BOOTLEG BLOG

Needy Streamer Overload and the addictive nature of social media and fame.

TW: THIS GAME CONTAINS EXPLICIT DEPICTIONS OF SELF HARM, DRUG ABUSE, (extremely heavily implied)SEX, MENTAL DESTRUCTION, AND SUICIDE. ALONG WITH DISTURBING AND FLASHING IMAGERY.

THIS ESSAY IS PLANNED TO BE REWRITTEN IN IT'S ENTIRETY

I've had this game on my wishlist on Steam for a really long time, even before the game really started getting popular. I could tell by it's aesthetics, premise, and just it's overall vibe it'd be something I'd become obsessed with. And as I got gifted a steam giftcard I figured that it's time to finally grab it. And I was so, so incredibly right. At the moment I'm writing this my icon on Discord is of Ame-chan.

The moment I got one of the endings I knew that I was gonna write up about this game, because god I have so much to say.

#1 Internet Angel!

In this game we play as our faceless self-insert only referred to as P-chan and our lead Ame-chan. Ame's goal is to become the biggest streamer on the platform, no matter the cost. She deeply, deeply craves the attention, and you're here to help here! Or... Destroy her in the process.

Ame has 3 stats you have to keep track of. Stress, Affection, and Mental Darkness. Tasks you do throughout the game will affect these 3 markers that you have to contantly balance.
You can have her stream let's plays, explained streams, or you can have her shortcut her way to the top with some sexy or asmr streams.
Along side that you can do other things like spend time with her, such as playing video games or go out! You don't wanna ignore your girlfriend afterall.
Oh yeah, she also takes medication for her unspecified mental illness, probably wouldn't be a problem if she took more than the recommended amount, same with her cough medicine...

I think OrangE's description of the game being more of a satire than a psychological horror I feel like is perfect.
The writing is whitty, has rare examples of actually good dark humor, and comically(or scarily) accurate parasocial fans.

This game falls under the Denpa genre of Visual Novels/Adventure Games. Denpa, "electromagnetic wave" if translated literally, in the context of media genre typically feature characters who are socially disconnected and inhabit mundane environments. It very frequently contains motifs of technology and/or themes of delusions and mental illness, also typically combined with kawaii and moe visuals.
The term "denpa" or specifically "denpa-kei" or "denpa-san" typically referrs to people who are seemingly disconnected from reality in one way or another, either because their constantly in their own mental world or because they experience delusions or hallucinations. Being mostly a term (probably derogatorily) targetted towards those who suffer from mental illness.

Despite being decently obscure unless you're active in VN circles, you've probably touched media that qualifies as Denpa before, like Serial Experiments Lain and Higurashi. I'm admittedly still pretty new to the genre but what I've read is fantastic. But the reason why I'm bringing this up is because it's important to a lot of Needy Streamer Overload, with it having a lot of nods to denpa media.

This game has some of my favorite depictions of mental illness I've seen in awhile. Ame's I guess ""genre"" of mental illness of deep attention seeking behavior and need for validation is rarely taken seriously by others and just brushed of as "annoying" and "not actually suffering" despite the fact that stopping to think "hey... WHY is this person going to extreme lengths to gain attenton?" isn't very difficult. So it makes me incredibly happy to see her problems be taken very seriously. Her intense need for validation and to feel seen and loved feels like it's treated like a real problem rather than a punchline like it typically is.
Though I don't personally suffer from this problem, I have the opposite issue where I hate my existence to even be acknowledge to the point I'll disappear abruptly from public spaces usually incoveniencing myself or others, I've seen many people online talk about how deeply they relate to her. And I always feel like people should feel seen.

But alongside being a good depiction of mental illness, this game has an extremely prominent message, it has a lot to say about streaming culture, parasocial relationships, internet addiction, and the burden of chasing fame.

Internet Overdose

Internet Overdose is the first proper ending I got and my god it's so intensely good and I think is the best showcase on what Needy Streamer Overload wants to say.

In order to get this ending, you need to push Ame to her limits. Keeping her stress constantly high, giving her little to no breaks. She'll start to hit her breaking point.
You're making her stream and refusing to let her take a break, her stress has been at or over 80 for awhile then suddenly you get very sudden messages from Ame.


