Happy day after Thanksgiving all, hope your stuffing was delicious and your company joyful. This week we've got Kelsey's chat with Emilycc, a Twitch streamer who has been streaming her life 24/7 for over a year straight. How does she handle strangers watching her sleep? See below! And if you're doing a Friendsgiving this weekend, Steffi has got tips for making your meal look Pinterest-worthy, even if the key word to embrace is "rustic." And if you're looking to take advantage of the Black Friday sales, browse our incredible Things We Loved series, which will give you some great shopping ideas. — Amber |
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Emily has hundreds of eyes on her at all times: when she's at her computer playing games, when she's watching YouTube videos, and when she's sleeping. Her every move serves as entertainment for 129,000 Twitch followers, as if Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show had enthusiastically consented to round-the-clock surveillance. "My life is honestly pretty boring," the 25-year-old streamer known online by her channel name Emilycc, told me. "This is just what I do. I play video games, I chat with people, I hang out with my pets." For over a year, Emily, who doesn't share her last name online for safety reasons, has been live and on camera 24 hours a day. She makes a living from people watching her play video games like World of Warcraft and Apex Legends, and she occasionally chats with them. Emily just completed her 383rd day livestreaming herself on the platform as part of a subathon, which is an uninterrupted live video marathon meant to generate paid subscriptions. According to Twitch, she holds the world record for the longest subathon of all time and has made thousands of dollars in the process. "I'm gonna go for two full years of streaming, I think," she told BuzzFeed News. "That's the goal. Or I'll go until I feel like stopping. … I don't feel like stopping yet."
For Emily, streaming is just a regular part of life. In October 2016, she quit her cashier job at CVS to become a full-time streamer, a dream gig for a teen who loved playing video games. In seven years, she's only taken off two weeks from regular streaming. Though Twitch is home to plenty of gentle lo-fi beats and ASMRtists, gameplay channels like Emily's normally tend toward sensory overload. On a typical stream from the platform's biggest stars, you'll see a big screen displaying video game play, a small screen with the face of the streamer providing commentary, and a big comment box flashing with all sorts of colors and animated emojis at rapid speed.
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Ilana Panich-Linsman for BuzzFeed News |
In contrast, Emily's stream at noon on a random Tuesday shows her in bed, her head concealed under a blanket. A big fluffy dog lies by her feet, and a cat pokes around nearby. Rain sounds are playing in the background, and a light breeze is billowing the green screen set up in front of her computer. No one is leaving comments. She has constructed a life of quiet mundanity in her Austin studio apartment. There are 200 of us watching. She'll probably stream herself playing a horror or action game soon, but for now, serenity. "I'm so used to streaming and having people watch me all the time that I just live my life and do whatever," Emily said. Shortly after our interview, people in the chat began to ask her questions: Was BuzzFeed going to write about her? Emily replied that she wasn't sure. "Buzzfeed: complete this quiz to find out what kind of Emily you are," someone wrote in her chat box. Emily just laughed when she read it, and moved on. Following a Twitch streamer on the platform is free, but subscribing comes with a $4.99 monthly fee. Subscriptions (or subs) earn people access to exclusive benefits — for instance, a subscription to Emily's channel comes with custom chat emotes, access to her Discord and Snapchat, and exclusive movie nights. One-time donations get you a shoutout on the stream or the ability to play sounds, like fart noises, which Emily's followers triggered while a BuzzFeed News photographer was present. Subathons are like fundraisers for creators. For Emily, each sub or monetary contribution increases the length of time she has to stream. When she started, one sub would add three minutes. Now, she spins a wheel to see how much time she has to add. Donations and paid subscriptions from her 129,000 followers have now become her entire income, although she avoids figuring out how much she's making. "I don't really think about how much money I've made. I've never calculated it," she told BuzzFeed News. "It's enough to live and have what I need." Read the rest of my chat with Emily here, she's truly such a fascinating influencer, and the photos Ilana Panich-Linsman captured of her are so special. Until next time, Kelsey |
In Social Media Made Me Do It, we try a new trend, product, or tip from the feed. |
I've been getting to the age in my 20s where friends are beginning to do real grown-up stuff, like getting engaged, building linen closets, and hosting dinner parties. I love the introduction of dinner parties into my life. The table is always decorated and there are several different types of glasses to choose from (none of which are red or disposable). Intimate dinner parties are definitively en vogue at the moment, with influencers like Leah's Fieldnotes and Meredith Hayden posting the behind-the-scenes process of hosting their Pinterest-worthy gatherings. So this Thanksgiving, I decided to host my own intimate little dinner party. |
