Rebirth is fine, but I get eight hundred dollars right from the start?

No one expected that this ordinary weekend would be disrupted by the upload of an animated video.

Within an hour of the video being uploaded, it had been viewed over 500,000 times.

It broke one million in three hours.

By the next morning, the data from major platforms had exploded.

The video's views surged to the top of the forum charts, with a barrage of comments so thick that the screen was obscured, filled with phrases like "Demacia," "The Three Musketeers in the Bush," and "I'm the protagonist, and I got screwed over."

A-site, Tencent Video, Youku, Tudou—it's all full of copied and derivative works.

Weibo and Tieba, as two major bases for gamers, are equally bustling.

Weibo needs no further explanation.

#LaLaLaDemacia#!

Without any promotion, a single topic managed to climb to ninth place on the trending topics list, then eighth, seventh... and by the afternoon of the next day, it had even reached fourth place.

The number of views exceeded 20 million, and the number of discussions reached over 100,000.

Two of the top three most popular posts on the LOL forum are related to "La La La Demacia".

Pinned post: "This is the most player-savvy League of Legends animation I've ever seen, bar none."

Original Poster: [Watched it three times, laughed until my stomach hurt.]

[This isn't the kind of forced, humorous laugh that tries to tickle your armpit; it's the genuine, relatable feeling of "Holy crap, this is exactly what I've encountered in ranked matches!"]

[Garen camping in the bushes, Xin Zhao poking at the backside, Pantheon using his ultimate, let them chase girls while I take the beating—every single meme hits the nail on the head. The development team must be hardcore League of Legends players; someone who doesn't understand the game simply couldn't write this kind of script.]

The thread has already garnered over 3,000 replies, with the most liked comment being: "Please release episode 4! Please update weekly! I can skip meals, but you can't stop updating!"

"I originally thought that a pro like Emperor was playing a different game than LOL, but now it seems that at least in terms of getting trolled, they are quite similar."

"So, besides forming a team, E-God has been working on animation production these past few days without any news?"

"After watching three episodes, I thought Eason Chan had installed a surveillance camera on my computer! (laughs while covering face)"

"Okay, okay, I've followed HWG's official Weibo account. When will episode 4 be released?"

"Support, support! I'll watch all of HWG's future matches, so please, please release one more episode!"

……

Regarding the explosive popularity of "La La La Demacia", Lin Shu has only one comment: it was both reasonable and unexpected.

It makes sense because this thing was a very successful LOL fan-made short film in its previous life, and it has truly withstood the test of the market.

Those memes, those jokes, those memorable scenes that bring a smile to players' faces—these weren't just lucky guesses; they were created because the development team truly understood the game and the psychology of these players.

Moreover, the release date was moved from 2011 to the end of 2012. This did not diminish its charm. On the contrary, with an extra year of game promotion and player reflection, the interesting stories reflected in the game became even more memorable. If you ask an old S1 player what the "Three Musketeers in the Bushes" and "His dad is the king, and he's a jerk" mean, he might have to think for two seconds.

But if you ask a player who experienced the ranked brawl at the end of Season 2, he'll laugh so hard he'll slap the table after watching the first episode.

What was unexpected was that Lin Shuzhen never imagined that the speed at which it would become so popular could be so rapid.

It happened so fast that he was caught off guard.

But thinking about it, it's understandable;

When the previous version of the animation was uploaded, there was no promotion, no attention, and no reposts from big influencers. It relied purely on word-of-mouth among players, one person leading another, and it slowly grew like a snowball.

Traffic is earned through perseverance, and time is measured in weeks or even months.

It took several days for the first episode to gain traction after it was uploaded, and half a month for it to start spreading within the community.

What now?

His personal account has hundreds of thousands of followers, it's featured prominently on the homepage of Duowan (a Chinese online gaming platform), and several influential figures in the industry have shared it simultaneously.

It's like the animation hasn't even been released yet, but the groundwork has already been laid out; releasing the video is like throwing a lighter into the pile of firewood.

It would be strange if it didn't explode.

But frying too quickly can also have side effects.

I should have noticed the official account of this animation later, but because the popularity and buzz were so intense, I turned my attention to it earlier.

The people at Tencent aren't stupid. With a quick look at the big data, the number of views, shares, and discussions all skyrocketed. The correlation between the keywords "lalala Demacia" and "LOL" was ridiculously high.

Moreover, they soon discovered that this was not a casual creation by an ordinary player, but rather the work of an organized, premeditated, and commercially motivated "regular army."

Lin Shu leaned back in his chair, looking at the rapidly increasing playback data on the backend, his brows furrowing slightly before relaxing.

If you noticed it in advance, then so be it.

It's only a matter of time.

……

Monday morning, Penguin Building, Shenzhen.

In a small conference room of the Interactive Entertainment Group, several people sat around a round table.

Several laptops were on the table, their screens displaying video pages and various data screenshots from "La La La Demacia".

"You've seen the data too."

Seated at the head of the table is the manager in charge of marketing for the Chinese version of League of Legends, surnamed Zhou. He is in his early forties, wears frameless glasses, and his expression is unreadable. "The total number of views across the internet has exceeded 20 million in three days, and it's still rising. The topic is trending, and it's being discussed on Tieba, NGA, and Weibo. The impact has gone beyond the scope of 'player-created content'."

He pushed a document to the center of the table: "The question now is—should we intervene in these unauthorized fan-made animations?"

The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds.

The legal representative sitting on the left spoke first, his tone cautious: "Strictly speaking, they used the character designs, background settings, lines, and skill effects from League of Legends, all of which are our copyrighted assets. Theoretically, we can demand their removal without authorization."

"Take it off the shelves?"

The colleague from the operations team on the right frowned immediately. "The whole internet is praising this animation, saying it's even more interesting than the official promotional video we made. If you take it down now, what will the players think?"

"I can already foresee the post titles on Tieba: something like 'Tencent is being shameless again' and 'They can't even tolerate player-made animations'—"

"This is very detrimental to the further promotion of our game, especially considering the identity of this animator!"

"Emperor, we all know him. He's a super genius who's ranked number one in the Chinese server and made millions in just two months through live streaming and e-commerce."

"Yes, Emperor's status is too special. He is a benchmark figure in the Chinese League of Legends server. Whether it was his 3,000-point ranked game streams or the massive amount of tutorial videos, he brought great benefits to our promotional work. If we restrict him, it will be too difficult to control public opinion..."