Featured Image Credit: Twitch/Lacy
Topics: News, World News, US News
Kit Roberts
A streamer has been criticized after staging an unusual stream in order to make money.
Nick Fosco, aka Lacy, has some 1.9 million followers on Instagram, but took to the platform in a bid to help himself get paid.
Influencers with large followings are paid through advertising and marketing sponsorships, in addition to any rewards or payments that come directly from social media platforms.
People who are not already famous for something else can gain big followings by producing high quality engaging content which draws people to their channel, who advertisers want to show their products to.
Advert
That's all well and good, but in a post online, Fosco appeared to miss the part about 'engaging' content, opting instead to just try and get people onto his Twitch stream.
But what exactly would he be doing on this stream?
He said he would be asleep.
"I am going to do a sleep stream once a month," he said, "where I am going to sleep on stream with max ads running".
The weird message saw him add that he didn't even want his followers to sit there and just watch him sleeping, but just to have the tab open on minimal volume in a strange loophole.
"I need all of you guys to tab me open on your computers with 1 percent volume and just leave it on the whole night, no ad blocker, nothing."
He added: "Once a month I'm doing a sleep stream, I need y'all to just help me out one time and help me pay my rent."
The streamer even said that people could go to sleep themselves if they wanted. This would register the stream as having a high number of viewers, which is how many platforms determine payments for the streams.
Of course, it doesn't seem to make much sense if people aren't even watching the stream properly.
Many people took to the comments on social media to share their disbelief at the ploy.
One tried to be understanding but felt the scheme was 'shameless', saying: "Like… I get rent being high, but asking fans to run ads in their sleep to cover it feels kinda shameless."
Another sarcastically pointed out how ridiculous it is that someone could theoretically be paid for sleeping, writing: "No idea who this is but I just have to stream myself sleeping once a month and I'll make thousands of dollars?"
Someone else had a slightly more real world suggestion to deal with struggling to pay rent.
"Look at the size of that massive room, i am sure rent isn't cheap," they wrote. "I would love to see the rest of the house.."
They added: "Maybe it's time to turn it down a notch or two and live within his means?"
UNILAD has approached representatives of Nick Fosco for comment.