As I was sitting on ledge of my pool view room one last time the other night, I brought up live-streaming my entire experience to a friend as a joke but had not been able to stop thinking of it since. So in the last couple of free moments I had before returning home, I began to do some research. Firstly, I discovered that all the free live-streaming services most of us are aware of, all have a time limit on how long you can keep the stream going. I then began asking some techy friends if they knew how to start a website with a live-stream. It was all too much and I soon realised I didnt have enough time to plan all this (if only I thought of it sooner, sigh). The idea of vlogging never crossed my mind (only now as I write this) because why pass up this opportunity for not having to be “present” for a of couple weeks and in all honestly, I am way more comfortable speaking my mind on paper. That way if I do say anything wrong or I don’t make sense, I can take full responsibility for it. If I’m just speaking my mind, I have no control over the nonsense I come up with if I don’t have enough time to think about it!
I had already had the idea of blogging my day to day experience and now the aspect of evidence without having to touch a thing was quite appealing. I won’t lie, I am the kind of person that loves collecting memories to look back on but I also enjoy being in the moment and any reason to not have to pick up my evil black mirror (iPhone). So I invisioned a camera in the corner of the room that could document every moment while I can just do the things I need to do and enjoy all of my hobbies, including writing but now my friends and family can also see what i’m up to when i’m not responsive through social media (which is most of the time) and also for people who are just curious or are maybe about to hotel quarantine themselves and want to know exactly what it looks like from the inside. More than anything this is just a unique challenge for me to explore my own human nature when faced with knowing that at any possible moment of my being alone, I could very well not be. I can imagine this must be what it feels like going into reality T.V, except there are usually other people with you…
After searching and searching, it wasnt until I was already in the hotel room and finally connected to internet that I thought “huh, I wonder how long the longest live-stream is and what they used to film it on”, and lo and behold I discover the Guiness World Record for ‘longest live-stream video’ at 161hours (about a week – so mine would be double that, just saying) which was only completed a couple months ago and was done on Twitch – DUH. Now this all started feeling way too possible and I have no use now for my old and dying spare laptop anyway. The only things getting in the way would be my not so trusty 6-year old mac with duck tape holding in some crumpled bits of paper (kind of like a spitwad) instead of the regular stick on black pads on the corners that come with the Mac when you first purchase it, to create that space under the motherboard so the laptop can breathe and not overheat. The other thing is putting all my trust into this hotel’s WIFI.
So if it isn’t clear already, there was no going back on this idea and I am now currently live-streaming on Twitch and blogging on this new website I just created, in the hotel room I am now qurantining in…
