- Goodbye, big poster (crowd exclaims).
Hello, little post (crowd exclaims).
Hey, guys, welcome back to my very first Twitch stream,
prerecorded and edited to be put on YouTube.
So I don't know if you guys noticed,
but there's been a bit of a pattern developing lately,
and it's not a good one.
It all started in January
when this clip went viral of a Twitch streamer
furious at the idea of going a few minutes
without making any money.
- About how I need subs,
and to get the stream going,
if you like the content, blah, blah, blah,
how that results in zero subs,
there are regulars here.
$5 a month.
$5 dollars.
$5 to provide for the content that you're watching.
Look at, I have a wall of non subs.
This is fucking actually really heartbreaking,
because it's like people just really have no,
really don't respect me as a content creator.
- Predictably, this sparked outrage on Twitter.
People made YouTube videos about it.
And despite the overwhelming majority opinion that this girl
was in the wrong for doing this,
it was probably the most attention she'd ever gotten.
Interesting how creating outrage will do that,
which brings us to culprit number two.
This one from just last month.
- I'm unemployed,
so basically all my money goes to bills and food,
or I would support you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
It's $5.
Being like, "I'm broke.
I can't afford to sub."
That doesn't really track.
What you mean to say is,
"I'm so irresponsible with my money.
I can't support the entertainment that I enjoy."
(laughs)
That's what that is.
- Guys, $5 isn't that much money.
That's why I'm begging you for it.
But once again, more Twitter outrage,
more viral YouTube videos about it,
and the internet coming together
once more to shame this self-righteous person,
as they should,
but the pattern continues.
- 500 Subs.
We gotta get to 500 subs.
It's the only way I'm committing to a stream schedule.
We're at 187.
Like,
I don't know what to tell ya.
- All right.
Now I'm starting to get suspicious.
Why is Amanda Cerny,
an internet veteran making the same mistakes
as these other streamers?
Is she not aware of the backlash they got,
or even if being slightly misconstrued,
how her words could have the same effect.
Or is she extremely aware of that,
and that's the reason she did this?
You see, like a lot of people,
I've been aware of Amanda Cerny for a few years now.
She was a former Viner-turned-Instagram comedian,
turned total afterthought in my brain.
But now thanks to this clip,
and the subsequent tweets about it,
I'm not only reminded of the fact that she exists,
but, also, now I know that she's Twitch streaming.
A lot of people know that now.
All it takes is one trip to her Social Blade
to see how many people know that now.
Could it be that given the current climate of the internet,
that the most effective marketing tool
for your Twitch stream is to do this exact thing.
It's working for her so far,
and thank God it was.
If it wasn't for this clip being passed around,
I would've missed out on some of the best Red Dead 2
gameplay I've ever seen.
(Amanda gasps)
- I killed my horse?
- Now, if we're to take these three clips at face value
and compare them,
this is by far the most defensible one.
I can kind of understand what she means
by saying her words were taken out of context.
I think maybe someone was just asking her
like what her schedule is,
and all she's saying is,
"I want to have a consistent schedule,
but until this becomes a viable source of income for me,
I'd be better off using my time
to make money in other ways,"
which is a fine sentiment.
It's more so the way it came off,
she has this sense of exasperation,
like, "Guys, I've been streaming for four days already,
and only 187 people have agreed to give me money?"
So a lot of people watch that and think,
"Shit, you're lucky to be in that position."
People stream for years without any subscribers.
They just do it because they like it.
So when people like Amanda Cerny,
an already very rich person,
go to Twitch,
and wonder why people aren't immediately
throwing their money at them,
it just comes off as entitled and out of touch.
You've only streamed like 10 times.
Have you ever considered
that maybe you're just not that good at it yet,
and it will take some practice before people
want to reward you for just putting forth
the bare minimum effort.
I feel like most people,
especially already established creators on the internet,
assume Twitch streaming is like the easiest thing
in the world.
Oh, you just sit there and play video games all day?
I could do that.
But the streamers people watch,
the ones I watch consistently,
are really fucking good at it.
They're funny and entertaining.
They put on a show,
or they're just extremely good at the game they're playing,
or they have a skill that most people don't have,
that's fun to watch.
Maybe if you created a fun environment,
or were better at the game you're playing,
or even if you just interacted with your chat
instead of staring at your phone
every time a cut scene comes on,
people would see the value in spending money
to support your stream.
