The Big-Name Streamers
The history of Pangea TV stretches all the way back to 2005.
From the present year of 2022, that made for a full seventeen years. How many streamers had debuted in that time — and how many had vanished?
In a world of cutthroat competition, only a tiny handful survived long enough to become big-name streamers.
What, so once you made it as a big-name streamer, that was it? Happy ending?
Not a chance.
The wilds of the streaming scene never allowed anyone to rest on their laurels. You never knew when a scandal or controversy might send you plummeting into the abyss, and challengers who'd grown up in the same niche were always circling, waiting for a chance to tear into you.
And that wasn't all. There were the cases of streamers forced to quit by failing health or burnout. I'd even seen people who'd made decent money streaming try their hand at business — and lose everything.
Life really did come in every flavor imaginable.
Someone once said it best: claiming the throne is easy; holding it is the hard part.
And so time passed, and before anyone knew it, it was 2022. In this merciless wilderness of a streaming scene, only six big-name streamers were still standing.
— Wang-ko, Jamst, Park Bong-sik, Baek-gu, Lee Seong-ho, Kim Hak-do.
"Teacher, I have a question!"
"Yes, Student Seo-a? What is it?"
"Is the first one called Wang-ko because his nose is huge?"
"……This is exactly why I can't stand people who catch on too fast."
"It's not about catching on — that's literally his username."
"Thank you for the donations, Maniac-nim, Caramel-nim. By the way, Teacher — while I was putting this PowerPoint together, I scraped up all the public career info I could find on these guys. Things like winning the Pangea TV Grand Prize, tournament championships, that sort of stuff."
"Hmm, you really did your homework. Wang-ko the old man won awards six times? Even I didn't know that level of detail."
"Besides the publicly available info, is there anything you only pick up from streamers who actually know each other?"
"Hmm? Ah, Wang-ko hyung's defining traits. Super simple. He talks way too much, and he sulks like nobody's business."
"What?"
"I'm serious."
"……Okay, that was a joke. He's actually a total loyalty guy and a fantastic hyung. At dinners, he quietly slips out ahead of everyone and picks up the tab."
"Wow. An oppa who always covers the dinner bill. I literally cannot resist that~"
I went through the award history I'd researched for the PowerPoint one by one, reacting with over-the-top enthusiasm alongside Oh Yeong-jun's stories. Wang-ko's fan-tagged viewers started pouring in donations.
Hell yeah. National-pride content always paid off.
"I actually know Jamst-nim a bit. He's huge on YouTube too! Always shotgunning his keyboard whenever his soccer team loses. Last time he even dropkicked his chair."
I could see the chat starting to circle around, angling to kick off a ranking war. If I'd been alone, handling it would've been awkward — but I had Oh Yeong-jun, my prepared punching bag, ready for exactly this kind of moment.
"Oh! Teacher. Looking at Jamst-nim's career, it says he's the president of Manbird University for StarCraft. Actually, while prepping for today's collab I quickly skimmed your career too. You were part of Manbird, right? So you two must be super close."
"……."
A cold silence settled over the stream. In inverse proportion, the chat window exploded into absolute chaos.
I knew the full story behind it all — and still played dumb.
"Huh? Did I mess something up? He was part of Manbird, right?"
"……Yeees. Th-that's right. He was part of Manbird. Naturally close with Jamst hyung too. Ahaha!"
Oh Yeong-jun's awkward laugh was pitiful, but there was nothing I could do. I had to look out for myself first.
"Wow! Jamst-nim was even on terrestrial TV. Doesn't that basically make him a celebrity?"
Candy donations and force-exits flew back and forth from every direction. Whenever the mood started getting too heavy, I casually played the clueless newbie streamer and dumped the load onto Oh Yeong-jun.
"Yeong-jun-nim, you said you're close with both of them — honestly, who are you closer with? Between Jamst-nim and Park Bong-sik-nim."
"Huh? Ah, no, that's……"
As expected, an eleven-year veteran punching bag delivered satisfying results. But there was blowback, too. Oh Yeong-jun wasn't going to just sit there and take it — he counterattacked.
"Alright, then it's Seo-a-nim's turn to choose. Who do you like the most out of these?"
Oh Yeong-jun pointed at the six photos on the PowerPoint and lobbed a killer pass my way.
Not an easy choice. Whoever I picked, the fans of the big-name streamers who didn't get chosen would remember this.
The chat window was heating up to a fever pitch. People who didn't know streaming culture might laugh it off as no big deal — but this was absolutely not a light situation.
Running your mouth on a personal stream with forty or fifty viewers might slide by as a joke, or just get buried from lack of visibility. Right now, though, more than five thousand people were watching. On top of that, communities all over the internet were paying attention to me, so video clips being archived was a given, and related posts would flood in for sure.
No choice. I was going for high risk, high return from the start.
When you pulled aggro, you had to be ready for the consequences. And I'd anticipated a situation like this anyway. A spicy topic like big-name streamers was bound to come with a favorability ranking war attached.
If I were really a day-three newbie streamer, I'd have frozen up in a situation like this……
But I was a four-year veteran viewer who'd been around the streaming scene plenty. And I knew the future on top of that.
If I had to pick someone anyway, I needed to maximize the gains and minimize the losses.
Baek-gu first — pass. We swim in completely different waters. He's someone who'll stay in the StarCraft and Excel scene.
He'd once been called the President of Pangea TV — a true named figure. But these days he'd quieted down considerably and was walking a different path from before. Even in the future he had little connection to the virtual scene, so he was the first one I could eliminate.
Lee Seong-ho and Kim Hak-do are less extreme, but they give off a similar vibe.
Compared to Baek-gu they had considerably more overlap with virtual streaming, but both were streamers who'd gone half all-in on League of Legends content, so the merit was lacking.
That left three final candidates.
"For now, I like Wang-ko-nim, Jamst-nim…… and Park Bong-sik-nim."
The remaining three were big-name streamers who would continue to influence the virtual scene. So before the final pick, I did some favorability farming with their fandoms.
"Wang-ko-nim is an FPS legend, right? Honestly, a guy who's good with guns is just so cool. In that same spirit — to all the soldier oppas who protect our country every day, you're completely amazing and I respect you. Salute!"
"I've genuinely liked Jamst-nim for a long time. I used to watch his videos on YouTube pretty often. And when he loses the weight, he's actually pretty handsome too……"
Candies poured in from Wang-ko and Jamst fans. The chat from the fandoms that hadn't been chosen got a little rough, but that was everyday life in the streaming scene, so I let it slide without much concern.
And now it was time to choose the last one remaining.
"Last is Park Bong-sik-nim. It's not anything else — his fair white skin, and his build has this Winnie-the-Pooh energy that I just love. I've always been into that solid, reliable type of guy as my ideal type."
"You scheming little—!"
"Huh?"
As if he'd been waiting for it, Oh Yeong-jun unleashed a roar. For once, the viewers' chat was firmly on his side.
"Seo-a-nim, no matter what, let's not sell our conscience here. Is that face really your ideal type? Take another good look and say it again."
"……."
Ahem. Maybe that one had been a bit of a stretch?