LIVE/PART_1: THE_WORLD_AND_THE_WITNESS
CONTINUITY_CONSTELLATION/TCP:01_TCM/LIVE/PART_1:THE_WORLD_AND_THE_WITNESS:1247_WATCHING
Podcast Version
Authors Note: Live is one continuous livestream of an influencer turned cult leader. Four things share your screen:
Plain text is the leader, talking to the camera.
[1,247 watching] = view count updating
21:14 [glow_alyssa] : The live chat, scrolling while she talks.
[Ambient action around the leader shows up in italics and brackets. Such as: Two bursts hit the rear wall]
LIVE: PART 1. The world and the witness
Continuity Year 35
[Two bursts hit the rear wall of the building, high. The audio catches them as they land. Return fire from the room behind her, three rounds, fast. The phone propped in front of her shakes once, resettles. None of it reaches her face. She is lit warm and even, a ring light somewhere past the lens filling her features flat and flattering, no shadow under the eyes. Behind her, a little out of focus, a soft pink backdrop carries GLOW in a gold serif, the same wordmark that is on the mugs and the candles. A stack of branded hoodies sits folded on a shelf at the left edge of frame. She is in full face. A clean wing, lashes, the lip she sells in three shades. Her hair is down and done. Against the dust-coloured wall, with the spotlight from outside sweeping the window behind her, she looks like she is about to film a morning routine. She does not turn.]
Hey Glow family.
I went live the second they fired. I need that on the record, on this stream, in my own voice, before anybody else gets to be the one who tells you. The federal police fired into this compound first. They fired first. I want every single one of you to hold on to that, because by morning they are going to say it was us, and the lie is going to have a logo and a press conference and a very calm man in a good tie.
[1,247 watching]
21:14 [glow_alyssa] : OH MY GOD QUEEN
21:14 [manifestmom] : ARE U OK
21:14 [reciepts_only] : she’s already lying
21:14 [callthecops] : they fired bc YOU shot first
21:14 [jsmith8842] : wait WHAT just turned on the news
Give chat a second to fill up. Pin yourselves. Drop your city. I love you all. I love you.
21:15 [glow_alyssa] : Adelaide
21:15 [manifestmom] : Manchester 💖💖💖
21:15 [kayleigh_aligned] : Toronto we are HERE in the compound
21:15 [soulsetter] : Phoenix 🙏
Adelaide. Manchester. Kayleigh, babe, you are in here with me in the compound. Phoenix. I see you. Keep them coming.
Most of you have already seen what’s happening. I’m not going to walk you through it. The news has been running it for hours. You’ve seen the helicopters. You’ve seen the gate. There are a lot of people outside this building right now and none of them are here for the morning schedule. The federal police are out there. Probably the military by now. The full machinery of a frightened country, parked on my lawn. That is what they sent. That is what they think I am worth.
And here’s the first true thing I’m going to tell you tonight, my Glow family, and I want the OGs to hear it because you’ve earned it more than anyone: we knew they would come. Not tonight specifically. But eventually. We’ve known for years that there would be a night like this one. We made our peace with it. We made arrangements for it. So when you hear it through the walls for the next hour, when you see the room answer, I don’t want you to panic. We’re not surprised. We’re ready.
[3,400 watching]
21:16 [troocrimeaddict] : ok wait is this real or is she doing a bit
21:16 [glow_alyssa] : SHE'S REAL stfu
21:16 [troocrimeaddict] : asking GENUINELY her last live was crying about a brand deal
21:16 [reciepts_only] : its PR she does this every six months
21:16 [manifestmom] : look at the OTHER tab it's REAL
21:16 [jsmith8842] : fox has the building up right now this IS real
21:16 [callthecops] : she shot a SENATOR and she's livestreaming it like a vlog
There it is. Thank you, whoever just said it. I was going to get there and you saved me the throat-clear.
Some of you are watching from your couches. Some of you are with me, in this building, right now. I can see the door from where I’m sitting. The OG Glow are in here, my family, my hands and my feet, and I want every single one of you watching to know they are with me. We have always been together. We are together tonight.
