Millions of streamers try their luck on Twitch every month. One must come up with something special to stand out from the crowd. For example, getting taped to a colleague’s house, as streamer Emily “ExtraEmily” Zhang has done.
What kind of streamer is she? ExtraEmily has been on Twitch since 2020. She had her breakthrough in the summer of 2022. Since then, her channel has seen rapid growth.
In February of this year, she had an average of 1,280 viewers. She then joined One True King (OTK), the organization of MMORPG streamer Asmongold – now, in April, she has already reached an average of 11,300 viewers (via sullygnome).
How did she achieve this? Among other things, with her rather unusual variant of a so-called subathon: A marathon stream where viewers can extend the duration of the stream by completing paid subscriptions (“subs”).
The 28-year-old did not stop there, sitting in front of her PC for hours while being live. For her “Wall-A-Thon,” she had herself taped to the house of her OTK colleague Esfand. After just 13 hours, however, it was already over (via JeuxVideo).
Other content creators earn their viewers with kindness:
Streamer lets herself be pelted with eggs for $20
What was the stream like? On April 9, ExtraEmily started her Wall-A-Thon. It was planned for her to be taped to a wall for 24 hours. However, the 28-year-old explained that she only intended to do it for 6 hours; it turned into a full day due to “peer pressure” from her streaming crew.
Instead of just extending the stream with subs, viewers could make the streamer suffer for extra money.
For $10 or 1.00 Bits, the virtual currency of Twitch, ExtraEmily let herself be hit with a water balloon. Particularly generous viewers could also have her pelted with an egg for $20, 2,000 Bits, or 10 gifted subs.
You can see how that looked in this clip:
Streamer hangs for 13 hours, earns $2,640
This is how the stream went: Getting taped to a wall for 24 hours is apparently easier said than done. After ExtraEmily initially tried to stick the tape herself, she sought help. This also led to great Google searches such as: “What is the best way to stick someone to a wall Reddit?”
However, just after 2 hours, there were doubts about the structural integrity of the tape formation. The streamer was removed from the wall and quickly taped to a pillar. There she lasted another 8.5 hours before she threw in the towel.
After a total of 11 hours and 45 minutes in the stream, ExtraEmily announced she would give up and just endure the remaining time. Subs were then no longer supposed to increase the timer. However, mischievous viewers quickly managed to extend the remaining time from 45 minutes to over 2 hours before this change was through.
After a total of 13 hours on the wall, it was finally over, and ExtraEmily was cut out of her tape cocoon.
Is it worth it? According to the analysis site TwitchStats, the Wall-A-Thon brought the streamer 1,057 new subs, which should earn the 28-year-old just over $2,640. Additionally, she gained 5,400 new followers, so she now has over 200,000 followers on Twitch (via sullygnome).
Whether it was worth having egg in her hair for hours can probably only be answered by the streamer herself.
Subathons like ExtraEmily’s are popular on Twitch. The record for the probably most successful subathon is currently held by Kai Cenat, whose marathon stream during Black History Month in February 2023 brought him more than 300,000 paid subs. This even caught the attention of musician Drake.
21-year-old breaks 2 records on Twitch – Drake demands: “Give him $50 million”
