The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

[IS this for real? Astrid Townsend really entered the top 100 of <Star List> on his first try? Wow! Is the entertainment industry okay?]

[How can a kid who just debuted three months ago enter the top 100? It just doesn't make sense. Unless there are some shady things happening in the background.]

[There's definitely something shady here. I can understand if he's in the top 300. But quickly jumping to the top 100? Just make it make sense.]

[Did Polaris bribe members of ESRA for them to give a rookie such a high rank?]

ESRA, short for Empire Star Rank Association, was an organization made up of members from different sectors of the entertainment industry. Like film directors, fashion magazine editors, mostly people working behind the scenes.

Members of ESRA could be counted to thousands. As long as one was working or had some sort of connection to the industry, they had the qualification to be members of ESRA.

So, how did an organization with thousands of members decided who would be on the [Star List]? Every quarter, 100 members would be chosen through random lottery. The random selection was to ensure that there wouldn't be any bias and that absolute fairness would be exercised.

These 100 members would then pick 500 celebrities and evaluate them based on certain criteria. Like overall popularity, the works they had done for the past three months, and a lot of other things combined together. Even one's reputation was also taken into account.

This intensive selection would last for a week. By the end of it, 500 names of celebrities would be posted on ESRA's official account.

And the latest [Star List] had just been posted a week ago.

The most controversial had been Astrid's ranking.

Comments like the ones before were the most common. In fact, those comments were already the tamest. The rest were just hate comments so low, one would think if it came out of the gutter.

There were those saying that he slept with some high-ranking noble and that noble was sponsoring him. Some also said that he was whoring himself to important figures in the entertainment industry. That's why he could get so many opportunities, even though he was only a rookie. #BoycottAstrid, #DirtyESRA, #UnfairStarList, even trended in [Cyberspace] for about an hour. Not to mention the private messages he received in [Cyberspace] telling him to kill himself.

If he didn't have a strong mentality, he really would have been affected.

But Astrid had already expected this kind of reaction to some extent. When he told Ellis before that he wanted to be on the top 100 on his first [Star List], he knew the reaction of the people once it really happened wouldn't be all positive.

Most humans were inherently jealous in nature. When they saw a young, successful person accomplishing things they couldn't accomplish at that age, the first thing they would feel was not admiration, but envy. And this envy would lead to them questioning that accomplishment, which would then slowly escalate to something extreme. Like death threats, for one.

Of course, he's not saying that everyone was like that. His fans were genuinely happy for him. Those fans even started to trend #CongratulationsOurStarAstrid and #top100Astrid on [Cyberspace] just to drown all the negative comments.

Because of this situation, his number of followers reverted back to 10 million. But that didn't matter much to Astrid. With this, he was confident that those who stayed were truly his fans. It's a good way to have a fandom cleanse. Now, his core fans would be much stronger than before.

Besides his fans, there was also the unwavering support of his friends and family.

His parents didn't know much about how important the [Star List] was, but they still put a 50% discount on all the products on their farm for three days. He didn't tell them that there's no need since that much wouldn't bankrupt their farm. Besides, it's their way of showing support, so how could he stop them?

But when the hate comments started to bombard Astrid, he had to stop his parents from doing anything reckless. Seriously, if he didn't, he had a feeling the two would really wage war against everyone who said anything vile against him.

The other one, who had a very strong reaction to the hate comments, was none other than Wulfric. The other had been fighting against haters and trollers for the past week. Astrid wondered where Wulfric could even find the time to do that. But he did. Not only that, he was even scolding Polaris for not doing their job and protecting me properly.

Astrid believed that, if it wouldn't be over the top, Wulfric would have already sent everyone who had ever posted anything disgusting about him to prison. Knowing the other, he probably had already considered doing so. Maybe his rational lieutenant stopped from doing just that.

Wulfric could be adorable that way. Just thinking of all the interesting comments he made this past week could easily put a smile on Astrid's lips.

"Astrid?" Ellis' call pulled back Astrid's thoughts to the present.

"I turned off my message notification on [Cyberspace], so I don't know," he said in response to Ellis' question earlier.

Ellis sighed in relief. "That's good. Don't worry, Polaris will soon post a notice in response to all this. It will be a joint statement together with ESRA. The meeting between the two regarding how to deal with this situation took quite a while. That's why this statement could only be posted now. I'm sorry if it's a bit too late."

"It's fine, Sister Ellis," Astrid said, assuring the other.

He really didn't care if it took a week for that. Because he knew that Polaris would not neglect him. It probably took this long because they had to make sure it would be fool-proof.

"On a good note, remember how the company made a poll on the official site, as well on [Cyberspace]'s official account, about your fandom name?" Ellis asked, changing the subject. "Well, the voting is now over and one name won by a landslide."