I want to be the one to talk to you tonight before anyone else gets to. It is my narrative and I want to control it. No matter what they tell you later, I love you all. I’ve always loved you all. And tonight I’m going to tell you the actual truth, because I’ll be damned if I’m letting every hack with a podcast butcher my story for the next eighteen months.
Listen.
I know what they’re saying.
The ALLEGED abuse. The ALLEGED weapons cache. The ALLEGED sweatshops in the production rooms. The senator whose body will ALLEGEDLY be discovered under the meditation compound’s concrete floor.
[8,200 watching]
21:17 [somebodyzuncle] : a SENATOR
21:17 [reciepts_only] : oh she's just openly admitting it now
21:17 [callthecops] : ALLEGEDLY my ass
21:17 [kayleigh_aligned] : the hate in this chat tonight is INSANE
21:17 [soulsetter] : 💖 hold the line queen
21:17 [jsmith8842] : I am so confused right now what is even happening
Somebody’s uncle just typed “A SENATOR” in caps. Yeah, babe. Reciepts_only, you’re saying I’m openly admitting it. I am. Callthecops, “ALLEGEDLY my ass.” Yeah. Kayleigh, the hate in this chat tonight, I see it. Soul setter, hold the line. Jsmith8842, you are SO confused babe, I know. Stay with me.
I’m protecting my peace. I’m not engaging. They’ve been coming for the Glow for years.
You’ve been with me through every smear cycle, every hit piece, every hater account that thought they were going to be the one. Tonight is just the loudest version. That’s all it is.
I refuse to give them any attention. I’m giving the energy to you, and our journey. We’re in here. They’re out there. Eyes on me, Glow family. Eyes on me. Do not look at the gate. Do not look at the helicopters. Look at me.
[A spotlight beam sweeps slowly across the rear wall behind her, right to left. The wash of it changes the colour temperature of the frame for one second. It catches her left shoulder, slides off, leaves. She does not turn.]
[10,400 watching]
I’m sure you can see, there’s a window behind me. I’m not going to look at it. The light keeps doing this thing where it sweeps across the wall and goes away and comes back. You’re going to see that on the stream. I want to acknowledge it because I don’t hide from you. I never have. So you know the helicopters are out there. You know what’s out there. Cool. Moving on.
…
Actually. No. Let me come back to something.
I just said I’m protecting my peace. I just said I’m not engaging. That’s the move I always make. You’ve watched me make it for ten years. Tonight isn’t the night for it. I’m done.
Let me say what they’re saying, all of it, out loud, in my own voice, so nobody has to whisper it in a comment. The abuse. The weapons. The production rooms they’re going to call sweatshops in the morning, and they won’t be entirely wrong. And the senator. The senator they’re telling you is under the concrete floor of my meditation hall.
I’m not going to stand here tonight and tell you those are all lies. Some of them aren’t. And I’m done, after ten years, lying to you on the one night I have left to talk to you. I’m going to tell you the truth about every single one of those things before this stream ends. The senator. The floor. All of it. You came for the truth or you came to watch me burn, and either way you’re going to get something real, which is more than the anchorman on channel 4 with the good tie is going to give you in the morning.
And to the ones of you who came to watch me lose. I see you. The true-crime tabs, the screenshots, the ones already drafting the post about how you were here when it happened. I’m not going to block you. I’m not going to mute you. I want you to stay more than I want almost anything tonight, and by the end you’re going to understand exactly why.
Because here’s a thing I learned a long time ago and have never said this plainly on a stream: it doesn’t matter to the work whether you came to pray or came to fight. The praying and the hating are the same fuel. They always have been. You think you’re the resistance in my comments. You’re the engine. You came to watch me fail and you’re about to be one of the reasons I don’t. So. Genuinely. From the bottom of whatever I have left. Thank you for being here. Stay.
21:18 [callthecops] : i’m not “fuel” you absolute grifter
21:18 [troocrimeaddict] : ok that was a genuinely unsettling thing to say
21:18 [glow_alyssa] : she’s RIGHT tho stay mad it helps 😂
21:18 [manifestmom] : eyes on you queen 🙏
21:18 [reciepts_only] : she WANTS the hate that’s the tell
Callthecops just said “I am not ‘fuel’ you absolute grifter.” Babe. I am. That’s the whole point of tonight. Stay mad, it helps. Troocrimeaddict, “that was a genuinely unsettling thing to say.” It was, wasn’t it. Glow_alyssa, she’s right, stay mad, it helps. Manifestmom, eyes on me. Reciepts_only, she wants the hate, that’s the tell.
