“Thanks for tuning in everyone! I really appreciate you all tuning in, and don’t forget to sub if you like what I do here! I’ll be returning here again Friday afternoon, so make sure to tun in then. Again, thank you all so much for watching and supporting me!”
I finished this speech after a three hour long stream was finished. I looked at my stats- as per usual, I had had zero viewers during the stream. No one had tuned in, even for a second. And as per usual, my sub count was zero.
It had gone on like this for four months. At this point, I really wondered why I even bothered to do something like this. I had been making absolutely no progress.
I grumbled to myself a little before going back to bed. Whatever. Maybe next time would be my day…
During my next stream, I was playing the latest FPS which had come out. I was hoping that the popularity of the title might give me a little boost- and it sort of did. Some people would actually come on the stream. For around a minute before leaving. I was pretty sure a good portion of them were bots. Oh well, it was something, right?
I was about to call it a day when a notification popped up on my screen.
‘OGChoirMaster has donated $10!’
My heart nearly froze right there. This was the first time I had ever gotten a donation. With that said, given the hours I had put into streaming up to this point, I was sure that it added up to less than $0.02 an hour, but that wasn’t the big thing.
It felt like I had been given a million dollars- this was the first time anyone had appreciated what I did like this.
I scrolled through chat- it wasn’t hard as there were less than twenty messages. I found what OGChoirMaster had said: ‘I really like your work! Keep it up! I’m going to sub!’
My first sub… I was honestly over the moon!
I gave a heartfelt thank you for about ten minutes.
And from that day forward, OGChoirMaster would be my number one fan- or rather, only fan for that matter. Whenever I started streaming, OGChoirMaster would be there within seconds it seemed.
As a sort of prank one day- I started a stream very early in the morning unlike what I would usually do, and sure enough, OGChoirMaster was still there.
I probably should’ve gotten a little weirded out by that, but I was just happy about getting that kind of support.
My following did grow a bit after that- by that I mean from one sub to three.
‘When will you do a face reveal?’ GOATman, another one of my subs asked in chat once.
I didn’t stream with a camera as I was a bit unsure about showing my face to strangers. And honestly- I did not look all that good. I had been mocked about my looks in high school a lot, and I was aware that I did not captivate the camera so to speak. I tried to play it off however.
‘How many subs would you need before you start showing your face? Ten?’ OGChoirMaster asked.
“I don’t know guys- maybe if it hits twenty I’ll do it,” I said with a chuckle.
To my utter surprise, I ended up getting twenty subs the very next day.
‘Face reveal!’ was the most popular comment in chat, and so I decided ‘screw it’ and got myself a camera to show off my face. I wasn’t making much money from Twitch, but it had never been about the money in the first place. I had a decently paying stable job and I would stream during a few hours on my days off.
If you’re wondering why I bothered to do this even though it wasn’t making much money it was simply because… well, I wanted to interact with people some way. I had never been a social butterfly and had lived a good portion of my life with no friends. Like this though, with a following on Twitch, it felt like I had a dedicated group of friends with me who wouldn’t judge me.
“So yeah, how do you guys think I look?” I asked as I switched on my camera for the first time.
To my immense relief, positive comments flooded the chat. There was one that stood out to me though.
‘That looks great! Why don’t you show us your backyard?’ OGChoirMaster asked.
I frowned for an instant- but then quickly fixed it. “Uh… did I ever mention that I have a backyard?” I didn’t give out too many personal details of myself on stream.
‘Uh, yeah, I think you mentioned it once.’ HellMaster typed out.
Right… maybe I mentioned it and forgot. “I don’t know how to set this up… wait a moment!”
In a moment of exuberance, I decided to give my subs what they wanted. It took some time, but my chat members were really helpful in getting me to setup an outdoor stream.
‘What’s that statue behind you?’ one of them asked.
“Oh this… the old owner of this house had it and I just kind of didn’t find the time and energy to fix it,” I said. Most of what had made up the statue was gone, leaving only the feet.
‘I think I know what that is! It’s a kind of Guardian Statue- it brings in good luck!’ OGChoirMaster said.
“Well, I certainly hope so!” I said.
Streaming went on as usual until two weeks later, I got a package in the mail.
Frowning, I saw some weird charm. It looked like a coin, but had strange symbols carved into the outer rim. There was a note inside:
Hey there! This is OGChoirMaster, or what you know me ask. I couldn’t help but recognize the street where you are from the background of your backyard stream, and I wanted to give you a little something. Put this under your Guardian Statue- it’ll bring you even more good luck!
Regards,
Your Biggest Fan
P.S. Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone else where you live.
I was immensely creeped out by this. If this user knew my address, most likely other people could figure it out as well.
I honestly thought about banning OGChoirMaster from my channel- but he had been one of my greatest supporters.
Anyway, the whole thing about it being a good luck charm was definitely baloney- because I lost my job two days later. I opened up a stream for far longer that I usually would have thanks to this.
“So yeah, I got laid off unfortunately,” I said to them. I wasn’t looking for sympathy or cash, just was venting a little. “Though I am glad to be rid of my manager though, he was really annoying. Will be a bit lean regarding money but I think I can get by.”
A message popped up: ‘Why don’t you do a special stream tomorrow to raise some cash? It would help tide you over.’
“What kind of stream do you mean?”
‘Offer to do something based on what tip you get. You an always refund the donation if you don’t like it.’ OGChoirMaster commented.
‘Oh! You should definitely do it outside in your garden.’ GOATman said.
Well, again, I thought ‘why not?’ and set up a stream the next day outside.
Most of my requests were rather mild, like watching and reacting to a certain video or saying someone’s name. I was beginning to rake in quite some cash when it all added up as well.
And then…
‘OGChoirMaster has donated $200.’
An unthinkable amount for me. A new record for one of my streams. A message was attached to the donation.
‘Could you place the lucky charm I gave you near the statue?’
I had thrown the charm in my sock drawer and forgot about it. But for two hundred dollars, well, I went upstairs and got it and put it near the base of the statue.
It looked like it worked as a real lucky charm, because my chat nearly exploded with new people.
“Over 600 viewers- this is great guys!” I said.
I got a few more requests. One was to play a song which was in a language I didn’t recognize. I just hoped it didn’t violate TOS in some way as I turned it on.
‘Great! Now can you say this…’
I don’t remember what they were asking me to say after that. It was a very weird word- the kind that I would never be able to say normally. It looked like someone had mashed their keyboard with their face to be honest.
But when I said it the screen turned black. I got a nasty feeling in my stomach- I thought it had crashed and was cursing my luck. But, I was back on and everyone was still there.
‘Who is that standing behind you?’ a commenter asked.
There was no one behind me, of course. I guessed it was just a prank- but strangely enough one or two people kept asking me as the stream went on.
‘There’s this weird shadow to the side of your camera. Is that your cameraman?’
No one helped me with my videos, and there was no one there.
‘Just relax- they’re just messing with you. Everything looks fine to me.’ OGChoirMaster said, so I shrugged it off.
But, once it was over, I noticed I couldn’t find the stream again. It was as if it had never existed. And to cap it off, I feel… unnaturally cold since that incident. And this night, for a split second, I thought there was something standing behind me when I looked at the mirror in my bathroom. It was a weird, deformed figure that didn’t look quite human. But, there was nothing there a split second later.
I was just wondering if any of you guys happened to be watching my stream since I can’t find it anymore. Did you happen to notice anything weird like a strange shadow or someone behind me?