A flawed, but insightful experiment.
Anyone who's ever pondered about how easy streaming content creators have it – usually just sitting down and entertaining a live audience by talking and/or playing video games – has likely at least once thought about just doing the same.
Unfortunately, as some of us have found out ourselves, the fraction of actually successful streamers is vanishingly small, but is that just because only a few are lucky enough to be blessed by recommendation algorithms, or is it because only a few are charismatic enough to be entertaining to watch long-term?
To find the answer to this question, Twitch and YouTube star Ludwig set out to test whether or not he could replicate his success when starting from scratch.
Experience and Success
Ludwig Ahgren had previously made a name for himself by becoming the most-subscribed Twitch channel in 2021, until later moving his content to YouTube for some time due to Twitch's – at the time – restricitive exclusivity contracts for partnered streamers. He'd resume his activities on the platform in 2024.
Given his history as both a competitor and moderator for esports events, Ludwig definitely has an above-average level of expertise in presenting and playing video games in a way that makes watching them appealing to a larger audience.
So, according to himself, when a fan asked him whether or not he'd be able to build up a similarly-sized loyal viewership if he had to start anew, the streamer initially responded with a lot of confidence – until being reminded that all fan interaction and moderation skills are useless if you don't have anyone watching you yet; leading him to start the experiment.
Dedication and Motivation
As detailed in his video "I Made a Secret Channel to Answer This Question", uploaded to YouTube on August 29, 2025, he started by creating an entirely new channel titled retiredathlete31 and simply pretending there were people watching him, commentating as usual. Soon enough however, after hours of streaming brought in no real new viewers, Ludwig turned desperate.
Recognizing how difficult it was to remain entertaining and motivated without any chat messages to bounce off of – going under in a sea of larger streamers – he expressed understanding for why people may resort to underhanded tactics like viewbotting or clickbait. Eventually, he himself attempted the latter by falsely hinting at a giveaway (of which he has conducted actual ones in the past) in the title of his stream – a tactic that finally netted him his first active chat member.
The user named BadPlayerHS, instantly recognizing Ludwig, went on to notify his friend OSCAR89110 (a smaller streamer himself). Via tuning into Oscar's stream, Ludwig then conducted a short interview, asking what motivated the fledgling influencer to put so much time and energy into a hobby that – for so many people – carries little to no reward. His answer: "Because I just love gaming."
Realization and Modesty
After concluding the experiment, Ludwig described it as "truly an eye-opening experience", acknowledging how difficult and demoralizing it can be to try and build a larger audience in modern social media environments. According to him, relying on outside help like family and friends is almost required.
"I wanted to stop streaming so many times... [...] Do whatever it takes to keep one person watching! Because the difference between being a one-viewer streamer and a zero-viewer streamer is astronomical."
Commentators on YouTube were quick to point out that even his small success of two chat members after five hours of streaming was still something that he wouldn't have achieved if he had truly "started from scratch", given that BadPlayerHS would've likely simply left after realizing that there was no actual giveaway if they didn't recognize the already-popular influencer:
"Maybe using a face overlay or no cam with a voice mask would be an even better way to test so people don't recognize you instantly [...]. The days of grinding out 15 hour streams to grow are long gone. It's all about networking and content diversification now."
But what do you think? Does Ludwig's experiment demonstrate that becoming a successful influencer is really just a matter of timing and luck? Or can you gain a following if you just use the right strategies? Let us know in the comments below!