SEATTLE—A federal courtroom erupted yesterday during a high-stakes antitrust hearing as a leaked transcript exposed the deep panic behind the recent Ed Sheeran controversy. Legal counsel grilled industry insiders about the British singer's near-cancellation of his massive stadium tour. The questioning quickly devolved from a simple inquiry about ticket sales into a sweeping confession. Witnesses detailed how the global music economy relies on a delicate web of mutual pop-star agreements. The official transcript reveals how close the entire live entertainment industry came to total collapse.
The Court of Eastern Washington
Case No. 442-SHEERAN
Q: Please state your name and occupation for the record.
A: Lucinda Okonkwo-Bright, Director of Forward-Looking Regret at Meta.
Q: Ms. Okonkwo-Bright, why did the Ed Sheeran controversy cause such immediate panic at your firm?
A: When Ed felt abandoned after the Macklemore incident, our algorithms lost their anchor. We design social feeds to balance extreme earnestness with thrift-shop nostalgia. If Ed pulls his Ed Sheeran tour, the acoustic-loop-pedal economy collapses entirely.
Q: Are you saying one man’s feelings control the market?
A: I am saying the entire global supply of sensitive-guy-with-guitar music is centralized. We have three artists holding up that entire market. If Ed stops, millions of wedding DJs have nothing to play. They would have to play actual folk music. It would be a bloodbath.
Q: Let’s talk about the Philadelphia concert. The artist claims he only continued after seeing fans holding tickets. Is that true?
A: No. We manufactured those fans. We used Meta AI to generate eighty thousand polite, beige-wearing avatars. We had to. Real humans were too confused by the shifting alliances of mid-tier radio pop.
Q: So the entire Ed Sheeran controversy was a manufactured crisis to protect ticket margins?
A: It is bigger than that. We protect the illusion of consensus. If people realize they do not actually like loop pedals, the Spotify servers will default to silence. We also pay off Macklemore to stay in the Pacific Northwest. If he wanders too far east, the vibe shift ruins the autumn sweater sales.
Q: Who else is involved in this conspiracy?
A: Everyone. Taylor. Coldplay. The guy from Train. We all sign the pledge. We agree to pretend we are still in 2014. If the timeline advances, we all lose our publishing rights.
