>>101312925I know I asked you to elaborate, but I am still (positively) surprised by how much you did so. Thanks.
>Armchair shit incoming. Even if it is, I like your take on the dynamic. As you said, it's not something to be 100% sure of either way, but I agree with you that I can really see the conflicting emotions of being grateful and appreciative of your viewers (I am personally not sure about the word "love", but the essential idea I very much agree with) and at the same time feeling like their expectations define you. I imagine this can make you feel like you are losing agency over yourself in a sense, or like this persona you built up is taking over your "actual" self.
Funnily enough, while with goslings or smackers there is some sexual or romantical attraction (or both I guess) thrown into the loop, often resulting in them being more fervent supporters, so the whole "relationship" is more heated both ways, this impression you basically detailed is something I get from her in regards to her "normal" viewers too. An immediate example that comes to mind is in yesterday's stream there was this moment she basically said something like "If I do a backflip, will you put me on your fridge?" And then said "You can all leave, once I am done doing that backflip" as well as her disappointed reaction to chat just making "haha short" jokes at the farquaad meme once more.
It's hard for me to judge how serious she is, because she overplays it so much, but I can't help but feel like there is at least a foundation of truth mixed in when she complains about the repetetive nature of chat's reactions (like her telling chat to stop coughing only for them all to spam it to trigger her), not because the insults, teasing or requests for flips hurt her in and of itself, but because it feels like chat is telling her that she isn't allowed to "not feel it", that she has to keep up the "persona" or they'll lose interest. And even if you love your job, this would impact any person. If I didn't know any better I would guess that GPB also falls under this at this point.
I had similar thoughts before, as Filian does many small things that might as well be jokes, but hint in this direction of thought. Another that just came to mind is that in the recent Vedal collab she asked Vedal this oddly specific question on why he isn't streaming like "While they all love and support you, you are secretly sitting in your room terrified of the thought of disappointing your audience." (paraphrasing) which with any other person I would take as nothing but projection, but Filian has a way of making me second guess lmao. There are probably a billion more examples I could think of just from the recent streams that could be read in that direction if you want to read into it, but you get the idea. Same as you though, I am just doing armchair shit.