Life of a Marathon Streamer: Online for Three Years, Facing Isolation and Burnout (washingtonpost.com) 53
Back in 2000, Slashdot founder CmdrTaco marked the 4th anniversary of Jennifer Ringley's pioneering "JenniCam" livestream (saying "It sure beats the Netscape FishCam. It's nuts how Jenni's little cam became such a fixture on The Internet...")
But a new article in the Washington Post remembers how "Once, Ringley looked directly into the camera and held a note in front of her eye. It read: 'I FEEL SO LONELY.'" By 2003, Ringley had shut down the site and disappeared. She began declining interview requests, saying she was enjoying her privacy; her absence on social media continues to this day.
"But by then, the human zoo was everywhere," they write including "social media, where everyone could become a character in their own show." In 2007 Justin Kan launched Justin.TV, which eventually became Twitch, "a thrumming online city for anyone wanting to, as its slogan said, 'waste time watching other people waste time.'"
But the article also notes 2023 stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey that found Americans"were spending far less time socializing than they had 20 years ago — especially 18-to-29-year-olds, who were spending two more hours a day alone." So how did this play out for the next generation of livestreaming influencers? Here's the origin story of "a lonely young woman in Texas" who's "streamed every second of her life for three years and counting." One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: "Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. ... This could be helpful." In her first stream, on a Friday night, she played 3½ hours of "World of Warcraft" for her zero followers.
Eight years later... Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life... On the live-streaming service Twitch, one of the world's most popular platforms, Emily is a legendary figure. For three years, she has ceaselessly broadcast her life — every birthday and holiday, every sickness and sleepless night, almost all of it alone. Her commitment has made her a model for success in the new internet economy, where authenticity and endurance are highly prized. It's also made her a good amount of money: $5.99 a month from thousands of subscribers each, plus donations and tips — minus Twitch's 30-to-40 percent cut.
But to get there, Emily, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name be withheld due to concerns of harassment, has devoted herself to a solitary life of almost constant stimulation. For three years, she has taken no sick days, gone on no vacations, declined every wedding invitation, had no sex. She has broadcast and self-narrated a thousand days of sleeping, driving and crying, lugging her camera backpack through the grocery store, talking through a screen to strangers she'll never meet. Her goal is to buy a house and get married by the age of 30, but she's 28 and says she's too busy to have a boyfriend. Her last date was seven years ago... But no one tells streamers when to record or when to stop. There are no labor codes, performance limits or regulations to keep the platforms from setting incentives impossibly high. Many streamers figure out the optimal strategy themselves: The more you share, the more successful you can be....
Though some Twitch stars are millionaires, most scramble to get by, buffeted by the vagaries of audience attention. Emily's paid-subscription count, which peaked last year at 22,000, has since slumped to around 6,000, dropping her base income to about $5,000 a month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Streams Charts... Sometimes Emily dreads waking up and clocking into the reality show that is her life. She knows staring at screens all night is unhealthy, and when she feels too depressed to stream, she'll stay in bed for hours while her viewers watch. But she worries that taking a break would be "career suicide," as she called it. Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn't have enough fun...
She said she "used to show true sadness on stream" but doesn't anymore because it makes viewers uncomfortable. When she hits a breaking point now, she said, she closes herself in the bathroom.
But a new article in the Washington Post remembers how "Once, Ringley looked directly into the camera and held a note in front of her eye. It read: 'I FEEL SO LONELY.'" By 2003, Ringley had shut down the site and disappeared. She began declining interview requests, saying she was enjoying her privacy; her absence on social media continues to this day.
"But by then, the human zoo was everywhere," they write including "social media, where everyone could become a character in their own show." In 2007 Justin Kan launched Justin.TV, which eventually became Twitch, "a thrumming online city for anyone wanting to, as its slogan said, 'waste time watching other people waste time.'"
