The Broadcast Encountered in the Last Moment (3)
Ding-a-ling!
Shortly after, a cheerful sound effect chimed, and the voice chat with her connected.
"Hello? Can you hear me okay?"
Her voice crept in shyly, as if whispering some secret. I couldn't help but scoff.
"I've been listening to your voice this whole time. You're broadcasting, aren't you?"
She paused at my words, then let out an awkward laugh, as if only just realizing it. Her avatar's expression shifted to a smile in sync.
The avatar was smiling now—but just moments ago, she hadn't been smiling at all. She'd been on the verge of tears. Thinking back, the act of smiling itself was the same as before, but for some reason, even though it was just an avatar now, it felt like she was smiling with genuine happiness.
"Oh…… r-right. Ehehe, ehehehe. You heard everything, then……."
She mumbled that, twirling her avatar around clumsily. If the avatar tracked her real movements, was she probably squirming in her chair right now? The thought made her seem a little cute.
"Uh, umm. S-so. Wh-what now?"
Cute? Scratch that. Watching her flounder, I sighed in exasperation.
"Relax. What kind of streamer gets this worked up over a little situation like this?"
"B-but! Really…… really, talking this long with just one person…… it's my first time! Everyone else just chats a bit and leaves……."
"How long has it even been……."
I trailed off, lost in thought.
What's her deal?
One dark side of internet broadcasting: if a woman goes live, at least one or two guys will stick around persistently. And her avatar was extremely cute. Those sunlit eyes had a unique sparkle, and the swaying hair was surprisingly detailed. With an avatar this adorable, she should've at least drawn some curiosity about what kind of stream this is. But according to her—
Even counting the song she sang, she's only been live for about ten minutes at most.
That meant this girl had been broadcasting for 100 days without a single viewer who lasted even ten minutes!
"I don't know…… Maybe I'm just not fun……."
"Let's see. Before the singing in part two, what did you do?"
"Singing?"
"You posted a notice up there saying thanks after part two karaoke."
I pointed to the notice in the top right of the screen. If part two was karaoke, there had to be a part one. Knowing what she'd done might reveal why her stream flopped.
"Um…… I did a game stream."
A game? Not the easiest to rack up huge viewers, but hardly a death sentence.
"What game?"
"Well, um…… one from 1992, for MS-DOS…… a game about Indian history."
"Huh???"
"It's not the famous one localized in Korea…… it's only for PC-98. But someone in Japan ported it to run on MS-DOS, so I used DOSBox to……!"
"Hold on. Just hold on."
I was floored and asked again. The game she mentioned wouldn't appeal to viewers her age who watch internet streams. Hell, most were probably born after that game.
"I-I thought doing something no one else does might get attention……!"
"……Hold on. Okay, retro games are fine. Do you even know what that game is?"
"N-no! I was gonna learn it step by step…… together with the viewers? Like…… gr-growth!"
She'd picked a retro game with zero knowledge, on some shallow whim. No wonder the few nostalgic fans who might recognize it would get pissed.
"So, were there viewers who stuck around to 'grow' with you?"
"………No."
She deflated. Her avatar drooped its head in perfect sync.
They could even model that?
"All your games so far like that?"
"Y-yeah! I thought I had to show something no one's seen before…… you know? Copying everyone else would be boring! Right?"
She'd been moping uncertainly until now, but on this, she puffed up with sudden confidence. Like she was saying, Pretty smart, huh? I'm a genius! Her avatar's eyes spun like little suns, sparkling wildly.
……This girl was wasting that avatar.
"Look, I don't know where you caught this hipster bug, but there's a reason no one does that stuff. People aren't idiots."
"And if you're doing something obscure, unless you made it yourself, someone somewhere has already done it. Common sense says you gotta appeal to them at minimum—not half-ass it. Imagine clicking a thumbnail like Whoa, this person's playing that game! all excited, only to see you bumble around clueless. What do you think they'd do?"
"Auu……."
Her avatar slumped again, eyes starting to well up.
……Seriously, such a waste of an avatar!
"Forget games. What about just chatting?"
"Huh? Well…… gotta talk about stuff no one's done…… like Estonian national dishes or whatever……."
"Estonia—the country on the Baltic Sea in Europe?"
She jolted in shock.
"Y-yeah!!! You know it! You're the first!! Anyone who's heard of Estonia!"
Sure, someone in Korea might know it like I did. Not some random global city—anyone into world geography would. But that didn't make it appealing to Korean viewers, especially those browsing streams.
Not because Estonia sucked as a country. It was just too niche for East Asians on the other side of the world.
"Why are you so obsessed with untapped content? If you really dug deep, there'd be no such thing as 'no one's done it.'"
Exactly. Internet streamers should be scraping for popular topics, not chasing unicorns. To hook viewers early, you need something they care about. How many Koreans would give a damn about a 30-year-old unlicensed PC-98 game or Baltic trivia?
But she was rock-solid on this, her avatar eyes flashing like suns again as she beamed.
"Because! It's cool!"
"………Pardon?"
"Introducing topics no one's seen to Koreans! Isn't that awesome? It'll broaden everyone's knowledge! That's RenaP's destiny!"
Watching her declare it so boldly, I finally got it. How she'd kept this miraculous zero-viewer streak for 100 days with that avatar.
Keep? Nah—with zero viewers, it was the same as never streaming at all.
"Haa."
"I-isn't it? Cool, right……?"
"………."
My silence crushed her.
"Uu…… Maybe it's lame after all. I kinda thought so. No one's watched for 100 days……."
"Th-then…… wh-what should I do? Could you tell me…… what Subway-Old-Man-Denture-Stealer thinks……?"
Was that a plea for help? Normally, I'd say, Nope, no idea. Sounds cool, good luck. Bye, and bail. Or more likely, just ghost like every other viewer.
But they say people do uncharacteristic things right before dying. So maybe that's why—I wanted to give her some pointers. Streaming had been my one hobby in that hellish life, so I knew the ropes.
Not that I was some guru guaranteeing success. But I was damn sure I could do better than the girl boasting zero average viewers with that killer avatar.
"Listen up."
"………Yes?"
Her voice trembled. Her avatar gazed at me with teary eyes—adorably pitiful.
"Ears open from now on. I'm gonna hammer this in fast."
"Ah…… Yes, got it!!!"
With her spirited reply, our phone date turned into a lecture on the basics of internet broadcasting.