Smooshi-GraySimp 👁️I LOVE GYMRats starrPatrol

(Yep, I'm back with some lore theory bullshit absolutely NO ONE asked for; this one has been sitting in my drafts for about a month lol)

Personally for me, I don’t believe Starr Corp sees themselves as an evil company, nor as a company devoured by greed that exploits and dehumanises its employees.

It is apparent it prides itself on fostering happiness for the children and adults who step into Starr Park, their magnum opus. Happiness, that; constant joy, this. Yes, yes, we heard that to death in the classic Starr Park era. It felt very directed to the visitors rather than the employees, though, which resulted in strikes and organisations like S.P.U.D.E.

But it also got me thinking: this might actually be more directed to the employees, rather than the guests. It seems many employees are hired to Starr Park to fill a void within themselves (Najia), find their community after loneliness (Ollie), or to escape a forced persona/high expectations (Kaze). It’s that pattern of dissatisfaction with their old lives for the supposed utopia Starr Park provides. And they all went there VOLUNTARILY, on their own accord. It is almost as if Starr Corp is communicating to them, “Come here to become your true self and never go back.” So when they force this constant happiness, it is some twisted reminder that all really is well here; that is so much better than wherever they came from. I don't want to use the phrase "targeting vulnerable people", but from the backstories we DO have, this pattern does seem to apply. It's either a coincidence, or maybe Starr Corp really does employ people like this. They are saving them, giving them a new life to pursue their real dreams and become their true selves.

Except they don’t become their true selves. Brawlers are almost caricatures of themselves. But they are happy and safe now, so what?

So organisations like SPUDE could come as some big betrayal to them. I love LOVE The Truman Show, so I always imagined the Starr Corp CEO as not some pure evil mastermind but more as Christof from the film (GO WATCH IT!!). Christof claims that he keeps Truman on Seahaven Island to protect him, that the world outside is cruel and full of lies, that in his world, he has nothing to fear. Obviously, this is manipulation, but if you actually watch The Truman Show critically, Christof's words do have some merit. Seahaven Island IS perfect; no drama, no issues, the world is crafted for Truman himself so he never has to suffer (that was until the end, when he goes off to escape and the producers are forced to capture him with dangerous prop storms).

The CEO might work with the same principle; Starr Park was designed to hold all who were struggling in a safe place without danger (proper danger at least; brawling is assumed to be a sport). Sure, you get some cheap labour out of it, but you cannot deny that people at least aren't a little more fulfilled here, and that they have no reason to be mad about it. I think this is why I found Najia's ad so memorable (also my goat Taika Waititi); she starts to feel like she wants to leave Pyramind Quest, maybe even Starr Park as a whole, but she remembers how unfulfilled she was before; she has found happiness in her prison, and that accidental analogy is honestly a bit horrifying lol.

Starr Corp builds itself on successes like this. That, I think, is much more malicious than a company that is aware of its misdeeds, is one that thinks of itself as doing the right thing.

But what about the ones where the novelty wears off? Where they begin to notice the cracks in the walls and the crimes of Starr Corp? Organisations like SPUDE and WKBRL, ones mostly run by the older employees? Make them less relevant! Bring in other people to overshadow them and render them useless. It's not that Starr Park has a shitton of employees; it's that some of them are being replaced and having the public attention shifted away from them. The ratio of happy employees to unhappy employees stays up, and those ungrateful ones are rendered as outliers rather than the truthful norm. (Okay, i kind of bullshitted this part lol)