Being Watched

Huan Huan has her phone out and a selfie stick pointed at her face. She’s walking to the gym, into a restaurant, through a mall. Her viewers watch in real time. They send virtual gifts—basically icons that convert to money. She makes about $20,000 a month just by living on camera.

This is apparently a $4 billion industry in China. Three hundred fifty million people streaming into strangers’ daily lives on platforms I’d never heard of until now. Most of the streamers have managers. Professional existers. The standard explanation is that China banned pornography, so people watch these streams instead, but that feels like missing the point. It’s not sexual, or maybe it’s only sexual in the way voyeurism becomes sexual when you put a price tag on it. People just want to watch someone living, and have that someone know they’re being watched.

What strikes me is how simple it is. No talent required. No production. Huan Huan is just going about her day. Her viewers aren’t invested in what she’s actually doing. They’re invested in the fact that she’s willing to let them watch her do it. For money. And she likes the money. That’s the entire thing.

You could call it sad, but that doesn’t feel right. It’s more like the obvious endpoint of where everything’s been heading. Social media convinced us we wanted to broadcast ourselves, so we did. Now the next step is obvious: stop pretending the connection means anything. Both sides know what this is. You’re paying for access. She’s taking the payment. At least it’s honest about being empty.

I don’t know what else to think. The money’s real. The boredom is real. The loneliness obviously is. Everything else follows from there.