Man sends $550,000 and entire life savings to streamer just so she'd call him one word
If you thought you'd seen everything in the world of live streaming then you might need to reconsider, as one man has drained his entire life savings in order to get his favorite streamer to call him one rather innocuous word.
A large part of the appeal of watching live streamers is the real-time interaction that you can have with them. They'll spend a lot of the time reading their chat, and often respond to messages posted by fans in there.
Often, once a streamer gets big, the chat can get overwhelming - leading to paid donations being the only way to ensure that your message will be read and responded to by the streamer.
This has led to some spending more than you'd expect in order to get their favorite social media creator's attention, but one Chinese man might have taken it further than most.
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This particular individual has drained his entire life savings and even resorted to stealing to fund his habit - giving over 4 million yuan ($550,000) to his favorite 'key opinion leader' (KOL) - all so she would simply call him 'bro'.
The man whose surname is Hong, as reported by the South China Morning Post, developed an obsession with a KOL - China's equivalent to influencers - and started funneling all of his money into her channel.
Hong explains: "I didn't want to meet her; I just wanted to hear her call me 'brother'."
He quickly drained his entire life savings though and had resorted to eating plain steamed buns to survive, but that still wasn't enough, and he shortly turned to crime.
Stealing copper from his job at the family business and selling it to local waste recycling stations allowed him to fund an additional 2.3 million yuan ($316,000) in payments, although the police quickly caught on.
He turned himself into the station after 40 reported thefts since May, and the police have recovered over 1 million yuan ($137,550) in stolen goods.
While the situation might initially seem rather bizarre - especially when it comes to the requested word - it might be a little easier to explain within the confines of Chinese online culture.
On a post in the r/nottheonion subreddit about the story, one user explains that: "Chinese 'Bro (Gege)', Korean's 'Oppa', and Japanese 'Oni-chan' can be used in a sexual way like calling your boyfriend 'daddy'."
While it might seem platonic and somewhat innocent to an English speaker, the word does indeed have a rather 'naughty' connotation.
Many still can't quite understand why he had to drop that much money to hear it though, as one user puts: "For 500k I will legally sign whatever paperwork is required to be his bro for real."
Some have even called for platforms to instill caps on the amount that users can donate, claiming: "There's generosity, especially for charity streams, and then there's this."
You'd find it hard to reason with anyone on the receiving end of an amount of money as large as this though, but you wonder if outrageous stories might be the catalyst to larger change.