Seo-a's Counseling Office (2)
Since I'd already been streaming since morning, there was no need for any ice-breaking small talk.
"Today I've specially invited two guests for this content. Please give a warm round of applause for Rina and Ringring!"
I gave a quick rundown of the day's topic, then summoned the two people waiting in the Discord channel.
"Hello! It's truly an honor to be part of today's content. I'm the streamer Rina."
"Pangea TV's pure-blood virtual! The pride of Pangea TV! Greetings, dear viewer hyung-nims — Ringring, reporting for duty with maximum respect!"
The virtual avatar with ordinary brown twin-tails was Rina. The green dumpling-bun hairstyle that looked like it was engineered to draw aggro belonged to Ringring.
"I've put together a simple presentation. Take a look at these materials."
I'd prepared a clean set of slides based on the info Rina and Ringring had sent over. Nothing complicated — I hadn't poured hours into it. Just the basics: personal profiles, streaming careers, average concurrent viewer counts.
The format was simple. Each of them would present their own problems, and I'd counsel them through it, drawing out solutions as best I could.
So who should go first? Rina had a full year of experience under her belt, so I called on her.
"The problem I've identified with my stream is the chat. My viewer count is already low, but even accounting for that, the chat is way too quiet. No matter what content I run, the response is so thin that my energy naturally drops and I struggle to keep a conversation going. It just feels like I'm talking to myself the whole time. Is there any way to improve the chat culture on my stream?"
"Hmm. Chat, huh… that's definitely not an easy problem."
It wasn't unique to Rina. Countless streamers agonized over their viewers' chat habits. To some degree, you could even call it a matter of luck. Some audiences loved chatting; others simply didn't. That part was basically a coin flip.
"Honestly, chat isn't just the streamer's problem. From the viewer's side, it can be torture too. Think about it. You wander into a stream just to check it out, and suddenly the streamer greets you and starts talking to you, locking you in place. Viewers commonly call that getting hit with Modegong."
"Personally, I think the most important thing is for the streamer to put their mind at ease. Viewers are never fools. A streamer might think they're hiding it well, but more often than not, the audience has already picked up on everything. They're just pretending not to notice out of consideration."
"Ah…"
"If a streamer keeps fretting over low chat and feels pressured about it, the viewers naturally start walking on eggshells too. Then the vicious cycle repeats. I just typed something — if I go quiet after this, won't the streamer keep stressing about it? Does that mean I have to keep chatting until the stream ends?"
This was basically my field of expertise. As the guild master of Lucy — who'd been a small-time streamer for a long, long time — I'd tried every method under the sun. I'd operated as a bear trap myself. I'd even made separate alt accounts just for chatting, terrified that my red nickname as a hardcore fan would draw too much aggro in the chat window.
"In the end, creating a comfortable atmosphere is the key. And I've watched both of your streams myself. If I had to point out a chat-related issue I noticed, Rina — you talk almost exclusively with certain specific viewers."
"W-well, but if I exclude them, nobody else chats, so I can't have a conversation at all."
"No. Then you're stuck in a loop forever. Merely reacting to chat isn't enough — naturally inducing chat is a virtue a streamer needs to cultivate. For example, something like this… Seo-aaaa~ you're so, so cute. Everyone just wants to go 'nom!' and nibble you right up."
Tsundere viewers, the lot of them.
Beyond that, the methods for inducing chat were endless. For a small streamer's room, something useful like a "roll call" came to mind. With so few people, scanning the viewer list from top to bottom wouldn't take long.
"When I say roll call, I don't mean you have to do anything special. It's just about building a shared sense of connection. You call out a nickname, the viewer answers, you exchange a simple greeting… and that way, you slowly get closer."
"But what if that viewer doesn't show up the next day?"
"Then that's a shame. What can you do? Like I emphasized earlier, putting your mind at ease is important. If you get too attached to individual viewers, a lot of people actually feel burdened by it."
Rina seemed to find parts of it convincing. She nodded and passed the turn to Ringring.
Green hair bouncing, Ringring stepped up with full fighting spirit.
"My concern is: how do I increase my viewer count!"
"That's the universal worry of every small-time streamer."
Before my regression, I'd poured an enormous amount of effort into this exact problem. There was almost nothing I hadn't tried for the sake of getting Lucy into triple-digit viewers.
Promo posts on FM Community were the bare minimum. I even handed out gift cards to keep viewers around. When the roulette spun up a prize, I'd sometimes give it away.
Having been through all that, this was a field I could speak on with some confidence.
"First: promotion. Have you heard of FM Community?"
"Ah, yes. I don't use it, but I know it exists."
"Then make an account right now and write promo posts pretending to be a fan."
"Excuse me?"
It was a little embarrassing, but I laid down a steel plate over my face and stated it with full confidence. For small-time streamers, nothing was more important than promotion.
Platforms fundamentally ranked streams by viewer count. That meant a small streamer's broadcast inevitably got buried somewhere in the invisible abyss. Hoping for viewers to grow in that situation? The only method was finding a way to expose yourself to floating traffic on your own. And that method was promotional activity on communities.
"Also, never skip putting 'Newbie' in your stream tags and title. There are viewers out there whose entire taste is hunting down new streamers with terrifying dedication."
"Understanding your own streaming style and your viewers' needs is also important. That's how you hold onto your core fans."
From a small-time streamer's perspective, every single viewer was precious. So the key was turning them into core fans first.
"Above all, showing that you're working hard is crucial. And don't hide that side of yourself from your viewers — put it on display honestly. This is the age of self-PR."
"Conversely, if I had to flag a few things you should absolutely never do: real frustration on stream, lying, unannounced days off, and insufficient communication."
If I went into every little detail one by one, a single day wouldn't be enough. So I stuck to the core issues viewers tended to be most sensitive about.
"If you just keep streaming consistently while following these points, your viewer count will trend upward to a certain level."
"Uh… when you say a certain level, roughly how many would that be?"
"Hmm. Around fifty? Honestly, growing your fixed fanbase beyond that requires actual streaming talent, in my opinion."
The world was never purely beautiful. I wanted to say that hard work alone was enough to achieve anything, but that wouldn't help anyone in reality. Being coldly honest was the kinder thing to do. The streaming industry was a red ocean that demanded endless competition, after all.
With the counseling wrapped up, I gave the two of them a short promotional slot. They each presented the personal talents and videos they'd prepared with everything they had. Watching them, I clapped with genuine, wholehearted enthusiasm.
I'd been a small-time streamer's fan once myself, after all…
I looked forward to the day I'd meet these two again — suddenly grown, out of nowhere.