40. A Small-Time Streamer's Perspective
40. A Small-Time Streamer's Perspective
***
She was a tweetie streamer and a NewTuber.
But at 27, Kim Hayoon had failed to make it in either field and was still small-time.
She had even quit the part-time jobs she'd been working and was now genuinely throwing herself into being a NewTuber and streamer.
She wanted to succeed.
She wanted to become a big-name streamer.
She wanted to chat actively with her viewers, wanted to make money, and so on...
Kim Hayoon's ambitions were enormous, but reality had fallen far short of her expectations.
Hayoon's tweetie channel currently had 853 followers, and her streams averaged only 20 concurrent viewers.
Her personal NewTube channel, 'Hari Tube,' was doing little better: 674 subscribers, with videos averaging only 100 to 150 views.
In the end, whether as a streamer or a NewTuber, nothing came close to Kim Hayoon's expectations.
Half a year had already passed since she'd quit her part-time work and gone full-time as a streamer and NewTuber. The results were bitterly disappointing; the reality was brutal.
Hayoon knew it too. By any measure, the numbers in front of her were a failure.
Maybe expecting to succeed in only six months and stand alongside big-name streamers or NewTubers with hundreds of thousands of subscribers really was asking too much.
If it were that easy to succeed, who wouldn't try being a streamer, who wouldn't become a NewTuber?
So Kim Hayoon was gradually lowering her expectations for herself, bit by bit.
An average of 1,000 viewers on tweetie live streams.
10,000 NewTube subscribers.
Her standards kept falling until she found herself thinking she'd be happy with just 100 live viewers and 5,000 NewTube subscribers.
She genuinely thought that way.
...
"...It's unfair."
Hayoon muttered quietly.
Right now, Hayoon had a tweetie stream on.
A beautiful character with long, unkempt silver hair. That character holding a greatsword.
It was the streamer called 'Rin,' who had been the talk of the town for days.
And Rin was also a breakout rookie streamer. Blowing past 5,000 viewers on her first stream alone could already be called a record.
When the stream passed the one-hour mark, she exceeded 10,000 viewers, and if she held onto those viewers, it would've been natural to get greedy.
But she ended the stream before even two hours had passed.
That sight of Serin.
To Hayoon, it was utterly baffling.
Arrogant, even conceited.
'She just ended the stream like that?'
From Hayoon's perspective, she could only think this person called Rin was insane.
If it were her, even breaking a thousand viewers on her first stream would have been enough for a 24-hour thank-you marathon...
On top of that, she'd learned that Plea—a big-name streamer who rarely even agreed to collaborations with other big streamers—had personally helped set up Rin's very first stream.
Jealousy and inferiority swelled inside her, joined by other dark, clinging emotions that kept hold of her.
I'm jealous.
And it's so unfair.
How does she have connections with a big-name streamer right from the start?
Why can't that happen to me?
All sorts of other thoughts began to take hold of Hayoon.
"How... how can she succeed so easily... so easily...?"
Hayoon kept watching Serin's stream as she spoke in a low, subdued voice.
Even as the enemy user brought their greatsword down with terrifying force, the streamer called 'Rin' looked at her opponent with complete composure.
She didn't even move to prepare for the opponent's movements or raise her sword.
Then, just as the massive black greatsword glowing with dark light seemed about to smash Rin apart, Rin snapped her own greatsword upward in a clean stroke at the last possible instant.
—!
Along with a clear ringing sound, the massive greatsword and the comparatively thin greatsword clashed, and a burst of light erupted.
Hayoon knew full well that this was called a 'parry,' since she had been studying Another World recently.
"...Ha."
But she couldn't hide the sigh that escaped as she watched.
Could that really be considered natural character movement?
The creaky, awkward movement Hayoon herself had felt while moving around in Another World was completely absent from Rin.
As if breathing, as if moving her legs to take a step, as if moving her arm to lightly pick up a cup...
Every action looked completely natural. Rin's movements were effortless.
Hayoon, who had tried out various weapons in Another World, knew.
Even in virtual reality, different weapons could produce a kind of resistance.
It wasn't that you literally couldn't lift them or that they felt heavy as they would in the real world. But equip something unsuited to your class, or try to swing a weapon beyond your character's capabilities, and a kind of resistance made it difficult to use.