But the article also notes 2023 stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey that found Americans"were spending far less time socializing than they had 20 years ago — especially 18-to-29-year-olds, who were spending two more hours a day alone." So how did this play out for the next generation of livestreaming influencers? Here's the origin story of "a lonely young woman in Texas" who's "streamed every second of her life for three years and counting." One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: "Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. ... This could be helpful." In her first stream, on a Friday night, she played 3½ hours of "World of Warcraft" for her zero followers.
Eight years later... Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life... On the live-streaming service Twitch, one of the world's most popular platforms, Emily is a legendary figure. For three years, she has ceaselessly broadcast her life — every birthday and holiday, every sickness and sleepless night, almost all of it alone. Her commitment has made her a model for success in the new internet economy, where authenticity and endurance are highly prized. It's also made her a good amount of money: $5.99 a month from thousands of subscribers each, plus donations and tips — minus Twitch's 30-to-40 percent cut.
But to get there, Emily, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name be withheld due to concerns of harassment, has devoted herself to a solitary life of almost constant stimulation. For three years, she has taken no sick days, gone on no vacations, declined every wedding invitation, had no sex. She has broadcast and self-narrated a thousand days of sleeping, driving and crying, lugging her camera backpack through the grocery store, talking through a screen to strangers she'll never meet. Her goal is to buy a house and get married by the age of 30, but she's 28 and says she's too busy to have a boyfriend. Her last date was seven years ago... But no one tells streamers when to record or when to stop. There are no labor codes, performance limits or regulations to keep the platforms from setting incentives impossibly high. Many streamers figure out the optimal strategy themselves: The more you share, the more successful you can be....
Though some Twitch stars are millionaires, most scramble to get by, buffeted by the vagaries of audience attention. Emily's paid-subscription count, which peaked last year at 22,000, has since slumped to around 6,000, dropping her base income to about $5,000 a month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Streams Charts... Sometimes Emily dreads waking up and clocking into the reality show that is her life. She knows staring at screens all night is unhealthy, and when she feels too depressed to stream, she'll stay in bed for hours while her viewers watch. But she worries that taking a break would be "career suicide," as she called it. Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn't have enough fun...
She said she "used to show true sadness on stream" but doesn't anymore because it makes viewers uncomfortable. When she hits a breaking point now, she said, she closes herself in the bathroom.
Sometimes, it's easier to just.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes, it's easier to just.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a real job.
Pretty much this. Every so often we get a "heavy is the head that wears the crown" story about someone finding their internet fame to be too stressful and I really have a hard time feeling any sympathy over it. The option to step back and just let someone else have the limelight was always there.
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That doesn't make any sense in context of this conversation. "The rich" already have jobs if they want them, and seem quite content with their lot in life. Unlike this perpetual streamer.
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That doesn't make any sense in context of this conversation. "The rich" already have jobs if they want them, and seem quite content with their lot in life. Unlike this perpetual streamer.
A lot of people who do online "influencing" end up burning out. Youtube is full of them.
Some of the channels I watch, like Sabina Hossenfelder or I Do Cars or Jenning's Motor Sports or various woodworking channels - I can see the person starting to stretch themselves to find content. They become bored, People watching can become bored.
But seriously, Emily's twitch stream sounds about as lame as can be. And she makes 5 grand a month at it?
Re: Sometimes, it's easier to just.... (Score:2)
I find Sabinaâ(TM)s channel very informative, interesting, and frequently humourous. She also speaks at a level closer to my comfort zoneâ¦not quite PhD level, but also not rehashing the basics over and over.
I wish her success, but also wonder about âthe grindâ(TM) . Whereas before a new video would be a mandatory watch, now that they are more numerous and itâ(TM)s sometimes like âoewell itâ(TM)s Wednesday need to create content , letâ(TM)s find a ridiculous
Re:Sometimes, it's easier to just.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fame is a difficult thing no matter where it comes from.
It also exposes mental illness which may lie dormant until stressed appropriately.
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Fame is a difficult thing no matter where it comes from.