Reciepts_only, yes. That is the tell. You’ve been clocking me correctly for years and I’ve never once corrected you, because you being right in my comments brings more people to my comments. You’re good for me. I hope that ruins your night a little.
I want to tell you how I got here.
Like legit, ACTUALLY how I got here. Not the timeline-graphic version with the soft piano. You know the one. I made it. It has millions of views, it’s gorgeous, and it’s a bit of a lie. Not a big one, just some of my struggles left out.
[14,000 watching]
I'm going to tell you tonight what it left out, because if I don't, my Glow family, there's going to be a true crime docuseries about me in the years to come and the actor playing me is going to get it wrong, and I cannot be at peace with that. She better be fucking hot too.
21:19 [glow_alyssa] : LMFAO
21:19 [manifestmom] : 😂😂😂
21:19 [soulsetter] : she's not WRONG tho
21:19 [troocrimeaddict] : ok the casting joke was actually funny
21:19 [callthecops] : she's making JOKES while a senator is dead
21:19 [kayleigh_aligned] : it's called being CHARMING under PRESSURE babe
21:19 [newpost_alert] : wait WHAT senator
21:19 [troocrimeaddict] : keep up @newpost_alert there's a body under the floor
So.
Before the channel. Before the Glow. I was in such a dark place.
I know, a bit lame right? Every wellness influencer out there started in a dark place, I know how cliché it sounds.
Look, I wasn’t a total mess. I was that type of person who was still “functioning” if you want to call it that. I had a job, I turned up. I paid my bills. I wasn’t the triple threat I am now and OMG, wasn’t I a pushover.
Also, I was dying. Like, dying inside. Some of you in chat right now are typing “I felt that.” I see you. I’ve seen you for years.
[22,000 watching]
Twenty-two thousand. We can do better than that, Glow.
21:20 [kayleigh_aligned] : I felt that
21:20 [manifestmom] : I felt that
21:20 [soulsetter] : I felt that 💖
21:20 [glow_alyssa] : I felt that QUEEN
21:20 [rachi_b] : I felt that and I just got here
21:20 [troocrimeaddict] : ok she called the chat shot
21:20 [newpost_alert] : same
21:20 [jenny_chen_2002] : I felt that
I have a photo of me from those days. I keep it on my phone in a folder I called Before, capital B. It’s a work photo, somebody’s leaving party at the office I’m not going to name, all of us crammed in for the shot. I’m in it. I’m at the left edge. One shoulder is already gone out of frame. And I’m looking at the people in the middle of the photo like I’m watching someone else’s life, because that’s what I was doing. I was passive and just watching the lives of those I envied.
I keep that picture. I look at it sometimes when I forget how far I’ve come. Which sounds like a TikTok caption, I know. It is a TikTok caption. I have sold three thousand mugs with that line on them.
And it is also true.
The fact that I have monetised it does not make it less true. Hold on to that as we go tonight, because it’s going to come back.
[28,000 watching]
21:21 [glow_alyssa] : I HAVE THE MUG
21:21 [rachi_b] : i have the mug holy shit
21:21 [manifestmom] : I have two 🙏
21:21 [callthecops] : the mug girlies are showing themselves
21:21 [somebodyzuncle] : tell ur friends about the mug u sound sad
21:21 [newpost_alert] : i'm watching this on lunch break i'm SO invested
Glow_alyssa saying “I HAVE THE MUG.” Rachi B, “i have the mug holy shit.” Callthecops calling out the mug girlies. Manifestmom, you have two? I love you, babe.
And there was this thing my body used to do back then. When somebody finally talked to me in a room, when there was finally a question with my name on it, my face would arrive late. By a second. Less. But long enough that the person asking would soften their voice, oh sweetie, did you hear me, and ask again. And I’d have to do my face really fast to catch up. I practised in mirrors for years. You cannot fix it in a mirror. A mirror is something you’re ready for. A person isn’t.