EXPLICIT DEPICTION OF SELF HARM IN VIDEO ABOVE

The game forces your hand to make her self harm yourself. Despite the simplified visual it's still hard to watch. After an impulsive tweet, she suddenly goes live against your will.

This event has stayed in my brain long after 100% completing this game. The fact she self harms just to go on stream immediately after telling people to be kind to those who are suffering and to reach for help if you're suffering hurts me. It also made me realize the very intentional design detail that Kangel wears long sleeves while Ame doesn't, though they're not visible in game it's states multiple times in game that Ame has scars from self harm. And from personal experience as someone who has watched a lot of different kinds of content creators, if someone notices in a video you have self harm scars on your arms, they will point it out obsessively.

But even after this event you keep pushing her. Ame wants to be a big streamer right? You're just helping her. Right?
You continue to make her stream, never letting her any breaks, you two aren't spending that much time together, you make her stream anything, including more sexual streams. Anything to make her famous.
Anything.

Anything.

Then, her stess hits 100.


I wanna draw attention to the stream chat here. And how genuinely real it feels in my opinion. Overall people are being complete assholes in the chat, accussing her of attention seeking and literally just telling her to "get a grip" there's still sprinkles of people who give a shit and seem genuinely concerned over her well being there, but the fact that they're in the blatant minority is what feels the most realistic to me. I won't name specific content creators but I've witnessed many creators have mental breakdowns and have their fans treat them exactly like this.

But even now, she has to keep streaming, this is her dream, she'll be happy soon. Ame-chan will be happy soon, Kangel will be happy soon. Just overdose on her medication to cope, just take too much cough medicine to cope, just take too much sleep medication to cope, just smoke some weed to cope, just drop some acid to cope, to cope.
This is her dream.
Everyone loves her.
Everyone loves Kangel.

25 days in, Ame's stress is high, too high, she decides she'll just do her typical vanity search and look up her name online and...


Out of all the endings I wanna talk about and examine this one in my opinion feels the most realistic despite it's semi-abstract final point. People always say "don't feed the trolls" but if you were in the position of a big content creator, especially one struggling with mental health, it isn't that simple, you can't just ignore them, because they won't let you. It's even worse as in truth it's beyond just 'trolls'.
After throwing up on stream she starts to be used as content, many of the red and black text posts that appear reading like articles and YouTube video titles, along side threats of doxing, them finding out her real name and potentially her address. Even then there's still hints of people who care in her stream chats, but still, they're in the drastic minority. People saying shit like "I hate pick-mes like Kangel" as if she isn't clearly genuinely suffering.

As Ame starts to snap she starts to hear doorbell ringing, this is heavily implied to be a hallucination, as she overdoses specifically on cough medicine which can cause hallucinations and symptoms of psychosis.
In her Diagram of the Body stream there seems to be blood all over her room, it's generally unclear where the blood came from, the theory I've personally adopted was the one based on the tweet she posted a little bit before the stream.

"A stray cat came in through my window"
"Cats are practically worshipped on the internet so"
"I bet it'd get way more views than me"
"I hated that thought"
"So I chased it away"
"But I think everyone would've rather I kept it"

I believe Kangel killed the stray cat, but I think it goes deeper than just that. As in her final stream, Kangel has killed Ame.
It's safe to assume that the ending is a hallucination of Ame's but in clearly is more than just that. She has completely killed her true self in favor of her online persona. She isn't Ame anymore.
The line between her and Kangel has been destroyed because of those on the internet. She's become deeply obsessed with this version of her that the real her no longer exists.
I feel like this ending is the perfect warning on becoming obsessed with your digital image, and it's hard not to when everyone around you will pick it apart bit by bit to find something wrong with you, waiting to find a reason to tear you to shreds.

Painful Future

There's a couple different endings you can get via stream categories, for example if you do all the sexy streams Ame just goers "fuck it" and has sex on stream and gets banned, or if you do all of the conspiracy streams she'll just straight up become a cult leader. But the specific one of this genre of endings I wanna focus on is the ending you get when completing all of the breakdown streams.
You unlock the first breakdown stream by having Ame overdose on her medication and she gets the idea of going on stream while high on her medication.

