THE STREAMER

She's got dark circles under her eyes—a product of poor sleep, she tells me. "I used to stream starting around noon," she says. "Now I usually can't drag myself out of bed until 4:00 p.m. or so."

But, she insists, she's "rolling with it," streaming from dinnertime until shortly after the sun comes up every morning. It's worth it, she says, for her fans.

I got way bigger after the crash. Before, I was just another mid-level streamer. Sometimes I'd pull a thousand concurrent viewers. But usually it floated between 300 and 500, something like that.

I was mostly playing League of Legends, which was finally starting to taper off in 2027. My viewers weren't really there for the gameplay, though. It was all about the interaction, for them.

It was sort of like they were friends with the character I played.

You were playing a character?

Yeah, it was something a lot of streamers were doing. Just a way to add an extra layer of entertainment on things for the audience. They know you're playing a character, so you can be a bit ridiculous or over-the-top. When I streamed, I was [email protected] Very offensive, sort of gross. Not at all like my real personality. But that name and the character I built gave me room to play and be funnier than I really am.

Or, I guess, I am potentially that funny, but only when I'm in character, if that makes sense. I dunno.

The other benefit to creating a second identity like this is it's sort of a way to keep yourself psychologically safe while you're streaming. Streaming can feel very intimate. And all that intimacy makes you vulnerable. So I've always felt it was better to keep your true "self" and your streaming identity separate.

Anyway, after the crash, my numbers went way up. Way more people were staying home, and pretty quickly they made it through all the good shit on Netflix. So they'd go, "Fine, lemme check out this streaming thing." And pretty quickly they get hooked on the ability to interact with somebody who's "famous."

(THE STREAMER does scare quotes with her fingers.)

A month after the crash, I was regularly pulling ten thousand concurrent viewers. And by the end of 2027 it was up to twenty thousand.

With so many jobs disappearing, people were losing their main way to connect with other humans. A streamer like me who constantly interacts with the chat was exactly what these people needed. Or, at least, I was a halfway decent replacement. So long as you donate, I'll talk to you like you're an old friend. Even if I don't really recognize your username, I pretend I do. People really like that. It makes them feel like the connection is real.

I'll admit, though, after the crash, the vibe in my chat started feeling pretty different.

My viewers had always been bored, reclusive types. But some of the new viewers had a sort of… desperate feel about them. They weren't just bored. They were losing their shit, trying to find anything to do to keep busy.

Did you ever swap rep files with viewers?

I did, at one point. But we all stopped doing that after what happened to LittleTony69.

Tell me about that.

Little Tony was a variety streamer. He played a bunch of different games and wasn't particularly good at any of them. But he'd built up fifty thousand or so subscribers because people liked hanging out with him, and he was creative.

One night, he came up with a drinking game to play with his viewers. Basically, if viewers donated a certain large amount of money, they could send him a rep file for a cocktail, and he'd drink it.

The viewer that donated would mix it on their end, then scan it to their reps, and send the file to Little Tony. He'd download it to his rep, print out the drink they'd just mixed, and drink it live on stream. He was just sitting in his house, getting more and more drunk on stream, which is definitely breaking the terms of service of the streaming site.

One night, Little Tony, was doing, like stupid stunts and shit for his viewers, when all of the sudden this $10,000 donation came in.

Everybody in Little Tony's chat was losing it. It was the biggest single donation they'd ever seen.

Little Tony was like, "Yeah, I've seen this before, you'll just cancel the transaction later, nice try."

But no, the mysterious donor apparently paid extra to make the cash transfer instantaneous.

Little Tony pulled up his bank information on his phone and could barely believe it.

The donor sent over the file for the cocktail he wanted Little Tony to drink.

He posted his only condition in the chat: "u gotta drink it all at once."

Little Tony didn't even question it. He was just like, "Anything for you man."

He got the file onto his rep, and printed out this very nice tumbler full of a pink liquid. His last words were, "Bottoms up." He tossed his head back and dumped the contents down his throat.

He got probably 90 percent of it down before his eyes went wide and he realized something was wrong with the drink. He started coughing and grabbing his throat, then fell to the ground in convulsions. A lot of his viewers in the chat kept posting "LuL" emojis at first—they thought he was kidding around, but before too long people started realizing he was having a seizure.

A few people who knew Little Tony's address called the cops and sent someone to his house, but it was way too late. Little Tony was dead within about 30 seconds.

What was it, in the cup? Did they find out?

They never released a toxicology report. But… have you ever heard the descriptions from the survivors of the Jonestown massacre? Where the guy made them drink the cyanide?

Yep.

It looked exactly like that. Seizures, no breathing. Very fast.

After what happened with Little Tony, everybody got a lot more careful about swapping rep files with people online. Not that it mattered. The government started cracking down on online rep file transfers anyway—deleted RepDrop.com and made it a felony to go around it.

Personally, I wanted to stop streaming all together. Just didn't have the heart for it anymore. But how else was I gonna make money? I need at least enough to pay rent.

So instead of quitting altogether, I just stopped playing my character. Abandoned the storied "[email protected]" brand.

Now I'm just me.

How are your viewership numbers now?

Oh, terrible. It's just a couple hundred regular viewers now. But it's way better this way. With that few viewers, I'm able to build up actual relationships with my regulars, not just pretend ones.

They cover my financial needs for me, and I take care of their social needs when they need me.

What more do you need, really, other than food, housing, and a friend?