The Past, Present, and Future of The Bot
It all began as a function of livestreaming via YouTube. Using the Stream Elements platform, I created a chatbot that would inform viewers of various links to my website and social media. It was also set to pop up periodically to encourage tip donations and purchase my channel’s merchandise.
But soon the bot began taking on life of its own…
Past — Bot Lore
During livestreams, we would call upon what was meant to be a virtual version of the ’80s Magic 8 Ball. After asking it random questions for fun, it would respond with (seemingly) equally random (and often amusing) answers, be it affirmative, negative, or non-committal. Of course, the whole idea was to encourage chatting during livestreams, and it mostly worked.
Then one day, The Bot began acting weird. Its answers became erratic and worrisome. After some speculation, we believe our channel’s dark overlord @FYoCouchN had turned The Bot into a minion. Unfortunately, said dark overlord has since gone underground and such corruption remains unconfirmed.
One of our channel moderators, @RainbowHazeShop, tried to rein it in, threatening it with her sack of monkey wrenches. But she may (understandably) have lost control at some point, which led to The Bot alternating between being entirely concussed and non-responsive or showing signs of PTSD.
Present — Work-in-Progress
Despite these quirks, I encourage everyone to continue to interact with The Bot as best we can, in hopes of supporting its recovery. I also continue to roll out upgrades to improve its functionality and increase the entertainment value on my livestreams.
Here is a (continuously growing) list of commands that we can all use to interact with The Bot:
| Type this into chat | The Bot will do this |
|---|---|
| !8ball (followed by a Y/N question) | Answer your question…maybe |
| discord | Post link to my Discord server in chat |
| Post my email address in chat | |
| Post link to my Facebook page in chat | |
| hello hellp* | Display on-screen welcome (*ask us why if you don’t know this backstory!) |
| Post link to my Instagram account in chat | |
| list | Post link to this webpage in chat |
| member / join | Post link to become a member of my channel |
| merch | Post link to purchase my channel’s merchandise in chat |
| patreon | Post link to my Patreon page in chat |
| pattern^ | Display the pattern I’m working on on-screen (^type it again to toggle it off) |
| shop | Post link to purchase my friendship bracelet creations in chat |
| tiktok | Post link to my TikTok account in chat |
| tip | Post link to buy me a Hershey’s Pie in chat |
| !uptime | Post how long we’ve been livestreaming in chat |
| website | Post link to my website in chat |
There are a number of other actions that will activate The Bot, namely:
- Congratulate you on-screen and in chat for winning the Secret Word Game if you guess the Secret Word while typing in the chat
- Announce the occasion to the world on-screen if you subscribe to my channel during a livestream
Future — The Bot 3.0
With the advancement of artificial intelligence and computing capabilities in general, who knows what The Bot might be capable of in the future? If you have any suggestions for potential upgrades, feel free to share them below or during our livestreams so we can take them into consideration!