Athena blasts past Ludwig & Pestily subathons with 1,000-hour Twitch stream
Twitch: Envy AthenaLate on September 24, in the early hours of the Dallas morning, Twitch star Athena will hit 1000 hours live, eclipsing subathons from Ludwig, Pestily, and more. Dexerto sat down with Alejandra to talk cracking the massive milestone, her two-year challenge, and how she’ll celebrate.
Last month, Athena had — in her words — a “really bad month.”
Motivation-wise, the 25-year-old had struggled to get onto Twitch every day, and was mainly just punching numbers to keep her two-year challenge (going live every day for 730 days in a row) alive. The Rocket League star found herself considering ways she could “revitalize” herself, and landed on a subathon.
“I watched Mira do her subathon, and the fact she hit that 1000 hours (Mira finished in August). That inspired me. Seeing how her community reacted, how much fun it was, it was why I decided that I could go for that 1000 hours,” Athena said.
The Twitch star “needed something to keep going,” and an uncapped subathon seemed perfect. 42 days later, she’s still streaming 24 hours a day.
G2 EsportsAthena could have been forgiven for sounding a little tired when I called her up on September 23, considering she’d been streaming her life for 993 hours at that point. Instead, she was the opposite; bubbly, and bouncing off the walls.
“I’m having a laugh right now at this Nintendo Direct thing, the Mario movie,” she admitted, talking about the Chris Pratt, Charlie Day-led movie that had just been unveiled the same evening.
“Every line is going to be a meme, I swear!”
That same bubbly energy didn’t fade away after we had a laugh at the Nintendo reveal, however; Athena is simply riding the high of her Twitch subathon and, right now, loving every single minute of it, whether gaming, chatting, or sleeping.
Twitch: Envy Athena“I’m actually not too bad now. The first week was pretty tough, I’ll admit that!” she laughed. “But I’m in a routine now, getting up, doing the same thing every day. It’s kind of like a job, but a little more extreme? I’m in the rhythm… you get used to it all, as weird as that sounds. I have the same thing to do every day, at least.
That routine includes Rocket League (of course), as well as Apex Legends, Just Chatting, streaming herself living her life, and her moderators playing games.
The one big thing missing from other major subathons like Ludwig’s or Pestily’s is her sleeping on-stream: the Twitch star made a calculated decision to remove that element of the challenge for obvious reasons.
Those sleeping breaks are the one time she stops streaming.
Apart from that, Athena has been at the keyboard, with her camera on at intervals, gaming her way towards that 1000-hour milestone, and well beyond.
When she first started the subathon, she was expecting “maybe a week”. There were a few things the Team Envy star had left out of her calculations, however. First was her Twitch community, who have been pouring subs in near-regularly for more than 40 days in a row. The other was Twitch’s “Subtember” drive.
From September 1 to September 30, the Amazon-owned platform offered an excellent deal for everyone: 20% off subs and gifted subscriptions. The only problem for Athena was it meant everyone and their mums were subbing.
The promo has driven her current subscriber count up to around 16,000. Right now, as of publication, she has just under four hours left on her counter.
“It’s funny going back to when I first started. I was tweeting out updates basically hourly, and then you can see where I realized maybe I was going to be here a while. I’m like, why has it gone from 45 minutes left [on the counter] to fifty hours? I just thought, ‘I’m in for a ride here’.
“I had totally no expectations for the subathon, probably low if anything, but the response has just blown me away.”
Watch Athena’s ongoing Twitch subathon here.
I ask Athena what she has planned after her Twitch subathon ends and surprisingly enough, she’s “ready for more”. When Ludwig wrapped his historic haul he took a streaming break, while Pestily was absent for nearly a week.
The Envy star, though, is already planning her next adventure.
“I’m heading to South America in December, yeah,” she revealed. “It’s a holiday, but I’m going to take an IRL backpack and a camera, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep streaming there, see how that goes.
Beyond that, expect more Envy Athena music too. “I think that’s on the horizon for me, Rocket League, Monstercat. That’s definitely coming up on the radar.”
YouTube: Team EnvyAnd, hilariously enough, Athena is fine if people stop subbing.
“I think we’ve hit enough goals now, right? Listen, it’s all been awesome, but it’s time to pack it up and go home now,” she laughed. “No, but seriously I’m just going to be here until the end, seeing how far it all goes.
The Twitch star continued: “This is something I never imagined doing, and I never imagined happening how it has. I’m just enjoying it as long as I can.”
