Confessions of an American live streamer in China

This article was written by Lauren Hallanan and originally published in Jing Daily

“What do you do for a living?” 

“I’m a full-time live streamer in China.” 

Probably not the answer you would expect from a blond-haired blue-eyed American woman like me. 

But that’s right, for a year-long period from spring 2016 to spring 2017, I was a professional live streamer streaming on several Chinese apps including Momo, Yizhibo, Meipai and Huajiao. I had a total following of more than 400,000.

I first began live streaming on the popular video sharing app Meipai with the intention purely of growing an audience. Then an agency that worked with Momo, a dating app that has now become famous for its live streaming, recruited me to stream on Momo. At that time, Meipai had not yet introduced gifting features, but Momo had, and the thought of earning money directly from live streaming was enticing, so I decided to give it a try. 

With the help of the agency, my following grew rapidly and within a couple of months, I had nearly 300,000 fans on the Momo platform. I was making a full-time income from my live streaming, usually 20,000-30,000 yuan (HK$24,990 to HK$37,490)per month, most which came from virtual gifts from my followers. This didn’t happen by chance; I took live streaming seriously and treated it like a job, streaming at consistent times, one to two times a day, for a minimum of two to four hours a day. 

Seeing as most streamers in China make less than 10,000 yuan per month, with my viewer numbers and income, I was considered an above-average streamer. Yet, I was also far from the best. For the top one per cent of Chinese live streamers, 100,000 yuan per month would be considered normal.