The Stream Atmosphere Matters Too

She didn't answer. Maybe she was still sorting through her thoughts.

I'd tried to keep my tone as gentle as I could, figuring her mental game was on the soft side — maybe I'd just crushed her spirit. Or maybe she'd slammed into a problem so fundamental she was sitting there dazed, with no concrete fix in sight, and had simply frozen.

"For now, keep watching how they move. Don't try to act first. Think of it as reacting once they commit."

"...Okay!"

Was that even an answer that meant she understood? There was a strangely buoyant note in her voice, and I couldn't pin down what sat underneath it. Having to read a student's feelings on top of everything else — teaching really was hard.

I sheathed the knife I'd been holding and rolled my shoulders loose.

Today's stream might run long.

For something I'd thrown together on the fly, the reaction seemed pretty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decent.

I could gauge how the stream had landed just by looking at my board. Most of the comments were people saying they wanted lessons too. At that volume, I had to count it as high praise.

I was curious myself. A week from now, or a month — how much could someone who'd learned even a little actually improve? I didn't expect some dramatic transformation, but even climbing a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rank would be something.

I'd agreed to do another collab stream with Amber. The reaction had been enormous. I couldn't figure out why everyone was making such a fuss over it.

Managing a chat that exploded in real time was work in itself.

Still, it had felt like a pretty decent way to close things out.

The real problem wasn't any of that.

How should I put it.

Trolls. Toxic users. If I stretched it a little, a plague — a contagious virus. Anyway, the number of people fouling up the chat had ballooned. It wasn't just that I had more viewers; the ratio itself felt like it had gone up. Had someone dropped raid coordinates?

Today had been especially bad. Was it because I'd been so conscious of the chat the whole time? No — when I watched the VODs of earlier streams, it hadn't been this severe.

It felt like some malignant epidemic had broken out on my stream.

The moment one person started stirring the pot, they overran the chat like a zombie virus.

Even a zombie virus wouldn't spread this fast.

This wasn't something I could solve by ignoring it and looking away. When too many people muddy the water, the whole river's ecosystem dies. In that sense, calling it a plague might actually be accurate.

Worse, it wasn't happening only on my stream. From what I'd heard, the trolls hadn't stopped at mine — they'd spilled over into Amber's stream, the one we were collabing on.

Her speech is clumsy. Her voice is pathetic. Is this even a streamer. Raw, personal abuse like that. Setting aside whether any of it was true, who wouldn't get hurt hearing those things?

I had told her not to look at chat. Anyone who read that stuff would obviously have their mental snap. But deciding not to look and actually not looking were two different things. Going by the conversation we'd had after the stream ended, she seemed okay, which was a relief.

I'd even wondered whether I should just stop halfway through.

At this rate, regular series or not, I'd be better off not doing it at all.

I'd known from the start that once a stream ballooned this fast, this kind of thing was unavoidable. Aggro wasn't unique to internet broadcasting — it applied to every field that lived off public attention. In a way, you could even call it a badge of success.

Which was another way of saying it was a yoke you couldn't slip. Becoming someone people watched meant the weight of existing got heavier.

Even a single throwaway remark carried a weight I couldn't feel myself.

And weight on your words meant hyenas waiting for a place to sink their teeth. Starving hyenas hiding behind the wall of anonymity.

To them, the tastiest prey was the herbivore that had only gotten bigger.

Someone whose streaming career was still relatively short, like mine, but who already had a lot of viewers.

Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was just naked dislike dressed up as criticism.

Two sides of the same coin. The meaning of existing as a creature of attention, fulfilled — and the counterweight that came with it. The pressure.

I knew it was a privileged complaint. I still couldn't help it.

Ding—

Right in the middle of that thought, a familiar Discord notification chimed.

I grabbed the phone I'd tossed aside and checked the message.

The sender was none other than Jump — so he'd been watching today's stream. I'd been meaning to ask him about the broadcast anyway, so this was convenient.

With problems like this, it was smarter to ask someone experienced than to stew on it alone. Jump, in particular, knew everything about streaming at Jump-wiki levels. You could even say he was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one who'd taught me everything I knew about broadcasting.

If I had to analogize, he was my stream butler. Or Jump-wiki.

As expected of Jump-wiki.

There was nothing he didn't know.

It was definitely a problem that came with getting a lot of attention all at once.

If this wasn't a fire that would die on its own, the wise move was not to keep feeding it wood until it burned out.

I'd only been streaming for how long, and I was already thinking like this. I knew it was a privileged complaint. I still couldn't help it.

How to shake off attention... how to put a controversy to rest...

The only method I had was a frontal assault.