Ame messages you the following:
“ugh im so tired i just want to die... but i cant...”
“more than the sweet release of death, i crave the sweet sweet follower count increase...”
“but still, why is living so hard?”
“guess ill pop a few pills before i go live :D”
“no fear... no pain...”

The first breakdown stream doesn't have anything too noteworthy in it other than Kangel acting a bit more manic than usual, but it starts to get bleaker with the second breakdown stream which you unlock by vanity searching.

Ame messages you the following:
“uaugh... saw some pretty bad hate... (takes psychic damage)”
“huaaaaaaaggh i know its best to just ignore them and block them and move on but...”
“i just want to kill myself... brb gonna pour hot water into my modem”

You can make Ame listen to her impulsive thoughts and make her go on stream talking about this hate.

“Um... So because I’m an angel, I’ll do anything just to see you guys smile, but...”
“It gets tough sometimes, you know?”
“I’d appreciate it if you could keep your mean comments to yourselves.”
“Angels have feelings too, you know? Sorry for being so depressing all of a sudden...”
“It’s got nothing to do with, like, 90% of you guys, so you’re probably all super turned off by this, huh...”
(reading “What’s wrong?”)“Ahaha... It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
(reading “Attention whore lol”)“Attention whore, huh? Yeah. Thanks for giving me attention <3”
(reading “No one likes you anymore”) “LOL what do I even say to this... I guess I’ll just go die.”
(reading “Do you need someone to talk to?”)“You won’t understand how I really feel, anyway. Just leave me be.”
“I get it, I’m gross. I’ll just go now. BYE”

Like I said in the previous ending, the "don't feed the trolls" mindset is a lot easier said than done, especially when you suffer from mental illness, it's hard to simply just ignore people grilling into you and it's hard to appreciate people showing their sympathy when you know they don't know you, especially when you're in Ame's shoes. It's hard to not feel the strong need to defend yourself when people who don't even know you try to talk shit about you as if they do.

Time goes on though, you probably have Ame do some other streams, but one day while spending time with her she sends you the following messages:

“p-chan... it hurts...”
“i feel like im being crushed by all this stress”
“more specifically the fun little replies the disgusting nerds leave on my posts bug ugh...”
“im going to... rest for a bit... just a bit, i promise...”

And you get the 3rd breakdown stream, generally it's best not to do this stream in any other playthrough because well...

“So... Um, this wasn’t really prompted by anything, but...”
“Some days it’s hard to even get out of bed. And I think that’s all part of life, but...”
“The moment a crack starts to form in your heart, a second one could shatter it completely.”
“So I’m going to be taking a little break.”
“I’m not sure when we can see each other again, but when we can, I hope I can show you all that I’m okay.”
“I love you guys.”

After doing this stream you will not be able to have Ame stream for several days. But hey, it gives her time to relax!...Right?
In order to get the next breakdown stream you must have her overdose on Embian, her sedative medication.

“AHAHAHAHA IVE DONE IT. IVE CRACKED THE CODE”
“I JUST HAVE TO GET SUPER HIGH BEFORE GOING ON CAMERA!”
“THEN NOTHING WILL FAZE ME!!!”
“AHAHAHahhahahahaha this is so much fuuuuuuuuunnnnnn”
“haha kidding i want to die loooool”
“ugh just fucking kill me already AAAAAAAGGGGGHGHHHHGHGHHGHG”
“(screams) ok i feel better now ITS TIME TO STREAM LETS GOOOOOOOO”

Once she tweets that her break is over, you can go on the 4th breakdown stream, she goes on high again, completely manic.

“Hey cuties! ...Did you catch that? Here it is once more! Hey cuties!”
“Ahahaha! It’s KAngel! And I feel super happy today!!!”
“What should we talk about today? Ooh, wanna hear a cool fact about corned beef?”
“Did you know that the shape of corned beef- Wait, who cares about corned beef?”
“What’s the point in me streaming anyway? Like I’m cute, but thats about it.”
“Ugh, I feel kinda nauseous... Sorry if you hear me making gross sounds.”
“Wait, if I throw up now I’ll get turned into a meme. I’d rather die than be the girl who puked on camera.”
“Aaagh I’m so pissed off! I’m tired of being all sad and depressed! KAngel happy era NOW!!!”