The quickest way to make people angry
is to act as if you're entitled to their money
by merely existing in front of them.
Like, they should be honored to have the privilege
of financially supporting you.
Also, what a huge slap in the face
to the people who already did subscribe,
as if their support means nothing.
But the fact of the matter is,
whether she meant to stir the pot
or just did so by accident,
this is the best advertising for her stream
she could have possibly asked for.
I wouldn't be surprised if she already doubled
her 500 sub goal by now
just by saying something dumb.
Speaking of numbers,
I wanna go back and talk some more about InvaderVie,
who is also doing just fine
despite saying much worse things.
- "That's so toxic,
especially when people are losing their jobs."
It really isn't.
- One half-assed apology later
and her army of white knights
continues to grow stronger by the day.
Even during that stream, she was getting new subs
left and right.
Now, if you guys don't mind,
I wanna go ahead and break down her apology,
because I think it's a real masterclass in saving face.
- Hi.
You're here right now
because you've seen a clip of me.
- Mm-hmm. - And you're very angry about
what I said in that clip. - Sure am.
- What I said was toned deaf-- - Uh-huh.
- Insensitive. - Uh-huh.
- And stupid. - Uh-huh.
- The clip that you saw does not represent my true feelings.
- Wait, what?
- I expressed opinions that I do not hold at all.
I said things that I don't mean,
and they were vile.
- Wait, hold on,
you can do that?
You can go off on a whole strongly opinionated tangent,
and then just say, well, actually that wasn't my opinion.
That's why I said it,
'cause it wasn't what I felt.
- What I said it was wrong in any context,
but especially in the context
of a global pandemic. - Uh-huh.
So next, she opens the floor for questions,
and then struggles to answer any of them and just moves on.
- I want to talk to you. I want to hear your voices.
I want to answer the questions that you have.
"With all due respect,
why didn't you apologize before the clip blew up?"
Okay.
(dial-up modem screeching)
That's a difficult question to answer.
I wish that I could talk about it all day,
and answer each and every one of your questions.
- You can.
- I wish that I could give you a satisfactory answer
so that you could see who I really am.
- So do that.
- But that's not what this is about.
- That's not this apology is about?
It's not about apologizing?
- I'll BRB.
Just give me a quick moment, everybody.
- And that's the whole apology.
It was like eight minutes of her saying
she didn't actually mean what she said,
and she wants to take this opportunity
to learn and grow from it,
which is why she's gonna spend the next three hours
ignoring questions and acting defensive.
- Great memes in chat, everybody.
I like seeing the same five comments repeated 800 times.
- It's so funny.
It took her like four days to apologize,
and then about 10 minutes for her to get mad at everyone
for bringing it up.
I think this person's comment
that I saw kind of just sums it up perfectly.
So at this point I was pretty invested in the situation,
and I had to dive deeper,
especially when she said this.
- Thank you, Upright Lion,
for understanding that an entire person
cannot be summed up in a 30-second clip.
- That's an important detail to point out.
See, Vie wants us to think that all of her fuck-ups
were contained within that one 30-second clip
that went viral.
However, that's not true,
and I know that, because for some reason,
the VOD from that stream is still up on her channel.
You can still go watch the entire thing.
Don't worry though.
You don't have to do that,
because I have nothing going on in my life,
and I already did.
It starts off small with some not-so-subtle
guilt trips here and there.
- "How're you doing, Vie?
I would be better if you sub to me.
"Sometimes I just listen to you while I'm working."
Damn, I hope that while you're working extra hard,
and you're cashing in that fucking money, money, money,
you also throw a sub my way.
Thank you all of you for subbing.
Thank you all of you for being reasonable people.
- But as it goes on,
it gets more and more manipulative.
- Well, yes,
streamers do provide hundreds of hours of content for free.
If anything, you do owe them.
They don't really owe you anything.
- No, no, no, no.
That's not true.
Nobody owes you anything.
People watching your stream,
they're watching the ads before your stream,
they're boosting your stream in like the rankings
just by being there.
The more viewers you have,
the more likely it is other people are gonna see.
They don't really owe you a subscription.
Twitch is a free platform.
If they wanna watch you for free, they can.
