At this point, there are more parody hot tub streams on Twitch than actual hot tub streams — so much so that one now holds the distinction of being the most viewed hot tub stream of all time. Credit where credit’s due, though: Minecraft megastar George “GeorgeNotFound’’ Davidson at least went out of his way to make his take on tub boy summer as viscerally upsetting as possible.
Yesterday evening, Davidson went live with what he called an “EPIC HOT TUB STREAM.” At its peak, the bizarre spectacle managed to pull in almost 400,000 concurrent viewers, obliterating a record of over 100,000 previously held by Imane “Pokimane” Anys and the rest of the immensely popular OfflineTV streamer cohort — themselves also not actually hot tub streamers. For comparison’s sake, the biggest streamer who regularly participates in the hot tub meta, Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, generally peaks at around 20,000 concurrent viewers with her hot tub streams.
Davidson’s tub was somehow a step down from the relatively inexpensive inflatable tubs that have come to characterise the meta, composed of a PVC pipe scaffolding and a body that looked like the inside of a discarded air mattress. It was also indoors, sitting atop a thin patch of plastic covering a carpet. As it filled with water coming from a thin tube that seemed to be attached to a sink in another room, Davidson set up a prize wheel with stunts like “egg on head,” “eyebrow slit,” and “outfit change” — the latter a reference to some actual hot tub streamers who regularly go off-screen and change swimsuits during their broadcasts.
After bantering (via a call) with friends like fellow Twitch and YouTube star Quackity, Davidson finally slipped into the tub. Fully clothed. With his socks on. It hurt to watch, but he had an almost-reasonable justification for it.
“Yeah I’m getting in with socks,” Davidson said, “because you know how the internet is, Quackity, with sockless feet.”
Shortly after getting in, Davidson spun the wheel and landed on “outfit change,” meaning he immediately had to get out. When he returned, he was wearing a taco cat swimsuit over his damp sweats and socks. Subsequent wheel spins forced him to wet his hair and drink some of the tub water.
Eventually, Davidson got to the main event of his dip in the hot tub meta’s shallow waters: a product announcement. In front of hundreds of thousands of confused but amused viewers, he debuted a new merch store, which included hoodies, wristbands, and stickers. The latter came in handy when it became apparent that his extremely jank hot tub was leaking; he slapped a sticker on its inside lining, and it maybe slowed the leak. Or it did nothing.
Davidson continued to stream after debuting the merch, with the prize wheel forcing him to make a truly painful prank call to fellow Minecraft star TommyInnit, in which he took things in the “too real” direction of chastising his fellow Dream SMP roleplay server member for phoning it in on the lore front.
Another outfit change, however, took the broadcast down a truly deranged path. Davidson returned not with new clothes, but instead a handful of Coca-Cola cans. One by one, he cracked them open. Then he picked them all up at once and poured them into the tub. The resulting mixture of stale bathwater, human sweat, Coke, and Diet Coke looked like something you’d find in a moldy mop bucket.
“Drink the water now,” said another streamer on a call with Davidson.
He did not do that, but he did realise that he’d created a pretty serious dilemma for himself.
“Wait,” said Davidson, “it’s leaking still.”
But the show went on. After waffling about what to do next, Davidson settled on eggs. He cracked several on his head, with the yolks quickly making their way into the Coke-tainted bathwater.
Not long after, he concluded the stream, because his body and mind had begun to fail him.
“Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed this stream,” he said. “I can just smell egg, and this is disgusting…I feel, like, sick. I think the bathwater has made me sick. But yeah, guys, go check out the merch.”
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