Ame's clearly high off her ass, the Kangel persona is starting to crack, even if Ame keeps streaming it stays in the back of her mind, regardless of how much they hate her or love her, the people that view her have no idea who she is. Kangel is who they know, not Ame. When her mental darkness hits a certain point she can smoke "magic grass" (it's weed) If you do this at 250K subscribers, she messages you this:

“ah... i feel so... at peace....”
“p-chan... do you think people will remember me forever?”
“i think i know what i have to do now...”
“this is fine... i dont have much energy left anyway”
“im going to put an end to everything”

(2:44 if embed breaks)

Ignoring how fucking funny the image of her smoking weed out of costume with just the title "I AM LEGEND", this ending feels like the opposite to Internet Overdose, because in a sense Ame is killing Kangel, at the price of being arrested, which though never explicitly stated it's highly likely as there's someone in chat claiming to call the police and that weed is very illegal in Japan. It's clear Ame knew this was gonna happoen, but she's gone so deep into mental darkness she doesn't care anymore.

It's been known for awhile that the internet tries to force us to be the best version of ourselves or whatever version of ourselves others find the most entertaining. But I feel as if it's gotten worse in the current age, I feel like both Internet Overdose and Failed Future demonstrate that perfectly. The most heartbreaking part of this ending for me is that she finally gained the respect and admiration from others, just long after she's no longer on the internet, as people have realized in retrospect that she decided to be her true self in a world where you're forced to be what people want you to be.
I've seen time and time again people being treated like ass for just being them then people will turn around several years later and go "y'know what? they were actualy pretty cool because they were actually real!" and it's always too late. Prioritize empathy rather than mockery, not everything in life is made for your entertainment.

There Are No Angels

I was initially was going to be talking about the Dark Angel ending however I realized that despite this ending being a lot simpler I have a lot more to say about it.

Despite your best efforts, Ame couldn't gain 1 million subscribers, and if her affection is below 60 and mental darkness is above 60, this'll happen;

CONTAINS EXPLICIT SUICIDE

Though this isn't the only ending Ame takes her life (like Dark Angel) I feel like this is the one I want to focus on as it feels a lot more uncomfortably real. There has been a lot of cases of people taking their own lives on live streams, or just streamers taking their lives in general. A lot of people have pointed out that there's a chance that this specific ending was based on the real world suicide of Rorochan, though the comparison makes me uncomfortable as I don't like how people treat the case of Rorochan in general, treating her as a mythical sad story as opposed to an actual terrible tragedy of the suicide of a 14 year old girl struggling with mental illness that no one in her life did anything about, it's hard to not see connections. Regardless I feel like if it was 100% intentional the chat would be a lot darker, as very infamously, when Rorochan went on her final stream to take her own life the majority of the chat was cheering her on to jump. Disgusting.

No matter how many creators take their lives people won't treat them as humans, just as objects of entertainment. Not until the realize what the problem is. I genuinely think one of the few times people learned and improved from their terrible behavior was the case with Etika, going from mocking his mental illness to making a memorial in his honor.

Do You Love Me?

You can't let her hurt again, you WILL get her to 1 million. Avoiding the Dark Angel ending by avoiding having her stress too high, you can't let her be stressed. Give her all the drugs she needs, constantly love her, she will be happy, she will be happy.
Stream about video games
Stream about anime
Sexy streams
ASMR streams

She will be big.

You look at your darling Ame-chan, she's so happy! Ignore how high her mental darkness has gotten! She looks so happy! You can do it! She even takes you to meet her parents! This is great! This is like a dream!!
And yet...


Overall this ending is harder to understand for most, but I think it's pretty clear, Ame is in a complete state of mania.
With the money that comes from making it big, when you're in an extremely unstable state, it's hard not to be tempted to just, fuck around. This stream thing is getting boring, let's do everything ever!! Roller coasters!!! Fuck it let's smoke weed in a public space and post it on social media!! Lets abruptly post kissing someone!!! Fuck it!!!

Ame is stuck in a cycle, going round and round and round, that's what the theme park represents, stuck in this cycle of false joy.

It's debated on whether Ame takes her life at the very end, which was admittedly my immediate impression, however I don't think that's the case, I feel more like it's her letting go of reality and fully embracing this manic fantasy. She may appear happy, but in this state, she'll be destroying herself in due time. And she won't even know it. I feel like this is the fate of a lot of content creators that make it big, living in this 'dream' world until they majorly fuck up, they'll inevitably destroy their lives by their own hands.

