Grandfather's Life Support Stops Unless He Goes Viral: Nursing Home Introduces "Flaming Power Generation"

“Silence is death.” This slogan is displayed in psychedelic neon lights in the lobby of “Voltage Garden Kamagaya,” a next-generation special nursing home for the elderly opened in Chiba Prefecture. Here, the concept of a “peaceful remaining life” is a relic of the past. This is because a severe system has been adopted where residents’ life support systems are directly linked to the number of impressions on their SNS posts, and unless they continue to attract public attention, even oxygen supply is not guaranteed.

This revolutionary system, “Karma Reactor,” was developed by a startup energy company founded by a former nuisance YouTuber. It is based on a unique theory that the heat generated by human emotions, especially “anger” and “conflict,” has a power generation efficiency about 300 times that of love or empathy. Inside the facility, residents who quietly loved the beauties of nature are “shut down” one after another due to power shortages, while “flaming elderly” who repeat radical political criticism and discriminatory incitement on internet bulletin boards have good complexions thanks to overflowing surplus power.

“My grandfather used to be a gentle person who liked drinking tea on the porch,” says a 45-year-old male company employee, a family member of a resident. However, currently, his grandfather (88) wears VR goggles and posts 50 videos a day fully denying Generation Z trends using synthesized voice. “Now he says, ‘The dislike button is the light of my life,’ and spends his days in flame wars with netizens. Last month, a massive flame war caused his power generation to exceed the target, and he paid off my mortgage by mining Bitcoin with that electricity. It’s complicated, but I want him to live a long life, so I want him to flame more.”

The facility side justifies this not as a “sustainable Ubasute-yama (mountain where old people were abandoned)” but as “survival of the fittest through social influence.” There is even data that the fear that the heart-lung machine will stop if they don’t go viral activates the residents’ brains and stops the progression of dementia (although their personalities change to be extremely aggressive). Residents passing each other in the hallway are connected by a strange sense of solidarity, boasting “how many anti-comments they got yesterday” instead of greetings, and sharing the seeds of flaming by spreading each other’s posts.

However, the harmful effects are also serious. The other day, a 90-year-old woman accidentally posted a prayer message saying “May the world be at peace.” The post didn’t catch anyone’s heart, was judged as “worthless” by the algorithm, and her life support system went into save mode. A relative hurriedly hijacked the account and added “All peace-addled young people should be conscripted,” barely recovering her heart rate.

Mankind may have finally obtained a perpetual motion machine that extends life by turning hatred into energy. Currently, a purple aurora generated by the endless obsession and desire for approval of the elderly is observed in the sky above this facility. However, the light is not warm, and smells somewhat burnt.

Stakeholder Comments

• Facility Director: “Love can’t boil water, but hate can turn turbines. This is modern physics.”
• Resident A (3 years of flaming history): “Thank you to all the haters for your abuse! Thanks to you, my artificial dialysis is in top form tonight!”
• Resident B (Former Poet): “When I wrote a poem about a beautiful sunset, the voltage dropped and I almost lost consciousness. Now I’m barely surviving by writing bad things about the old man in the next room.”
• Head of Development: “The human desire to ‘be recognized by someone’ and the desire to ‘hit someone’—by annihilating these two against each other, enormous energy is created.”
• Environmental Protection Group: “We are hesitating whether to certify it as renewable energy. Because what is emitted is not CO2 but verbal abuse…”
• Grandson (University Student): “If grandma’s account gets frozen, she’ll die, so I’m desperately creating multiple accounts and flaming her posts myself. This is modern caregiving.”
• Bitcoin Miner: “The coins mined by their anger somehow tend to make the market volatile.”
• Conservative Commentator: “It’s a wonderful society where the wisdom of the elderly overflows on the net (I decide not to look at the content).”
• Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Official: “We expected it to be a solution to the pension problem, but conversely, lifespans have extended too much and it is starting to pressure finances.”
• Server Administrator: “The moment the server crashes because of too much flaming, the entire facility goes silent, which is the scariest thing.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Flaming keeps me warm, Grandfather’s fingers typing, Life connects to net.

• Haters flock today, Artificial lung spins round, Powering my breath.

• Silence brings the end, Reaper’s footsteps soft and light, Log out and goodbye.

• Viral fame attained, IV drip falls drop by drop, Winter night feels cold.

• Cursing for long life, Cherry blossoms bloom and fall, Still I stay alive.

• Notification, If the sound stops, so does heart, Electrocardiogram.

• Hatred boils the bath, Respect for the Aged Day, Warm water, cold words.

• More than likes I need, Angry faces feed me now, Source of daily bread.

• Deeper than the grave, The sea of the net awaits, I am not done yet.

• Life extension here, Sound of bones on keyboard keys, Clicking in the dark.

Kanji / Chinese Characters

承認欲求電力変換 静寂余生淘汰必至 暴言老人発電延命 仮想通貨採掘不老 激怒生存競争開始

Emoji

👴🤬📲🔥📈⚡🏥❤️‍🔥⛏️💰

Onomatopoeia

Vroom Vroom (Fan rotation sound), Ding Ding Ding! (Storm of notifications), Grrrrr (Mining machine sound), Thump… Thump… (Unstable heartbeat), Clack Clack Bam! (Furious typing), Siiiiiilence (Sound of a post flopping), Zap Zap Zap (High voltage).

SNS

• #VoltageGardenSurvivors
• My grandpa is trending again lol Saved on electricity bill lol
• Posted something peaceful and almost stopped my respirator #DarkSideOfCaregiving
• This dystopia called Flaming Power Generation goes beyond sci-fi
• One anti-comment extends lifespan by 1 minute
• Having Yakiniku now with Bitcoin mined by grandpa’s verbal abuse
• The final evolution of the approval desire monster
• Where should people go if they want to die quietly…?
• The timeline is warm today with the exhaust heat from the nursing home
• #LifeSupportByFlaming