A paid message in a YouTube live chat — a Super Chat — highlighted in colour and pinned for a length of time proportional to the money, launched in January 2017 and since then the main way a viewer buys a creator's attention for the price of a coffee. The record notes the red ones cost the most, and are read out, and are often just 'hi'.
There was a version of Super Chat that went round my family group chat about a month late, presented as new. I did not correct anyone. It was, for them, new, and that has to count for something.
The record notes Super Chat's economy — a stream with hundreds of viewers can earn more from six of them than from all the ads — has reshaped the live format, and that reading them aloud is now a job in itself, sometimes with a hat.
The definition implies everyone used Super Chat the same way. They did not. There were at least two camps by the second month, and they did not like each other.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
