Ludwig Ahgren’s 31-day “sub-athon” on Twitch ended on April 13 at 9 p.m. PDT, after a month of continuous livestreaming.
He capped off his broadcast with a relatively chill six hours of antics — the streamer made dinner, played games, and hung out. But Ahgren did do one stunt in those final hours that stuck out: He destroyed his twin-size red race car bed frame with a sledgehammer.
The race car bed had become an icon of the stream. Ahgren streamed day and night since the start of the event, which meant he also streamed himself sleeping in the bed. These streams became their own spectacle, ushering in a new trend of sleep streams on the platform.
Some viewers cautioned him against destroying the bed, saying that “it’s a piece of film history.” In response, Ahgren joked that “art’s only beautiful if it dies.” In the end, he let his viewers decide, and they overwhelmingly directed him to destroy it.
The antic was all part of a larger “sub-athon” in which Ahgren added 10 seconds onto the stream for every new subscriber. Ahgren’s channel grew from roughly 1.6 million to 2.65 million followers and went from an estimated 34 million channel views to 72 million page views during the monthlong event. If that all wasn’t enough, he also broke the world record for highest number of subscribers, previously held by Fortnite personality Tyler “Ninja” Blevins.
Part of the appeal of Ahgren’s stream was that it constantly teased the inevitable end. The streamer regularly came within minutes of ending the stream. However, viewers always managed to swoop in and add enough time to keep it going for a little longer. When it came so close to ending, people often cried out “Free Ludwig” in chat. The poor guy had been streaming for far too long — he has a life, after all. So, on the morning of April 13, the streamer announced that he would be ending the sub-athon when the livestream reached 31 days.
His final goodbye after destroying the bed didn’t feature a surprise celebrity cameo or anything of that nature — just a heartfelt message from the creator. In the last three minutes of the stream, he teared up while addressing his viewers.
“Don’t get it fucked up,” said Ahgren. “I’m not your friend. No parasocial relationships. I can’t know any of you — 200,000 people on my stream right now. But somehow you guys, as a collective … made me really happy.”
Source: https://www.polygon.com/22382540/ludwig-ahgren-twitch-stream-world-record-race-car-bed