But now. How could that person called Rin hold such a heavy-looking greatsword and swing it so naturally?
Even while thinking that, Hayoon couldn't take her eyes off Serin's stream for a single moment.
The viewer count was already showing a number just shy of 20,000.
It was unbelievable that a streamer who hadn't even been live for an hour had pulled in that many viewers.
'This is only her second day streaming. And she's a rookie streamer...?'
Then Rin obliterated the opposing player in an instant with those beautiful movements and planted her sword into the ground.
—...How did that look to you all?
And then she looked at the viewers and asked with a bright expression, and watching Serin, Hayoon couldn't help but realize it instinctively.
Her beautiful avatar and naturally pleasant voice were enough on their own to make people like her. But was the expression she wore now intentional?
Even that look of obvious anticipation for the viewers' reactions was completely different from mine.
Compared with her, I'd always forced my energy higher to coax reactions out of chat, getting anxious and letting every single viewer message send my mood up or down.
But Rin simply looked at her viewers with an expectant expression...
Fresh. Lively. New. Cute.
Those things came through naturally.
She was a character, yet her naturalness didn't feel like a character at all, and though her way of speaking was careful, the way she asked with that deliberately expectant look in her eyes felt almost adorably cheeky.
So Hayoon felt she could never imitate the user called Rin.
Could she even half-mimic that kind of naturalness?
Beyond the clinging emotions filling her chest, Hayoon now felt almost hollow.
"Is this... talent?"
Even as she said that blankly, Hayoon herself wanted to type in chat right now.
Whether it was admiration for Rin's skill, her beauty, or that adorably cheeky attitude, Hayoon wanted to react somehow, as though she'd been swept up by everything Rin had shown.
[lmaooo]
[no but why is she so pretty?]
[how is even one arena match art in itself lmaoooooo]
[Rin! Rin! Rin! Rin! Rin! Rin!]
[holy shit is this really virtual reality? it's just Rin herself lmaoooooo]
[she's doing that with a claymore greatsword wow lmaooo]
[holy shit... I get why people are thirsting]
[Rin you're killing me!!!!]
[I love you so much]
[the way she leaps into the air like she's flying is insane]
[going to buy a claymore right now holy shit lmaooo now that's badass]
[Rin please just be a greatsword main...]
[Rin do you really want to see me lose my mind...?]
The chat window visible beside the screen was already scrolling up like crazy.
The chat was practically exploding.
"...I'm really jealous."
As she blankly spoke her true feelings, she understood the chat's reaction immediately.
Even I, watching with all this inferiority, jealousy, and every other negative emotion, wanted to type something in chat. Of course the people who had actually come to enjoy her stream were typing.
Normally, even if there are 10,000 viewers, not all 10,000 of them type in chat.
At most, maybe 10% of viewers would type at all. Even among them, some posted once every 10 minutes, some once every 30 minutes, and some simply left the stream on and listened. There were all kinds of viewers. And as a chat grew larger, the percentage actively typing naturally dropped.
When chat moved fast enough, just watching it scroll was entertainment in itself.
But the chat window visible now looked as if thousands of viewers were desperate to show their messages to the streamer called Rin, and it was scrolling at a crazy speed Hayoon had never seen before.
『BrokenIce donated 50,000 won!』
<Greatsword dancer is insane!!>
Then, at the donation message that popped up, Hayoon suddenly wanted to turn off Rin's stream right then and there.
The sticky emotions seized her again.
"Seriously... ugh."
The minimum donation amount was 50,000 won.
Normally, setting a minimum that high would be insane for a streamer. People would call them money-hungry and ask who on earth would pay it; it was the kind of number that should have caused controversy.
No matter how popular a mega-streamer was, they wouldn't do something crazy like setting the minimum donation at 50,000 won.
But this person called Rin was openly doing exactly that.
Her eyes fell on a notice displayed at the side of the screen.
Don't donate. No reactions.
"Ugh..."
Some of us had to save up several days' worth of donations just to reach 50,000 won.
Yet the person who openly put up a message saying not to donate and that she wouldn't react was casually receiving donations.
『IlIIIllIllIlIlllI donated 50,000 won!』
<Rin!! When are you setting up subscriptions!?>
At yet another 50,000-won donation, Hayoon stared blankly and let out a hollow laugh.