Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life.
They watch as she draws on eyeliner and opens an energy drink for breakfast. They watch as she slumps behind a desk littered with rainbow confetti, balancing her phone on the jumbo bottle of Advil she uses for persistent migraines. They watch as she shuffles into the bathroom, the only corner of her apartment not on camera. A viewer types: “where is emily?” It’s the only quiet moment she’ll get all day.
On the live-streaming service Twitch, one of the world’s most popular platforms, Emily is a legendary figure. For three years, she has ceaselessly broadcast her life — every birthday and holiday, every sickness and sleepless night, almost all of it alone.
Her commitment has made her a model for success in the new internet economy, where authenticity and endurance are highly prized. It’s also made her a good amount of money: $5.99 a month from thousands of subscribers each, plus donations and tips — minus Twitch’s 30-to-40 percent cut.
But to get there, Emily, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name be withheld due to concerns of harassment, has devoted herself to a solitary life of almost constant stimulation. For three years, she has taken no sick days, gone on no vacations, declined every wedding invitation, had no sex.
She has broadcast and self-narrated a thousand days of sleeping, driving and crying, lugging her camera backpack through the grocery store, talking through a screen to strangers she’ll never meet. Her goal is to buy a house and get married by the age of 30, but she’s 28 and says she’s too busy to have a boyfriend. Her last date was seven years ago.
Though some Twitch stars are millionaires, most scramble to get by, buffeted by the vagaries of audience attention. Emily’s paid-subscription count, which peaked last year at 22,000, has since slumped to around 6,000, dropping her base income to about $5,000 a month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Streams Charts.
She declined to share her total earnings, and Twitch discourages its “Partners” from disclosing the terms of their streaming contracts. “You can have the best month of your life on Twitch, and you can have the worst,” she said.
Sometimes Emily dreads waking up and clocking into the reality show that is her life. She knows staring at screens all night is unhealthy, and when she feels too depressed to stream, she’ll stay in bed for hours while her viewers watch.
But she worries that taking a break would be “career suicide,” as she called it. Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn’t have enough fun. So many “are expecting more all the time,” she said. “I’m like: What more do you want?”
I can't imagine doing this to yourself. But I can see what leads people to do this. I've been streaming for a year now, but I've drawn a line where it is only during my off hours, and I keep weekends for myself. I do it during my hobby time.
The issue with our society is that we're constantly supposed to min max everything. If you aren't all in, your chances of success are lower. We see this manifest in various ways. For example, companies try to skip out on safety if they're allowed to. People will take on multiple jobs. Without restrictions, some of us will push ourselves to our limits because we see no way out of our situations.
On the flip side, you see people just giving up. Like with the laying flat movement. Why play the game if you'll never win?
I don't really have a point to my ramblings. It's just something I've been thinking about for a while. I'm not really sure what the solution is as the system is bigger than us. I guess this disfunction is just a symptom of a greater issue.
And here we arrive at my decision to build out a van. I'd like to be a functioning member of society, but I lost purchasing power every year from 2003 onward despite advancing in my career. Can't buy nice things or afford vacations, and you want me to make you even richer? Fuck off.