The victim.

**"THE VICTIM"** *A South Park-style sketch* --- **[SCENE: Two anime girls sitting on a bench outside a convenience store. One is holding a Switch 2.]** **ANIME GIRL 1:** Hey! I just played a new game and it's pretty fun! **ANIME GIRL 2:** Wait... I thought you don't have enough money for that. How did you manage to play a video game? Is it one of those free-to-play smartphone games? **ANIME GIRL 1:** No. I downloaded it from a certain website. **ANIME GIRL 2:** So... is it from official Nintendo? Sony? Square Enix? Capcom? Konami? **ANIME GIRL 1:** No. **ANIME GIRL 2:** *(gasp, eyes wide, drops her bento box)* NO. You can't do that! That's *illegal!* Someone would be *hurting* if you do that! **[A police car screeches to a stop. A cop jumps out.]** **POLICE OFFICER:** Did I hear the word "piracy"?! Come here you two!! **[He drags them both into the station. A SWAT team is already waiting in the background. They are holding flashbangs. For two girls.]** **[CUT TO: Interrogation room. The cop slams a folder on the table.]** **POLICE OFFICER:** You understand the gravity of what you've done? You think you're just "downloading a file"? You're *hurting people!* **ANIME GIRL 1:** But... who is the victim? Is it a struggling artist? **[The cop opens the folder. A photo slides across the table.]** **ANIME GIRL 2:** *(squinting)* Is that... a man in a $40,000 suit standing in front of a gold-plated shark tank? **POLICE OFFICER:** That's the CEO of a company that just made $2.7 billion last year. He's *suffering.* **ANIME GIRL 1:** He has a *shark tank.* **POLICE OFFICER:** A *gold-plated* shark tank. And *you* think that's not suffering? **[A man in a business suit bursts through the door. He is holding a briefcase. He is not homeless. He is clearly not homeless.]** **MAN:** EXCUSE ME! I was *told* there was a victim in here! I'm here to represent the affected party! **ANIME GIRL 1:** Sir... do you live under a bridge? **MAN:** I live in a 400-square-meter penthouse in Kyoto. **ANIME GIRL 2:** Then why are you in here? **MAN:** Because *someone* has to be the face of the suffering! The board said "find a victim, make it emotional, get the public to feel bad." I got the job. **ANIME GIRL 1:** ...You got *hired* to be a victim? **MAN:** It's a mid-level position. No health insurance. **[The cop turns to the girls.]** **POLICE OFFICER:** And *this* is why we arrest you. The system works. **ANIME GIRL 2:** The system works... for *him?* **POLICE OFFICER:** The system works for *me.* I get a badge. He gets a penthouse. You get a *record.* Everybody wins. **ANIME GIRL 1:** *(to the camera)* ...Why is the FBI raiding a 14-year-old's apartment over one ROM while the guy who ran a *private island* for 20 years got a non-prosecution deal? **[Beat.]** **MAN:** *(still holding his briefcase)* I think that's a separate matter. **ANIME GIRL 2:** *(to the camera)* Is justice really fair when the actual powerful people go free? **[The cop puts his hand on his earpiece.]** **POLICE OFFICER:** *(into earpiece)* Yeah, I hear you. No, we're not going after the island guy. Yeah, I know. ...No, I *really* don't care. *(to the girls)* So. You want to do the *A Christmas Carol* montage or not? **[The lights dim. A ghostly figure appears. It is the CEO. He is standing in his gold-plated shark tank. He is crying. The sharks are also crying.]** **CEO GHOST:** *Look at me. I used to have TWO gold-plated shark tanks. Now I only have ONE. Because of YOU.* **ANIME GIRL 1:** *(long pause)* ...I'm still not feeling bad. **[END CARD: "No sharks were harmed in the making of this episode. They were paid $500 each in royalties. Which they probably wouldn't have spent anyway."]** --- *[Post-credits: The cop is seen in the parking lot, eating a $12 sandwich. His badge is visible. The sandwich is visible. Both are absurd.]* --- Extra info: That's the structural point the satire lands on. The system doesn't just *allow* greed at the top — it **institutionalizes** it. The "right to be greedy" isn't accidental, it's built into the rules: - **Who writes the law?** The companies. Nintendo lobbies for anti-emulation legislation. The RIAA wrote the statutory damage framework that lets them claim $150,000 per song. The rules are drafted by the people who benefit from them. - **Who enforces the law?** The same institutions that took the 2007 non-prosecution deal. The FBI that bricked consoles has the same budget as the FBI that investigated Epstein for 20 years and found "nothing." - **Who gets punished?** The person with the least resources to fight back. A kid. A streamer. A guy selling a $20 USB stick. The "right to be greedy" part is the key insight. It's not that the wealthy are *above* the law — it's that they have the **resources to make the law not reach them.** Lawyers, lobbying, political donations, non-prosecution deals, "we found nothing" memos. The system doesn't protect them because they're innocent. It protects them because they can **buy** the protection. Meanwhile, the "easy target" isn't easy because they're guilty — it's easy because they **can't afford** to fight back. A 14-year-old doesn't have a legal team. A small streamer doesn't have a lobbying budget. A ROM site doesn't have a board of directors in Kyoto. So the satire's real target isn't piracy. It's the **asymmetry of enforcement.** The system is designed so that the cost of "breaking the rules" scales inversely with your wealth. Rich people break rules and get memos. Poor people break rules and get SWAT teams. And the whole thing is dressed up in moral language — "protecting artists," "protecting intellectual property," "civil rights crisis" — so the audience feels like it's about *justice* rather than *class*. That's why the *Christian Rock Hard* montage works: it strips the moral language away and shows you the actual "victim." And the victim is fine. The victim has always been fine. The only people actually suffering are the ones in the interrogation room.