Ssa-yo's Dream

Ssa-yo, a partner streamer on Pangea TV, often kept tabs on streams over at Rabbit TV.

He had once transferred platforms after fretting over the future of his career, only to return to Pangea TV — but he still believed Rabbit TV held the edge when it came to game variety and room to expand. As a variety-game streamer, he honestly fit Rabbit TV's vibe better, too.

The problem was that the variety-game pie itself was tiny. And on Rabbit TV, that already-small pie was being fought over by so many of his peers that competition for viewers and income was brutal.

In the end, practical concerns brought streamer Ssa-yo back to Pangea TV. After that, things weren't bad. Pangea TV's variety-game pie was even smaller than Rabbit TV's, but there were far fewer rivals worth competing against. He grew his stream step by step until he sat at the mid-tier level just below the big-name corporations — a named streamer on Pangea TV, averaging four to five thousand concurrent viewers.

But Ssa-yo couldn't be satisfied with that. He wanted to grow further, to break free of the stagnant old-guard scene and lead a new current.

I've been grinding in the streaming scene for ten years already. It's time for a change.

It wasn't an impulsive thought. He'd been turning it over for years. That was why he kept diligently touring the streams of the rival platform, Rabbit TV — convinced he might find, somewhere over there, a hint of the new current that could transform Pangea TV.

And Ssa-yo really did find that hint.

At some point, virtual streamers had begun appearing on Rabbit TV. At first they were ignored and harassed not only by regular streamers but by the so-called Dullahan crowd as well. Regular streamers were a different breed from the start, so they could simply ignore each other like cows watching chickens. But with the Dullahans, it didn't end so easily. The arrival of virtuals had naturally relegated them to a lower-compatibility position, and their broadcast audiences overlapped, so pushback was inevitable. Put bluntly, it became a fight over rice bowls.

A fierce struggle that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠simmered under the surface for a long time. Then a special event tipped the scales of that fight decisively to one side: a virtual idol audition hosted by one of Rabbit TV's corporate-tier streamers. Against every prediction that the project was nearly impossible to pull off, it delivered astonishing results and sent a fresh wind through the entire streaming world.

Watching that process unfold, Ssa-yo found his inspiration. What if a project like that could succeed on Pangea TV, too?

But hope ran straight into a wall of reality. Pangea TV's user base skewed older than Rabbit TV's and was unfamiliar with virtual culture rooted in subculture fandom. If he charged in as things stood, he wouldn't just fail — he'd be ignored from the starting line.

No, wait — are there even any virtual streamers broadcasting on Pangea TV to begin with? That's the real ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠problem.

Recruiting applicants alone would be hard enough. In the end, Ssa-yo had no choice but to carefully fold away his modest dream.

Someday I'll make it happen!

Another year slipped by after that.

"Huh?"

In September, as the sweltering summer retreated and a cool autumn breeze began to blow, Ssa-yo stumbled across something by chance.

A virtual streamer sitting proudly in first place for concurrent viewers.

In that moment, the dream that had been sleeping deep inside Ssa-yo began to burn again.

So the nickname is… Seo-a? Is that her real name?

Those two syllables — Seo-a — carved themselves deep into Ssa-yo's mind.

The first day off since I'd started streaming was sweet.

Looking back, when I was just a viewer I'd been quietly full of complaints. Streaming didn't seem that physically demanding — so why so many off days? But once I became the one actually doing the broadcasting, I understood completely. Just the need for "voice care" alone made rest days essential.

I'd been trying to gradually extend my stream hours every day, but for a rookie that was apparently too greedy. I'd treated the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mild pain as just an adjustment period and forced myself to keep going — and yesterday my vocal coach at the academy chewed me out. Push like that and I'd wreck my throat. I'd thought I was managing pretty well, so it was genuinely embarrassing.

If I'd kept going clueless and ended up with vocal nodules right around the audition… just imagining it is terrifying.

In the end, yesterday's lesson was a wash. I sat through nearly an hour of pure lecture, and in place of actual class I got a full briefing on voice care. Drink tea that's good for the throat. Keep the humidity in the room consistent. And the absolute core of voice care: outside of work, speak as little as possible.

So I ended up on a silent retreat I never asked for — but if that kept my condition intact, that was fine by me. Personally it was a little sad, but outside of streaming I didn't really have anyone to talk to anyway.

…Don't look at me with that pitying face. I'm not a social outcast. This is voluntary isolation.

Anyway, starting today I decided to gradually dial back the bait-heavy streams. Next month I'd be applying for the virtual idol audition, so it was time to start managing my image.

A thoroughly chaotic chat. Still, it had gotten a lot better lately.

First reason: the temporary manager Oh Yeong-jun had introduced me to agreed to help out for about another month. The difference a chat manager made was huge. They only handled the worst of the swearing and the other-streamer bashing, but the chat was incomparably cleaner than before. Of course, that didn't mean it had become pure crystal waters. Just that it was much better than it used to be.

And the second reason layered on top of that: as my viewer count dropped, a lot of the toxic types naturally disappeared with it — a kind of organic cleanup.

Huh? Why did the viewer count drop?

Some people seemed to be under a misconception, but the truth is that viewer numbers declining over time is completely normal. Looking back through the long history of internet streaming, plenty of streamers who weren't even corporate-tier had hit thousands of viewers — sometimes even five figures. The problem was that those numbers were always temporary form, driven by bait or runoff from a big-name streamer.

My case was the same. A "virtual streamer" — something never before seen on Pangea TV. And on day one, a brand-new rookie just starting out bought fifteen million won's worth of Pangea TV stock and reeled in massive bait attention. All of that synergized to pull over eight thousand viewers on the first day.

But how long could that novelty and bait last? Unless I kept feeding the fire with something worth burning, interest would only keep fading.

Day five before the break, peak was 3,326, right?

And that was just the peak — the average sat around 1,700. From here on was what mattered. The ultra-casual floating viewers and the toxic ones had poured out in droves, and the ones still hanging around were likely either interested in virtuals or drawn to me as a streamer. The bait had largely dried up and there'd been an off day in the mix, yet they'd still come back. That number was 1,735.

Ah — just dropped by two.

Anyway, if I could keep even 10% of them through October, I'd call that a solid average. 20% would be a real win, and if 30% were possible, that would be an absolute jackpot. At 10%, roughly 170 people. After staring at five-digit numbers it might look like a joke of a three-digit figure, but in the streaming world that number was never small.

Back when I was active on Pan-beo-gal before the regression, there was a saying: a hundred regular viewers and you're a mountain. Ah, of course, once Rabbit TV shut down its Korean service and the true "mountain" virtuals migrated over, that saying lost its meaning — but until then it was gospel. Excluding runoff from corporate streamers, virtual streamers who cracked a hundred regulars purely on their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own strength could be counted on one hand. From what I remembered, barely ten or so?

So there was no need to drown in the shrinking viewer count. Think positively. This was a training process — shedding the fat and building solid muscle. Of course, staying blindly optimistic while freefalling would be a problem, but I knew the future.

Come October, plenty of opportunities will open up. So for now, don't push too hard. As a streaming newbie I need to take care of my voice, and as the only virtual on Pangea TV right now, burning through my image too fast would be a waste.

I'd use the roughly two weeks left of September as a foundation for the real leap in October.

"SeoAWhatAreYouDoingToday, what question did you want to ask? I'll answer it specially before we start the content."

"……."

So these were the kinds of people I had to turn into regular fans?

Truly, nothing in this world comes easy.