And what she said is especially false too the other way,
where it's like,
once people are giving you money,
they're paying a subscription fee
to enable you to make content,
you do owe them now.
You owe them the content that they paid for.
But as bad as that statement was, it only gets worse.
- "That's so toxic,
especially when people are losing their jobs."
It really isn't.
And if you believe it is,
then I imagine that you simply don't understand
how this platform works,
and I encourage you to get more perspective.
- How can someone be so wrong
and so condescending at the same time?
At this point, even her fans,
the people who are watching in this moment,
started questioning her logic,
but she would not back down.
She would not admit that maybe she's wrong.
- "Some people work and struggle
and they don't have $5 still."
You're obviously not the person that I was speaking to,
but you seem so self-centered that you thought
I was talking specifically to you.
I wasn't. I was speaking to the group, honey.
These are exquisite contributions
to a very good conversation.
And these people in chat who are making these comments
do not appear as immature childish cheapskates whatsoever.
(laughs)
They're just sitting here masturbating
as hard as they possibly can,
as quietly as they can,
because their parents are in the next room
talking about how disappointed they are in them.
And they're like, "Why would I ever pay for this
when this slut's just giving it away for free?"
(laughs)
- What the fuck?
The best part of that clip is what happens right after it.
She's just sitting there giggling at her own hilarious joke.
And she stops to look at her phone.
And I think sees a text from someone,
who's probably like, "Dude, what the hell are you doing?"
- Oh my goodness.
- That instant shift in her facial expression is priceless.
But it doesn't affect her for more than a few seconds.
Because then she goes right back to her echo chamber,
where she has no reason to believe
that she's saying anything wrong.
Most of her audience is not fazed at all by this.
She could probably be beating them to death with a shovel,
and they would still just comment on how hot she is.
"I think I love you."
And the ones who are challenging what she's saying
are far outnumbered by the people who are commenting
things like this.
- "I never watched a person that's so nice to people
that they don't even know.
Wow, you are so nice."
- What?
Are we watching the same stream?
(Vie screams)
It doesn't matter though.
She's so confident in her ability to mentally overpower
her loyal horde of Simps,
that she can just blatantly contradict herself.
- Well, I never said if you don't have $5 for me,
you should be out there working.
I didn't actually say that.
If you don't have $10,
you probably don't have time to watch Twitch,
because you should be working.
"But you did say that."
No, Worst Gamer Ever.
You definitely heard that,
but that is not actually what I said.
You should be working.
I didn't say if you don't have $5 from me,
you're irresponsible with your money.
I'm so irresponsible with my money.
I didn't say if you don't have $5 from me,
you're irresponsible with your money.
If you don't have $5 to sub to a Twitch streamer
that you watch,
you're probably irresponsible with your money.
- Could've just deleted the VOD,
and I wouldn't have been able to edit that together,
but that's your fault.
Her argument doesn't end there though.
She really wants you to give her some money.
So she starts comparing her stream to the cost
of other things to show you how valuable it is.
- It's less expensive than a Netflix account,
and you're not stuck with a number of screens.
If you pay for one Twitch subscription,
that goes against that,
that will transfer to every platform
that you wanna watch Twitch on.
- I'm sorry, guys. One second.
Hold on, I just gotta...
It's gotta be around here somewhere.
No, it's not.
Sorry, guys.
I was just trying to find the logic here.
Your subscription is more valuable than Netflix,
because people can watch you on multiple devices?
Last time I checked, Netflix has like a billion movies,
doesn't beg me for money,
and there's no free version of it.
I can watch your stream for free.
(Vie screams)
Now, here's the thing.
I know that I don't have to be as annoyed by this as I am.
And I really wanted to try
and give her the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe she was just having a really bad day,
and she said some stupid shit because she was angry.
I've gotten angry and said stupid shit.
I don't think that defines you as a person.
So every couple of days I would check to see
if she was streaming,
and if she was I'd pop in for like 20 minutes
here and there,
just to get a sense of the vibe.
And my first takeaway was that she seems very smart.
Although she also likes to tell people that she is.
- It's so funny, people ask,
they're like, "How do you know so much?
Like how are you able to speak on so many topics?"
And then they ask, "And do you watch all these TV shows?"
The answer is the same.
I think one of the reasons why I'm able to speak
on so many different types of topics,
is because I don't spend a lot of time watching TV.