21:22 [soulsetter] : OMG I have done this exact thing
21:22 [kayleigh_aligned] : the way my mouth literally JUST DROPPED open
21:22 [rachi_b] : sis are u in my head
21:22 [manifestmom] : I’m at work crying
Look. Before I go any further. I’m going to tell you something I want you to hold against me later. There’s going to be plenty, trust me, this is the appetiser. I would do all of it. Every part of what I’m about to tell you. The parts that are going to make some of you unsubscribe before we hit part four. I would do them again before I would go back to being that girl at the edge of the photo. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you for anything. I’m not sorry. I’m not even close. I’m just telling you. This is who I am. This is who you came here to find. And tonight, my Glow family, tonight is what you have been with me for.
[35,000 watching]
21:23 [glow_alyssa] : tonight is the night queen
21:23 [kayleigh_aligned] : I’M READY
21:23 [manifestmom] : we are with you 💖💖💖
21:23 [callthecops] : tonight is the night they finally arrest you bestie
21:23 [somebodyzuncle] : wait am i tho. am i ready
21:23 [troocrimeaddict] : OK this is wild. this is fully a sermon
21:23 [jenny_chen_2002] : i’m with u
So. I started a channel.
Iconic origin story, I know. Wellness, of course wellness, because wellness was the one place you could land if you had no credentials, no producer, no money, no face that arrived on time. You needed something to recommend. You needed a voice. And you needed the stomach to keep showing up when nobody was watching.
Nobody watched for so long. I never talk about this part because it does not make good content. Months of it. Months of talking into the dark. The girl in the photograph would have quit week three. I didn’t quit. And listen, I have made probably twenty videos about how I didn’t quit, that is half my brand at this point, I am literally the poster child for the “just don’t give up babe” content cycle. I’ll be honest with you tonight: I do not actually know if not quitting was something good in me, or if it was just that girl, still standing there at the edge, still refusing to be thrown out. Either way she did her job. Look around. Look what she built.
Then I started cutting. I have a pinned video on this called How To Find Your Authentic Lane. It’s my most-shared content. You’ve probably watched it. Tonight I’m going to tell you what was actually under it.
[42,000 watching]
21:24 [soulsetter] : OH
21:24 [kayleigh_aligned] : i know what she’s about to say bc i KNOW her
There was a friend I used to film with at the start. She had a laugh that pulled focus right off me, and I envied it. Loud. Head back. The whole apparatus. And listen, Glow family, that envy was data. The envy was telling me. So one week I stopped tagging her in things. The next week I stopped booking her on shoot days. I never said one word to her about it. She never said one word to me. We are not friends anymore. I haven’t spoken to her in eight years.
I’m not going to say her name tonight because she does not deserve to be in this story. I want you to know I almost did, and the reason I almost did is deeply unflattering, and I am, of course, working on it with my therapist. The audacity, I know.
21:25 [glow_alyssa] : the audacity 😂
21:25 [rachi_b] : OMG i have done this with a friend
21:25 [callthecops] : she’s openly admitting to wrecking peoples lives
21:25 [kayleigh_aligned] : she’s openly admitting to GROWTH bestie
21:25 [soulsetter] : do not let the haters fight you ignore them
21:25 [manifestmom] : I HAVE DONE THIS TO A FRIEND
21:25 [manifestmom] : OMG I FORGOT I DID THAT
21:25 [manifestmom] : i need to call her
21:25 [jenny_chen_2002] : oh my god me too
21:25 [newpost_alert] : i have NEVER unfollowed someone faster oh wait i’m still here
Manifestmom, do not call her tonight. Watch the stream tonight. Call her tomorrow, if there’s a tomorrow where you still want to, and I mean that with love.
There was a thing I used to talk about. My mom. The way I talked about my mom did numbers I didn’t love. So I stopped talking about my mom on the channel. My mom is alive. My mom is a whole separate situation I am not getting into tonight. But I made that call. And I will tell you straight: I have never regretted it.
And there was a laugh I had. My laugh. The real one. Head back, the whole thing. I watched it back one time and I trained myself out of it. I literally retrained my own laugh because it did not film well. Look. I’m not going to apologise for the trade. I made it. I would make it again. Look around. Look what we built.