It also exposes mental illness which may lie dormant until stressed appropriately.
Fame and money. If Michael Jackson had been an average schmo, he would have been in jail, not looking like an accident victim with failed plastic surgery, and many less kiddies diddled.
Howard Hughes, managed to not be committed even though he had serious issues.
In the present day, we can see that Elmo might be heading down the same path.
I sympathize (Score:2)
I used to have a "real job" up until the 2008 financial crisis and, when I suddenly found myself unemployed, I decided to start making content to share in my spare time. It gradually took off and I realized that it was becoming my "next job". It grew over the following months, i
Re: I sympathize (Score:2)
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Most people don't subscribe so unless you're continuously cranking out new videos YouTube will decide you're dead in the water and stop recommending your content to your viewers and you just disappear. The algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away.
Innuendo studios is a pretty big left wing YouTube channel that covered a whole slew of interesting talking
Re:Sometimes, it's easier to just.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think something just gets lost when a YouTube content creator stops doing it for the love of what they're doing and turns their channel into a content mill money machine. My favorite creators I follow might put out a new video every month or so, if even that, in their spare time. They don't care about subscriber numbers, engagement, or the algorithm. If I want to watch heavily funded crap intended to turn a profit, that's what Hollywood is for.
I certainly do realize that I'm probably the odd one out here. Some folks clearly do love their internet celebs, otherwise MrBeast and his ilk would be flipping burgers. At any rate, YouTube is entirely what you make of it. You absolutely still can have a completely DGAF attitude if you make your content on a shoestring budget and have the self-discipline to not let content creation consume your life. You're just not going to make any money at it.
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Could be the guy's viewership fell off because he was riding a dying horse. Sucks that he had back problems, but if you found his videos interesting, odds are good they were pretty awful (or just horribly biased, or both).
Probably not easy, but it is obvious (Score:3)
There's a big psychological barrier to your very rational suggestion. People who are creating their own business and brand can get a lot of their own self-worth tied up into the endeavor. Being successful at creating media and selling your brand and investing pretty much all your free time into your business is quite a head trip. And when that doesn't pan out the way you imagined, or your run out of the will to sustain it, then everything hits like a ton of bricks. It's very de-motivating to have to walk aw
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She's being paid to do what she does and lives off the income she provides. Objectively she has a real job: she works in the entertainment industry. You just don't like her content.
Lousy boyfriend (Score:3)
N/t
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Maybe.
But honestly if I had a gf who was wasting away at CVS doing nothing with her life, I'd take her out on dates or shag her rotten at home instead of trying to push her onto Twitch. Dude is 99.999% likely not to be in the picture anymore since big Twitch streamers are only rarely allowed to have boyfriends if they're women. The armies of simps won't allow it.
Who knows who the guy really was or if the statement is completely true, but if he's like any number of other dudes aged 20-30 these days, he was
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Oh please, she chooses to do this. Her income easily covers the bills (assuming the numbers are real).
$5,000 a month before taxes easily covers the bills?
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6000 subscribers at $5.99 per month minus 40% = $21,564. Gross, per month. Is the subscription fee now less than $5.99? Or is Streams Charts
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The value of a sub depedn where they are from. Different regions are charged different price for a sub. And whatever price they charge, the streamer gets a cut of that. At this point, I think the streamer the article is about should get 70% of the sub.
Subs are $5.99 in the US; but they are $1.49 in Pakistan, and about $3 in Mexico for instance. So depending wher ethe people are from, the payouts would be different.
Also, Twitch is an Amazon business and they give Prime subscribers a free Twitch sub. I am pre
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Ok, so assume that every subscriber is from Pakistan. $1.49 * 5000 = $8,940. If Twitch takes 40% she gets $5,364. Not counting ads, or gifts or anything else. If you swap that to Mexico, which seems like a fairer average, that goes to over $10k a month. Her current total of active subscribers is 5,929.
