By: Alexander Taylor
Staff Writer
Every once in a while we see live streaming personalities come out and do something huge. One day it could be Tyler “Ninja” Blevins being a guest at the 2019 News Years Celebration in Time Square. Or Jeremy “Jerma985” Elbertson hosting a stream in which the viewers control his every action in the style of The Sims. And in typical internet streaming fashion, eventually, someone comes through and does something way bigger than the previous person did. Streamer SHiFT (Real Name Unknown) started streaming The Spongebob Squarepants Movie video game on August 5th, 2022, and has only stopped playing to sleep, and take small short breaks. To SHiFT’s dismay, and to his viewers’ pleasure, each donation or subscription adds an extra 1 minute and 20 seconds to the stream. As of September 3rd, 2022 SHiFT still has 71 hours and rising left for streaming what the viewers (including myself) have started to refer to as “Movie.”
Twitch streamer SHiFT has been streaming The Spongebob Squarepants Movie for a month starting on Aug 5, 2022
SHiFT has been streaming and speedrunning games since 2016, mainly playing Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom with The Spongebob Squarepants Movie becoming an inside joke to his community as SHiFT notoriously has a dislike for said game. However, due to his community riling up and coming together to give enough money to the New Jersey streamer, he has no choice but to play “Movie” until the timer runs out. What has been dubbed “Movie Madness” appears to have no sign of slowing down. As of today, the time left for streaming has jumped up from 59 hours to the earlier mentioned time of 71 hours.
What started off as a stream only meant to last 1 week has gone on for a span of almost a month. As time goes on and the stream continues to air, the psychological effects of playing the same video game for over a month begin to show. We’ve seen SHiFT going from happy and smiling at the beginning of the marathon, to speaking in a dead tone and only showing signs of happiness when someone donates. As negative as that sounds, people donate to intentionally disrupt the marathon in ways such as forcing a reset of the game or making him replay the first level 35 times in a row.
“Movie Madness” is predicted to end sometime in October, as the donations rack up, so does the time, but we notice SHiFT’s sanity dwindles. All of this is done in hopes that he becomes into The Top 100 Subscribed Streamers of All Time which inches closer as the live stream continues.