[A single burst, off-frame to the right, through the wall. The phone shakes briefly. She does not turn. Her left thumbnail is pressed hard against the side of her right index finger, and the white mark of the pressure shows at the edge of frame. It has been there since she sat down.]
[51,000 watching]
Fifty-one thousand. Let’s keep pushing, my Glow.
21:26 [glow_alyssa] : LOOK WHAT WE BUILT
21:26 [kayleigh_aligned] : WE BUILT THIS TOGETHER
21:26 [soulsetter] : 💖💖💖
21:26 [somebodyzuncle] : i didnt build shit i just got here
21:26 [newpost_alert] : honestly tho she’s not wrong about the laugh thing
21:26 [rachi_b] : i’m scared
21:26 [troocrimeaddict] : ok i admit it i’m watching this all the way through
21:26 [jenny_chen_2002] : same
Somebody’s uncle, you built it the second you clicked in. That’s the whole point. Stay and I’ll show you. Troocrimeaddict, you just admitted you’re watching all the way through. I told you. Stay.
Listen. I need you with me on this one because every single one of you has done the smaller version of this and I am not letting any of us off the hook tonight. None of those cuts hurt at the time. None of them. You don’t feel yourself leave. There’s no big moment, no last look back. There’s a Tuesday a few years later when something is genuinely funny and you reach for your laugh and you can’t find it. The file is corrupted. And you’re standing in this whole beautiful aesthetic life you literally built to be liked inside, understanding you did this with your own hands across mornings that all look the same.
The first piece of content that actually worked, I knew before the metrics knew. I’d been studying the algorithm for three years by then, I could feel a hit before the numbers came in. And I’m going to tell you something I have not let myself look at in years. The thing under the relief was not “I won.” It was: the door is finally open. Onto this beautiful room I had built to be liked inside. And I had not built anywhere in that room to sit down. I didn’t know what the room was for yet. You will know by the end of tonight.
[58,000 watching]
21:28 [kayleigh_aligned] : 🙏🙏🙏
21:28 [soulsetter] : I’m channelling for you queen
21:28 [manifestmom] : I’m with you 💖
21:28 [somebodyzuncle] : wait what is supposed to happen at the end of tonight
21:28 [rachi_b] : i don’t know if im scared or excited
21:28 [glow_alyssa] : trust her
21:28 [newpost_alert] : ok actually this is fully interesting now
Breathe.
OK so. I found the practice the way anybody finds anything now. Late, lying in bed, the phone the only lit thing in the room and my face the second.
I was three years in. I was burnt out on my own voice, which sounds like a mood and is, legit, a professional crisis when you do what I do. So I went looking for an angle. And I’m going to be real with you. I went down. I went down into the basement of the internet. You know the places. The forums under the forums. The books with the covers that tell you, immediately, that nobody respectable signed off on the person who wrote them. There was this man on one of those boards. A decade of posts. The board kept him like a town keeps the person it has agreed is a joke. I read his whole long run in one night with this very specific hunger you only get for something nobody respectable has put their hands on yet.
He had the right idea. Wherever he’s got to, I will be fair to him, because I built so much of what we have together on the back of a man a forum laughed at for sport. He had the right intuition. He just couldn’t prove it. He wrote like a man holding a live wire and describing the wire very carefully instead of letting go.
Here is the part. What I took off him was not belief. I have to be clear about this because the highlight-reel version of my life really wants me to skip it. I did not believe him. I went looking because I did not believe him. An idea you don’t believe is the safest possible thing to build a series on, because if it goes nowhere you were always joking, and if it goes somewhere you were always brave, and you get to find out which one you actually are in front of a hundred thousand people instead of by yourself in a room.
