are you stuck on carrying the Bible now?
Of course, people also pointed out that Mysterio was the hero who saved the space station. Maybe he really was an alien from a space rift who didn't understand Earth's ways, so maybe we shouldn't be too harsh on him.
But it was precisely this forgiving tone of commentary that made Mysterio burn with rage. He was not an alien! He was not outdated!!!!
But in reality, Beck was indeed outdated.
Firstly, he was no longer young. He was significantly older than Peter—and the right age to settle down. In American terms, he was the type to post matrimonial ads on Facebook.
Secondly, Beck's education revealed his upper-middle-class elite background. He had always received elite education, far removed from street culture, which often is at the forefront of trends.
Moreover, his conception of the Mysterio character showed that he was a stickler for rules. He believed in a world where one thing develops from another, lacking that kind of breakthrough inspirational thinking. His logic was traceable, without the sudden whims to skip steps.
Such people are inherently not well-suited for creative work, which requires exactly this kind of leapfrog thinking. You must skip a logical step to be unpredictable or else it's all too easy to foresee the ending after seeing the beginning.
So, to sum up, Beck was a rather dull and uninteresting person. However, people like him have their strengths; their meticulous and piecemeal thinking is well suited for research, just like Peter's self-awareness. They are scientists, not artists.
Of course, even though there is an anomaly like Stark who is a scientific artist, the core strength of the scientific community still lies with researchers who possess the persona of a conventional scientist.
However, Beck did not possess the self-awareness that Peter did. He thought he could do it all—not only could he create special effects technology, he was also capable of writing the best scripts in the world, showcasing his scientific talent as well as expressing his artistic flair, leading in both areas in the eyes of the 6 billion people across the globe, making him the most unique of all.
There are many people like this in the world, but especially in the arts, the results of their dull and boring thoughts, outdated and regressive perspectives are better universally termed as utter crap.
Yet they treasure it as if it's a prize and, while indulging in their crappy creations, wonder why others can't appreciate the beauty of crap, and in the age of 5G, they sincerely ask, "Don't you guys know that China Telecom 3G is fast?"
In the office, Mysterio slammed the table and said, "Can't they see what a powerful superhero I am?!"