Here is the Pinterest board I created prior to doing anything else, because I'm a horrifyingly online person who needs "inspo" to cook a goddamn dinner. Some of the keywords I searched for were "dinner table inspo," "aesthetic dinner menu card," "rustic dinner party aesthetic," "dinner party core" and "rustic appetizer spread." I figured something more rustic would be more forgiving on my artistic abilities; if I made a mistake, I could write it off as part of the intended aesthetic. The core components of dinner parties I see online are usually some kind of shareable spread, next to a floral arrangement and decor like menus and candles. I know it's Thanksgiving, but there will be no turkey. Turkey will never have a place in my home. It requires so much time, it is so expensive, it takes up the entire oven, and the payoff is, at best, just fine. It is a vehicle for the sauces. Easily, the difficult part of hosting was making it all look Pinterest-worthy. My main investment in this charade was the menus. I love the look of them. But to give you a sense of my handwriting, I have been asked several times at the post office to verbally clarify the addresses I have written down. One time a post office employee asked me if I was a pharmacist, and then had to explain the joke to me. But I'm actually quite proud of how they turned out. My friends also complimented the doodles I added along the sides, which is courtesy of 18 years of not paying attention in math class. And don't forget it's rustic! |
Steffi Cao for BuzzFeed News |
One friend very graciously offered to take a stab at the floral arrangements, and even help cook. And as much as I wanted to do this on my own, I admittedly had more fun doing it with friends than attempting to pull it all together by myself. We bought supplies together and played music, chatting while I helped them pare down flowers. They are much better at the crafty, stop-in-your-scroll kinds of artsy things, and it was so much fun to watch them do things that they are very good at. Perhaps one day I will be able to host a dinner party entirely on my own, but it's sort of a drag to do it all alone. I'm thankful for friends and family this year. Especially the ones who can draw. — Steffi |
Welcome to where we discuss online community micro dramas — thoughts, feelings, suggestions for us? Email pleaselikeme@buzzfeed.com |
Tumblr's new favorite movie is a 1973 Martin Scorsese mafia drama called Goncharov that doesn't exist. Let us explain. In August 2020, Tumblr user zootycoon posted a photo of knockoff boots they bought online that had a label promoting a nonexistent movie on the tag. "THE GREATEST MAFIAMOVIE EVER MADE, MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS GONCHAROV," it reads. "A FILM BY NATTED JWHJO715 ABOUT THE NAPLES MAFIA." The post recirculated in August 2021 and began a major resurgence in October 2022 that is only reaching its peak a month later. Another Tumblr user named dogsuffrage pointed out three weeks ago that Goncharov was probably a misspelling of the 2008 crime drama film Gomorrah by director Domenico Procacci. The poster of the 2008 film mentions a Scorsese endorsement and a declaration from a Boston Herald writer that it is the "greatest mafia movie ever made." "this idiot hasn't seen goncharov," user abandonedambition wrote in response, which gave the fake movie another boost. And so began the rich textual analysis of Goncharov. Tumblr is often home to film, literary, and other media discussions since fans, be they of Minecraft YouTubers, supernatural television shows, or 19th-century vampire fiction, gather to dissect and discuss their favorite works. They did it again with Goncharov, this time creating a fake plot and controversies through memes and text posts. Pretending you've seen it is key. "Imagining trying to explain Goncharov to a non internet person. Well it's a homoerotic 1970s film about a Russian-Italian mafia that never existed," one Tumblr user wrote in a post. "People are adding bits of canon on according to their own tastes like it's arthuriana. It came from a shoe." Basically, the movie follows a mafia boss named Goncharov who lives in Naples after leaving Russia. He's in a strained relationship with a woman named Katya, who points a gun at him in or near a boat. Katya is friends (or maybe something more?) with a woman named Sofia. Goncharov might also be entangled with a man named Andrey, a frenemy. Clock symbolism appears throughout, suggesting Goncharov is running out of time. Spoiler: He dies after a betrayal. Alex, a 26-year-old artist in Prague who asked to keep their last name private for professional reasons, told BuzzFeed News that they created a fake poster for the movie in Photoshop a few years after first seeing the original Goncharov shoe picture. "It was meant for my mutual followers as an inside joke and I thought it was going to get like 10 likes, but it completely blew up," they said. "I've made a few other fake posters, like for a Taxi Driver sequel, but this has been the biggest one." |
Tumblr user tsscat compiled a "Goncharov Lore Masterpost," listing all the known theories and plot lines, which was edited to say "BUZZFEED DO NOT MINE THIS POST FOR CONTENT" at the top after BuzzFeed News requested to chat with them about it. So we'll just link that here. So far users have created homoerotic gifsets, referenced other media, composed an original score, made fake DVD boxes, sparked discourse about whether the character is a "girlboss," and invented a trilogy of books that the movie is based on. Discussion has spread to Twitter and Letterboxd. The fake movie cast, per the poster, is stacked with icons of cinema: - Robert de Niro as Goncharov
- Al Pacino as Mario Ambrosini
- Harvey Keitel as Andrey "The Banker" Daddano
- Gene Hackman as Valery Michailov
- John Cazale as Joseph "Ice Pick Joe" Morelli
- Cybill Shepherd as Katya
All-in-all, the Goncharov craze is evidence of the unique power of Tumblr's creative, collaborative minds. "Love to be on a website where I can join such hit 2022 fandoms as 'century old public domain novel being read very slowly' and 'half-century old mafia film that does not actually exist,'" wrote one user, in reference to the site's former Dracula obsession. "i know some people hate the joke and that's fine but i am deeply fascinated by this site's ability to spin an entire narrative so quickly and come up with consistent ideas and jokes and character arcs and throughlines it's such an interesting way to tell a story and i genuinely really dig it," another said in a post. Tumblr may be just as fraught with discourse as Twitter is, but Goncharov never could have happened on the bird app. —Kelsey | The girlies from the internet culture team share what's been living in our heads. |
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