He went live at eight and opened three hundred and twelve packs while eleven thousand people watched his hands. The thing that worked was the pause before the reveal — a beat and a half, discovered by accident in April — and he could not stop doing it now, because retention dipped every time he didn't. Ring light, two cameras, a folding table.

The channel cleared eight thousand a month, which made it a job, and jobs are hard to quit at thirty-one with no degree. He kept a shoebox of the good pulls under the desk and had not looked in it since spring. Sometime in the fall he realised he had stopped being excited and started performing excited, and that the eleven thousand could not tell the difference. Neither, most nights, could he.