- But I think she's extremely well-spoken.
I think she does a good job
of moving the conversation along,
especially considering how most of the replies
are just utter nonsense.
And I actually felt myself starting to pull away
from my frustration,
but then a few minutes into one of the first live streams
I clicked on,
she brought up the situation again,
and said this.
- A lot of people were, again,
talking about like how I should get a job,
or I should work.
I thought it was quite funny,
because a lot of the streamers
who were saying things like that,
I've had more jobs than they have.
I've worked harder than they have.
A lot of them are just professional streamers
who have been gaming since they were 16, 17, 18 years old.
I've actually been working since I was at age,
and I wasn't doing it in front of an audience.
It wasn't glamorous streaming work. Trust me.
- Okay, first of all,
I scrolled through Twitter at the time.
I didn't see any big streamers telling her
to get a real job.
The tweets I saw all had some pretty valid points,
so I don't know what you're talking about.
But hold on,
I thought your whole reason for demanding subs
was that you deserve people's money
'cause you work so hard, right?
And streaming is not as easy as people think.
- The more proficient you are at something,
the easier it looks.
- But when other people have the same job as you,
for them, it's just a glamorous streaming work.
My God, the hypocrisy.
It's incredible how she's tried to shift the narrative here,
despite having no solid ground to stand on,
which makes me think,
is this,
Is this all part of it too?
Let's recap.
First she demands that people give her money,
which they do.
Video of that blows out,
so she apologizes to save face,
but welcomes all the brand new viewers.
Some of them are only there to leave hate comments,
because of what she said,
which is unfortunate,
but, of course, she uses it as an opportunity
to play the victim,
which leads to even more people donating and subscribing,
because they want to cheer her up.
And with that, the cycle is complete.
Well done, Vie.
Well done.
And guys, I know. I know.
If this was all bait,
I fell for it so hard.
I'm like the world's dumbest fish.
- Is that a T-bone steak attached to a sharp object?
I'm not falling for that.
But I do like steak.
In conclusion. Don't do this.
Don't try and guilt people into giving you their money,
and don't berate them when they give you a valid reason
why they can't.
If people wanna support you,
and they have the ability to support you,
more often than not,
they're going to support you.
Also, guys, seriously,
don't go and harass anyone that I talked about
in this video.
If you're mad, I get it.
I'm mad too, clearly.
But I'm giving you an open invitation now
to just vent about it down in the comments,
but please don't go to someone's live stream,
and comment inflammatory shit
just to try to get a reaction out of them.
That's not cool.
To end this video on a positive note,
I would like to shout out some of my favorite streamers,
'cause I do watch Twitch almost every day.
Number one, Chris Melberger.
He's the GOAT, in my opinion.
He's so consistently entertaining.
Eddy, Gus, Jake,
they're all streaming pretty regularly now,
and I think they're killing it,
not just because they're my friends,
although that's definitely part of it.
Jenna and Julian are always great.
Thomas Middleditch is on Twitch now?
What the hell?
I love that guy.
Also, if you haven't,
go watch his Netflix special with Ben Schwartz.
It's the hardest I've laughed in months.
There are so many wonderful people on Twitch,
and I hate that the ones who abuse it
might lead people to think
that it's just a cesspool filled with greedy assholes,
when, really, that's the minority.
Well, with all this talk about money,
I think it's time I go ahead and pay my own bills.
Hi, in case it wasn't already made obvious
by the basketball hoop that I have in my office,
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Thank you Honey for sponsoring today's video,
and thank you to all the clouds outside
that are moving around
and making the lighting extremely inconsistent,
and thank you to hat for covering my hair.
I'm gonna go sit down again.
I filmed that part three days ago.
I don't know who I'm trying to fool.
Thank you guys so much for watching today's video.
If you enjoyed it, remember, as always,
to please PayPal me a $1000 cash right now.
Do it. Okay?
Do it. I need it.
Just kidding. You guys don't owe me anything.
Thank you so much for watching my videos.
You have given me a career
simply by looking at me.
Seriously. That's all you had to do.
I've got a couple more videos coming out this month
that will be more on the lighter side.
Sorry, if this one was just more ranty and made you angry.
I just like to do these from time to time.
But anyway, stay safe out there.
Goodbye.