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You do realize the subject is someone who dug themselves into some internet fame hole due to likely suffering from some sort of psychological issues, not "late stage capitalism".
There's a remote possibility that this was a result of our miserably bad for-profit healthcare industry, but it's a real stretch to say the economy has gotten bad to the point that the only thing left for people to do is broadcasting their lives online. Plus, that's actually not even a particularly profitable activity. The market i
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When I point out the technological unemployment is a huge problem and has been for decades everyone accuses me of wanting to set fire to the machines. Absolutely no other solution to the problem of technological unemployment can be considered. Everyone just assumes I'm a Luddite because I'm pointing out the problem. And then I get a raft of thought terminating cliches thrown at me about buggy whips or whatever to shut down any conversation.
Well, generally people are not very smart. This is just a nice instance of that. And, worse, when people fear something (like, say, an UBI or unemployment), they get significantly dumber. This essentially fillows the pathern of "Fear is the mind-killer ...". Hence, yes, technology now has productificy levels that "work" as wealth distributor has stopped working and there is not enough work left to allow everynody to live reasonably well. At the same time, extreme wealth disparity, as can be observed for exa
Going all in (Score:3)
Betting everything on one plan means you become dependent on everyone else involved in keeping that plan going. Not all of them have your best interests in mind, and others are actively looking to exploit anyone and everyone.
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And I have to imagine it's not just ab
And that's they didn't released marathon yet (Score:2)
Imagine when they do
I'll let you watch me scratch my ass and fart (Score:2)
I have a question (Score:2)
Who are these people? I have never heard of any of them so I am presuming they aren't important.
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The world is pretty fucking big, my friend, and you are not the center of it.
Whether YOU have heard of any of them or not is irrelevant.
There are a fuckton of people in the world who never heard of the Pope. Does that make the Pope "not important"?
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Can't argue with that :)
JenniCam (Score:2, Funny)
I presume that the website from the article ( https://www.jennicam.org/ [jennicam.org] ) used to be different back in the year 2000?
Never heard of her. (Score:3)
Watched Twitch since the early days.
Also, Twitch has a 48 hour limit, so their is time not streamed.
Marathon (Score:2)
So I'm reading this and thinking: "Somebody is streaming Marathon [wikipedia.org]?" I might watch a bit of that...
Whatever became of LtCorbis :o (Score:2)
Food for thought... (Score:2)
Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn't have enough fun...
What the actual hell. Seriously, in what ring of Dante's Inferno is this. I think it's time to wind down the social media experiment. It is failing us as humans. If there are parts truly worth saving, we can bring them back. Humanely. But there is too much money in turning social isolation into streams of revenue to stop unless collectively, we turn off the taps.
Re: Food for thought... (Score:2)
Those critics have sad little lives and need someone else to appear to be having fun so they can have hope.
TPTB want this to continue as long as possible because anyone like that is too pathetic to resist abuse.
Episode (Score:1)
Literally an episode from Black Mirror. Quite sad and I hope she finds something more fulfilling to do.
Well, Al Gore (Score:2)
Life follows fantasy (Score:2)
YouTube needs to open source it's algorithm like X (Score:1)
YouTube has the stupidest algorithm, there's tons of videos since 5 years on YT itself by famous creators on how badly it is affecting everyone.
They need to first open source the reco algorithm like x.com and then offer multiple algorithms / options so people can choose.
All I want is a chronological listing when I search rather than the brain dead 8 years ago next to 8 minutes ago videos
Oh boohoo.. (Score:2)
Just another story about a public performer (Score:2)
These stories don't phase me. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to pull back and reveal what's behind the curtain: Lots of people suffer isolation and burnout and depression. These cases are not limited to only public performers. At least this public performer is making some bank in the process. Here's to hoping she comes to the realization that she can't continue this lifestyle forever, dials back on the streaming, and uses some of those gains to get some help with her mental struggles.
Meanwhile, if you c
Sounds like hell (Score:2)
Fascinating what some people are willing to do to themselves...