Are Memes About Memes About Memes Still Popular?

My best friend loved playing 'jokes.' On my birthday, she projected my worst photos in front of everyone, saying she just wanted to 'liven up the mood.' When I was on my period, she deliberately gave me a defective pad. Even when she saw the stain on my clothes, she said nothing–claiming she was helping me 'get more attention.' After I started dating, she edited my photos into suggestive images and spread them across social media groups, pricing them like a product. When I finally snapped and confronted her, she just laughed. "I'm just helping you test your boyfriend," she said. "If he doubts you, then he doesn't really love you. How can you blame me?" Later, a man used the information from those posts to track me down and harm me. I did not survive what followed. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first shared those images.

At one in the morning, the neighbor upstairs suddenly knocked on my door. He said there was a leak in his apartment and asked if our place had been affected. I was just about to open the door when my vision was flooded with comments. [Open the door, and you're dead! That man outside is not your neighbor!] [Didn't the old man upstairs who lived alone go to Marcasia last week to find his new love interest? There shouldn't be anyone up there at all!] I immediately pulled away from the doorknob. At that moment, an emergency notice popped up in the residential property chat. [Unit 1307 has a burst pipe with severe leakage. Property management will inspect the building's water system.] [Is anyone home in 1207? We need to check whether your ceiling is leaking. Please open the door.] Unit 1207 was my place. The comments flooded my vision again. [What kind of property management does inspections at one in the morning? They're in on it together!] [Bea, stay hidden! Your destined man will descend from the heavens to save you!] I nodded solemnly, as if I was taking them very seriously. I turned around and grabbed my climbing rope. Amid the hysterical screaming of the comments, I leapt straight off the balcony. I'm someone who got a second life. Last time around, my entire life was ruined by listening to these brain-dead comments. This time, I'd rather die from the fall than end up as a breeding machine again.

On April Fools' Day, Seth Sterling, the campus heartthrob whom I have a crush on, invites me to a karaoke lounge bar to have some fun. But when I arrive at the private room, I find out that all three of my roommates, who I'm enemies with, are there. One of my roommates is about to leave when she pauses in her tracks and turns back to look at us. "Did you guys see the words floating in the air?" The next thing we know, the lights go out in the private room. A scream rings out afterward. When the lights are back on, the roommate who has spoken up earlier is gone. "Where did she go?" I swap looks with the other two roommates quietly. Then, I stand up and pretend to look for the missing roommate when in reality, I'm trying to sneak glances at the live comments in the air. The commenters are cheering with each other. "I told you so! Someone in their dorm can see us!" "No wonder the male lead keeps flaking out on the female lead! A filthy slut who's capable of seeing the live comments must be seducing him this whole time!" "Let's kill her! That way, she won't be able to affect the lovey-dovey relationship between the leads!" Kill? Did my roommate disappear because she could see the live comments? I tremble violently at the thought. My first reaction is to open the door and get out of this place. But that's when the live comments grow more agitated. "Hang on! Someone else in this room can see us!" "We must find her!"

My roommate had a peculiar knack for pestering everyone into liking her posts on social media, all so she could collect enough likes to claim some prize or another. It was her way of life—nagging, nudging, and guilting us into clicking that little thumbs-up. One time, the campus beauty queen liked my roommate's ad for a facial mask. Not long after, she was in a horrific car accident. The vehicle caught fire, and her face suffered severe burns, leaving her disfigured beyond recognition. Meanwhile, my roommate seemed to undergo a miraculous transformation, her complexion turning porcelain fair and flawless as though she'd been kissed by the heavens. Then there was the academic prodigy, a shoe-in for graduate school, who liked her tutoring service post. Shortly after, he was exposed for academic fraud, and his once-brilliant reputation was reduced to ashes. Strangely enough, my roommate's research paper suddenly won an award, catapulting her to fame and fortune. And me? I fell into her trap too. I liked her rental agency ad, and before I knew it, my world crumbled. A scandal erupted, revealing that I was the result of a mix-up at birth. It turned out she was the long-lost child of wealth and privilege—a hidden gem cast into the rough, now reclaimed by her rightful family. As for me, I was packed off to the countryside village she had escaped from and forced into a brutal marriage with an old man. My life became a living hell, and eventually, I died there, broken and forgotten. But fate wasn't done with me yet. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day my roommate begged me to like her post in exchange for yet another prize.

At 11:00 pm, I've just locked my car and am about to walk away when rows of bright red comments appear right in front of my eyes. "Warning! Your husband, whom you're still in a 30-day cooling-off period with, wants to kidnap you! He'll take nudes of you while livestreaming the entire process before mutilating you into chunks and flushing you down the sewers!" "Well, this gold digger keeps swindling money from her husband while toying with his feelings relentlessly. Now, she even wants a portion of his assets by getting a divorce from him. Serves her right for being a target of revenge!" I'm left feeling shell-shocked. After all, I'm single as a Pringle. How the heck did I even have a husband, to begin with?

On the day the male influencer patient was discharged, he posted a tearful video accusing my chaste, principled doctor wife of sexually assaulting him. In the clip, he cowered in a corner of the hospital, trembling, his clothes disheveled. With a terrified cry of "Dr. Shelby," he abruptly cut the footage. Overnight, my wife became a monster in a white coat—public enemy number one across the internet. We begged him, again and again, to come forward and clarify the truth. Instead, he posted an injury assessment report and wept about being bullied by his doctor. My wife had no way to defend herself. She was suspended pending investigation—and in the end, she leapt from the thirtieth floor. I endured humiliation and waited for the truth to surface. When it finally did, I obtained a reexamination report that proved her innocence. But by then, no one cared about the truth anymore. And I, consumed by despair, died of cancer. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day that patient was first admitted. This time, I begged my wife to take leave—I wanted to take her away from this doomed fate. But my gentle wife wrapped her arms around me, her eyes red, and said, "Don't be afraid, honey. This time… I won't run away."