Chapter 87 87: Hype

[3rd POV] The first episode of Leo's documentary was a great success. It lived up to the hype of the lion, whom almost everyone in the world was familiar with. Leo, the lion, was not a new name for most of the population of the world. He was a known beast whose achievements had been discussed on the internet on whether it was a myth or real. His images had once shocked the internet, and his story was like an exaggerated tale your grandfather used to tell you when you were a child. The researchers neither confirmed nor denied any of the unbelievable things that people said about Leo. In such a scenario, the documentary presented itself as a way for people to finally witness the truth and also know in detail the story and the life of this huge modern lion whom they were familiar with but never knew. The first episode alone had broken records upon its release due to the initial hype and expectation. It lived up to everything the viewers could hope for and people initially believed that it would be hard to cross that. Wrong. Becuase upon the release of the second episode, the viewership and the attention that the documentary gained skyrocketed to unbelievable heights. The people who had no interest in this tailless lion found themselves being forced to consume its content. The reason behind such an explosion of fame? It was the kingsarchive.com. A website that holds countless videos, images, articles, research papers, etc, that the researchers who followed Leo had accumulated over half a year. The content only stretched until the timeline that the documentary had covered, and more would be posted upon the release of the third episode. But the contents available on the website so far alone were massive. It just went to show just how eventful Leo's life truly was under the guise of brief mentions and summaries. It was already such an interesting tale from a long shot, but upon a closer look, everything was mindblowing. And this time, it was not the writers or the podcasters who reaped the benefit. The video editors on the internet were having a field day. Or it would be more correct to say they had a field week. The website was a treasure trove for these types of content creators. They knew that almost all the viewers would not be able to sit through the mundane videos and daily life documentation of a lion. So they created small clips or edits that covered the interesting bits of this content, making it more suitable for the average person. Editors who sit through hours upon hours of influencers' life streaming in hopes of being the first to clip an interesting part of the stream found themselves with a great opportunity for content on Leo's life. The first person did it, and it went viral. The second and third person clipped another, and that also went viral. Soon enough, hundreds, no thousands, of people who created this kind of content found themselves working on Leo content. Since Leo was trending at the moment, every interesting clip was sure to go viral. And this only feeds into the trend, further repeating this endless cycle until the whole internet is dominated by them. Like the time when Squid Game first became popular. It was simply everywhere. If someone is on the internet, they have to know Leo. They had to have seen one of his clips or at least know some portion of his story. Willingly or not, you just had to know. It was part of the current world now. Examples of these clips, which are not shown on the documentary or those that are not covered in the story are : ... Leo bullied a fellow predator in the savannah. A leopard had just had a successful kill and it was sitting on top of a tree with a dead antelope. Leo could be seen standing below the tree and watching the leopard. The lion was only watching, seemingly unable to do anything, when the leopard was so high in the tree. The leopard seemed to think this as well. It began eating its meal on the tree even though Leo was watching. A few minutes later, Leo exploded out. He shot up the tree in an unbelievable show of athleticism considering his size. He was like a bobcat and not a lion. He jumped high and then slapped the leopard right off the branch along with the antelope. After that, Leo chased the leopard away, leaving the dead antelope for himself. But after that happened, Leo did not eat the prey; he only took small snippets here and there before he left the rest for the vultures to finish. He was being a bully for absolutely no reason. It almost looked like he had a personal bone to pick with leopards in general, considering there were multiple examples of him terrorising them, sometimes even fighting and killing them. .... Another clip showed Leo lying in the shade of a tree near the watering hole. His eyes were wide open and scanning his surroundings. Then the water exploded, and a crocodile snapped at an impala. It was a normal day in the watering hole of the savannah. An unfortunate prey had become a victim when it was only trying to quench its thirst. Even water had a cost and risk in the wild. But as the video went on, it was clear that the event was a bit different from the rest. The impala had a small calf beside her that refused to run even when every other animal had long fled the scene. The mother impala struggled fiercely but to no avail. The small calf went into the water and tried to hit the crocodile. The small animal wailed and made a helpless sound as if begging for the crocodile to let go of its mother. Maybe it did beg. Because right then, Leo made a move. He burst forth in a blur and he ran along the edges of the watering hole before he reached the crocodile and the impala in only a few seconds. And then, a great splash of water and smoke rose as Leo kicked up dust in his wake. A few seconds later, the mother impala ran out from the chaos, followed by her young calf. The water continued splashing as the crocodile attacked Leo for interrupting its hunt. Big mistake. The crocodile nearly became the one that drowned in the water before it swam away after a few futile struggles and a close call. Leo nearly had its skull more than a few times. After that, Leo walked out of the water. His wet mane looked like a royal cloak around him. The logical conclusion was that Leo tried to steal the prey of the crocodile and that gave a chance for the impala to escape in the end. But for those with hopeful minds and hearts, it looked like Leo just saved the mother impala. .... Another clip showcased Leo fighting against a small clan of hyenas. From the contents on the kingsarchive.com alone, it became evident that Leo had a huge beef with hyenas in general. The lion found the most ridiculous way to bully the poor scavengers and would never let go of the chance to beat some of them. The clips of these were plentiful, prompting editors to count how many hyenas Leo killed in half a year. The result was 74 hyenas in six months. It was not too surprising that a lion had beef with a hyena, as that was almost instinctual. But Leo's hate seemed very personal. This unique character trait of Leo blew up, and soon, many memes followed. Memes that compared Leo to a rejected painter from Austria. Or memes that edited Leo as Tobirama and the hyenas as Uchiha. It was not only the clips of videos but the growing community and fans that helped in the popularity of Leo. .... The next clip showed a fun video compared to the others, where it was just Leo being a menace to the ecosystem. It was a breath of fresh air for the people. The clip was a well-edited video of Leo trying to eat a porcupine in the savannah. There was literally no reason for the lion to want to eat the spiky little rodent other than just because. Leo was holding a big stick with his mouth and poking the porcupine. Sometimes, he tried beating the rodent with the stick but to no avail. Some people commented that Leo looked like a human trying to move a worm. When the porcupine was agitated, it would charge straight at Leo with its spines facing him, and Leo would back away comically. It was hilarious to see the super beast lion taking his first L from a porcupine. In the end, though, Leo managed to kill and eat the porcupine, but at the cost of getting stabbed in many places. A funny meme also emerged from this. It was a close-up shot of Leo chewing on the meat of the porcupine with a straight face. Then a vulture asked, 'Was it worth it?' The image zoomed out to reveal Leo with many porcupine needles around his entire body. He said with a straight face, 'Yes' The image also had alternate versions where Leo said, 'Still better than going vegan,' or where he said, 'It's about sending a message'. ... Leo was quickly becoming an internet icon. There was the funny side, the meme side, the serious side, the dark side, and the scientific side if you were a fan of Leo. Everyone had a pace they belonged to. After a week had passed, the release of the third episode was approaching fast, and people were more excited than ever. On the day of the release, multiple websites crashed merely from the people waiting for the episode to air. For a long time, the only thing that viewers could see was the title of the episode but that was enough to get their blood boiling. .. Documentary Episode 3 : The New King!! .. .. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------