i streamed for a week because of a spaceship claim

the accidental hack

so, my streaming setup has always been a crime against technology. dodgy cables, a webcam held up by a stack of old textbooks, and a mic that sounds like it's speaking russian-english from 1987. but hey, it was cheap. super budget, the burt's blog way. one evening, i'm feeling bold and decide to streamline the process. what could go wrong?

cue me clicking the wrong thing at like 2am. i don’t even know what i clicked. one second i was checking settings, and the next... 57 tabs. streaming tabs, chat, four different browser windows, two youtube videos playing at once, and my cat’s webcam feed which has been frozen in time since 2021 because i forgot to unplug it last tuesday.

viewers start typing. in all caps. i think someone said "IS THAT A SPACESH?" and i blinked. no, it’s just my cat's frozen face. but then someone else says "YOU CLAIMEDED A SPACESH" and i nearly had a stroke because apparently i’d accidentally claimed a spaceship in a space sim game called 'astro-freeloader' or something equally bad.

realisation dawns with the slow horror of someone finding a big hole in their sock drawer after six years. i've been streaming for HOURS completely ignorant that i spent the last hour battling to unfreeze my cat and reading spaceship claim emails from strangers.

so what do i do? lurk. lurk in their Discord. not creepy, just... desperate. for SEVEN DAYS i inched through their community, commenting normally, posting about the weather—keeping the facade intact. made a couple friends, unironically, but all i could think about was fixing this spaceship claim and never telling anyone. that secret weighs...

eventually i cracked and fixed it. sent a DM like "hey, about the spaceship... sorry about all the space claims" and they responded [fictional reply: "who is this??"] which i choose to interpret as forgiveness or at least not reporting me.

then i ghosted the Discord. deleted my lurking comments. pretended i had a life outside spaceship drama. never spoke of it again. if you’re reading this and it sounds familiar, join the club. welcome to the internet’s unintentional comedy hour.

so yeah. the moral of the story: always double-check your tabs, or you’ll end up in space with someone else's spaceship and a weeklong alibi. stream safe out there. shrug emoji