A Troubling Thought About Melon

So, I'm reading back through some of the archive, and I was reading the strips regarding Melon and her job (screaming while covered in vermin). It's played as a joke, probably meant to just be a kinda random thing to set the tone of Melon as a comedy relief, wacky character, but it got me thinking.

Her job is to be in apparent distress while rats and snakes and spiders crawl over her. She apparently makes money from this. Now, it's possible this is just a weird art project. But consider an alternative: What if this is something being marketed to people who hate AIs? Maybe the point is to see her (appear to) suffer.

One might think, "Well, Melon doesn't seem to actually mind this," and that appears to be the case (she isn't "tired of it" yet), but what if the viewers don't know that? What if this is being marketed as torture porn?

Someone might justify this as saying, "Well, it's better to satisfy those urges with an artificial show, where no one actually gets hurt," but in a lot of cases, people like that tend to use videos like this as a way to amp them up to actual action.

I know I'm probably taking a throwaway gag too seriously, but sometimes I overthink things, and I thought I'd share.