Don't overdose on emotions.

(Un)Happy End World

Enough with this, this time you'll make her happy, manage her stress AND her mental darkness well, keep her affection high but not too high.
Interestingly enough at some point on the road to success she stops taking drugs entirely! That's good!
She's improving, it's beautiful! Maybe you can fix her.

You hit 1 million.


I've seen a lot of people get extremely angry when first getting this ending. I feel like a lot of people have idealized the content creator life style, without considering how dull it can become, doing the same thing over, and over, and over, afterall, consistency is the best way to reach the top(outside of luck)
I personally never got the appeal of fame, as a child watching first hand celebrities like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus completely crashing and burning and people refusing to treat humans as humans because they crave to be entertained, it's sickening. And even with those who make it without really crashing, we've seen many feel a disconnect, I mean, at I'm writing this(1/13/2024) multiple big content creators have quit recently to prioritize reality. Maybe you should too... Maybe...

Happy End World

If you go back in and do the same as you did with the previous ending, only difference being that you disconnect your internet connection, you'll get a new ending, and what is considered the only good ending in the game.


You wanna talk blunt in the games theming? How about a streamer quitting single handedly inspiring all of her followers to touch grass.

I feel like overall, the internet is a beautiful thing, I'd probably be very depressed and alone if it wasn't for it, so don't expect me to go on about how the internet as a whole is evil, I wouldn't be living with my s/o if that was the case.
But no matter what way you slice it, the internet is addictive, and I feel like internet addiction isn't as taken seriously as it should be, particularly social media addiction. I remember back when Instagram first became big people were constantly talking about how it contributed to peoples' depression and insecurities, but now it feels like people don't care anymore.

There's streamers with diagnosed PTSD because of swatting, comments on Instagram are the most vile shit, TikTok and Twitter are kinda infamous for being absolute hellholes. Hell even Tumblr which was mostly filled with long term members who did this cool thing called growing up and stopped being terrible to people, I once got messages from some persons' ex telling a bunch of people how they should harass that person and tell them to kill themselves, I didn't know either people.

I've vanished off of most social media, I just couldn't mentally take it anymore, all of them are so hollow now, I genuinely only have Instagram so connect with family and some old friends. Also Reddit because jesus christ Googles algorithm sucks ass now.

But there's one more ending I would like to talk about.

Comment te dire adieu (True Ending)

In this ending, you must unlock every ending before it. (minus Happy End World and SMT) After that, you'll unlock Data 0.


Though in the beginning of the game it feels as if if Ame-chan were left to her own devices she'd completely self destruct, you, P-chan, are the only thing that can guide her. But this ending proves you wrong. YOU were the problem. She doesn't need you.

YOU gave her the self destructive ideas, YOU pushed her to her breaking point. And now she's showing you that she can do this on her own. And I can't help but feel proud of her. Her future is in HER hands.
Once she leaves, you're just left with the secret file that's been sitting on the desktop the entire game that Ame wouldn't let you access. You learn...

P-chan does not exist.

Secret.txt

Ame grew up in a highly descructive household. She was of poor health and her household was constantly short on money, her parents would very frequently fight. This eventually led to them getting a divorce, and yet the arguing continued as they fought for custody, with her mom eventually winning. This combined with Ame being bullied a lot clearly caused a lot of trauma for her. It all reached a boiling point when her own mother, in a sick desperation for money, attempted to sell Ame, a child, into prostitution. Ame ran away from home after that.

She jumped from household to household. One way or another she ended up in her current apartment, supposedly living with her boyfriend, but as Secret.txt reads, it reveals that P-chan was most likely an imaginary friend to help cope with her destructive mental state. But in a way I feel as if P-chan came to represent Ame's most self desctructive traits, and I think she knew that as well deep down.

The internet destroyed her, she doesn't need it anymore, she doesn't need P-chan anymore.

"There's a side of myself that I don't know yet"
"and I want to get to know her better"

"Look! I managed to make things work out all by myself!"
"So I don't need you after all..."

"I'm..."
"going to find a new future"

"Thanks for everything, p-chan"

"but now I'm going to pursue my own future with my own hands"

"so... goodbye"