Matara Kan Reads Viewers’ Anniversary Messages, Says Streaming Eases a Hard Stretch

INDEPENDENT — Matara Kan, an independent streamer on Twitch, spent part of a long chat stream reading messages viewers had written for her, and told them that streaming had become a way to stop thinking about the world. She said she had been feeling very down lately, adding that it sounded like a joke but was not, and that this was why she had been enjoying streaming and getting into Age of Empires so much.

Later in the stream she thanked the artists and organizers who had put the collection together, working through it slide by slide until the last one. Her anniversary had been on Oct. 15, she said, but viewers did not have to wait for one to spoil her, and she mentioned that her birthday falls on Feb. 4. Looking ahead, she said she would start playing ranked Age of Empires II in November. “Am I going to be good? I don’t know. But am I going to have fun?” she said, before conceding she would probably get beaten up.

“When I’m streaming, I don’t have to think about the world and how much its weight crushes me.” — Matara Kan, while reading messages from viewers

The stream began later than planned. Matara Kan opened by apologizing for the change of plans, explaining that she had wanted an extra day to rest a hoarse voice and had not wanted to cram a long stream in front of an evening collaboration with 16 other streamers. She promised Half-Life 1 all day the next day, and a mix of chatting, Minecraft and a Naraka: Bladepoint event this time. Hours later she said she had talked too long to fit in Minecraft.

The talk wandered. Around the 49-minute mark she described getting texts that claimed a warrant had been issued for her arrest, and recalled a wave of scam calls years earlier that a friend told her were probably automated. Chat traded stories of their own scams. She also looked back on her first trip to Japan about 13 years ago, when she could only get online at a Starbucks until she learned in her last days that her rental had a portable Wi-Fi device. In another stretch she talked about Dungeon Meshi, Tower of God and Gurren Lagann, and said that being into anime and becoming a VTuber around 2019 and 2020 was once considered strange. Chat answered with recommendations such as Frieren.

Viewers gifted subscriptions, including a batch of 10 from one viewer, and Matara Kan gifted 10 to the Twitch community in turn. Chat filled with spinning and heart emotes as she read through the messages, and near the end viewers thanked her for the stream. She closed by saying she wanted an early start the next day and sent a raid to another streamer.