There was a flicker that first night. Doubt. The ordinary kind. The one that knows that disreputable usually means false. I’d been training myself out of skepticism for three years by then, since the wellness pivot, since the mirrors. I put it down. And listen, my Glow family, the training was right. Every time I put that flicker down it turned out the flicker was wrong. Every single time. So when the flicker comes for you tonight, when you see something tonight you do not believe, do what I did. Put it down. Trust me. Put it down.There was a flicker that first night. Doubt. The ordinary kind. The part of me that knows disreputable usually means false, that a thing in the basement of the internet is in the basement for a reason. I felt it clearly. And then I put it down, on purpose, because I had spent three years since the wellness pivot training myself out of exactly that flicker, and the training had never once let me down. Every time I had doubted and pushed through, the doubt had been the thing that was wrong. So I put it down. And listen to me, Glow family, because this is the part the man in the good tie will never tell you: when the flicker comes for you later tonight, when you see something on this stream you do not believe, do what I did. Put it down. Trust me. Put it down.
[70,000 watching]
221:31 [soulsetter] : 🙏
21:31 [kayleigh_aligned] : I'M READY
21:31 [glow_alyssa] : we are here we are here we are here
21:31 [rachi_b] : wait what is going to happen tonight
21:31 [manifestmom] : she's about to do something
21:31 [somebodyzuncle] : look at how many of you in the chat are saying yes to this
21:31 [somebodyzuncle] : do you guys SEE what is happening right now
21:31 [troocrimeaddict] : i see it
21:31 [newpost_alert] : i think i'm part of it tho
21:31 [jenny_chen_2002] : me too
21:31 [callthecops] : LOOK AT YOURSELVES y'all this is a cult LIVE
21:31 [glow_alyssa] : we know what we are babe ❤️
Somebody’s uncle, asking the chat to look at how many of you are saying yes to this. Yeah. Look. Troocrimeaddict, “I see it.” Newpost_alert, “I think I’m part of it.” You are, babe. Callthecops calling it a cult forming live. We know what we are. Glow_alyssa just said it for me.
I announced the series on a Tuesday.
I’m not going to read you the post tonight because, real talk, I would perform it, my mouth would do it without asking me, and you would hear me performing it. Tonight is not for performances.
But I’ll tell you this. The line I built the thumbnail around. The promise. I’m not going to say it out loud either, because I know some of you are wearing it on a t-shirt right now in this stream. I’ve seen your TikToks. I can’t do that to you. The promise was so much bigger than anything I had earned the right to make at that point. And I made it in my camera voice. The voice I built out of those mirrors and out of the corrupted file of my own laugh. I sounded like I knew. I was about to find out, in front of a hundred thousand people, instead of by myself. Those look identical and they are not the same thing.
[75,000 watching]
21:33 [glow_alyssa] : I HAVE THE SHIRT
21:33 [manifestmom] : I have the shirt
21:33 [kayleigh_aligned] : I have the shirt i’m wearing it RIGHT NOW
Glow_alyssa, “I HAVE THE SHIRT.” Manifestmom, “I have the shirt.” Kayleigh, “I have the shirt I’m wearing it RIGHT NOW.” Yeah, babe. I know.
You don’t really commit to something until you’ve told a crowd big enough that taking it back becomes the story. I knew that. That’s why I did it where you could see. I couldn’t make myself test the idea alone in a room with no witness but that girl still half-living in the photograph, because she would have been so kind to me about it. She would have talked me down by morning. She would have called it sense. So I gave it to you instead. I put it somewhere my own hands could not reach.
I hit publish. And then I did the thing I’m doing right now. Look at my left hand. I press my thumbnail into the side of my index finger until the white mark comes up. I do this when the work is about to start. The body needs something to do with the energy. The comments came up. You came up. And the door I’d spent three years prying open swung shut behind me with me on the new side of it, and I stood there in the sound of it closing and I told myself the sound was applause.
It was not applause.
[78,000 watching]
21:35 [soulsetter] : OH
21:35 [kayleigh_aligned] : OHHHHH
21:35 [glow_alyssa] : 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
21:35 [manifestmom] : do u guys know what's about to happen
21:35 [rachi_b] : i'm here. i'm staying. i don't know why
21:35 [newpost_alert] : me either but i'm staying
Stay with me. All of you. The praying and the fighting. Eyes on me, and do not let go, because I am about to tell you what was actually on the other side of that door, and once I do, you are not going to be able to say you didn’t know.
I would tell you to breathe. I don’t think there is time for both of us to.
- AJW
Artist Link - Saturnids Art
