Several hours later, planning to log off soon, he glanced at the sub counter again.

“Whoa! 40 subs? When did that happen? Sorry if I missed reading any of your names, guys, that’s something I need to get better at paying attention to. Jeez though, you all really want to see me use Omegle, huh? I don’t really get why, because seriously, I don’t really look like a girl, but I guess the subs have spoken. I’ll try and rearrange my stream schedule and see if I can fit that in for later this week.”

Another donation message popped up.

You totally do look like a girl tho

“Yeah, people keep saying that? I don’t really see it, though.” He glanced at the ongoing stream open on his second monitor. “Just looks like me but with some makeup added on top. Maybe I’m too close to the situation. Well, anyway, thank you so much for all the support, guys! This has been amazing! I think I gotta go now so I can get some sleep before work tomorrow, but hopefully we can all do this again!”

With that, he clicked the button to stop streaming, and sagged back in his chair, exhaling.

What the hell just happened?

He’d gotten more new subs today than he’d gotten in the entire previous month. People really like the makeup that much, huh. Weird. Well, I guess I’d better keep it up. 

He was about to lie down when he realized he needed to clean the makeup off his face. Aw man, good thing I remembered. This is, like, my favorite pillow. Can’t have it out here lookin’ hotter than me, lol.

After cleaning his face with some wipes and then moisturizing it, he lay down. Honestly, now that he was past the initial adrenaline rush, he could think back on today’s stream and realize just how successful it had been. Although he wasn’t exactly thrilled that people seemed to care so much about what he looked like and not as much about his personality or talent, he guessed that was just the way the world was. I mean, look at how many people on Instagram are basically just famous for how they look. But sure, he’d play the game. Just like every other game he played, he wanted to do everything he could to maximize the chances of him winning, quickly and with style. Hmm, maybe I should also look at updating my wardrobe and streaming setup. I could take a look at what the popular streamers are wearing and what equipment they’re using. Yeah, I’ll do that tomorrow. Hopefully at this rate I’ll be able to afford that stuff soon and from here it’ll all be a positive feedback loop. Heh, maybe my Biology degree is good for something after all. Survival of the fittest, y’know?

With that, he yawned, rolled around a bit, and fell asleep.

The next morning he woke up several hours before his alarm. Jeez, maybe I need to start taking melatonin again or something. But he figured he could use this time to put his plans into action.

He ended up adding a bunch of lighting and audio equipment to his Amazon wishlist. He probably wasn’t going to get all of it, but it didn’t hurt to look. Then he turned his attention to clothing.

Hmm, alright. Well, I feel like I’m seeing a few main trends. A bunch of dudes wearing t-shirts, either solid color or with gaming logos on them. Some other dudes wearing button-ups and stuff like that. Probably not gonna do that, my neck needs to BREATHE. V-necks for life, dude. Hmm… a lot of the search results are also about girl streamers getting banned for wearing stuff that Twitch considered too revealing. Most of these really don’t look that bad though? That’s kinda dumb. Mostly just tank tops and kinda low v-necks and gamer t-shirts. Honestly, this is all just stuff I would wear lol. 

He figured the shirts probably mattered more than anything else. At least with his setup, it’s not like viewers were gonna see anything below mid-torso. Lol, maybe I can do a leg reveal at 100 subs.

Anyway, he’d come to the conclusion that honestly his current wardrobe seemed fine? He mostly just wore v-neck t-shirts that were either blank or had vaguely nerdy pop culture references on them, or plain or striped tank tops when the weather got too hot. Well, saving money wasn’t a bad thing.

He did feel vaguely disappointed, though. He had secretly been hoping he could overhaul his whole image and massively boost his audience. Plus, like… not that he looked bad or anything, but his vibe wasn’t exactly exciting or unique. Like, you could probably go on Twitch and find a thousand streamers with his exact wardrobe. Well, maybe changing things up would make sense, just to have, like, a brand.

He decided to put a pin in that for now. Somehow, he’d already been online window shopping for several hours and needed to start getting ready for work. God he hoped that if the stream took off he could quit this shit job soon.