China Vlogger Livestream Himself Eating Poisonous Bugs & Dies in Front of the Camera

Last Updated on 2020-01-02 , 11:37 am

Livestreaming is a lucrative business, and eating weird shit is a lucrative business, enough for some to make a decent living doing.

In the last case we covered, it resulted in a not so pretty face from trying to eat an octopus.

In this case… things aren’t nice.

Douyu streamer eating weird stuff

Sun (pseudonym) is a 35-year-old streamer on Douyu with 15,000 followers. Like any livestreamer, he would livestream every night.

On the night of 18 July 2019, he spun a wheel marked with items like centipedes, geckos, mealworms, eggs, beer and baijiu.

He would then drink or eat the items on whatever the pin lands live on camera.

Suffice to say, he had some nasty bugs and collapsed while his stream is still ongoing. The last streaming session was 7.53 pm.

20 July 2019, his girlfriend would find his body in his flat while checking in on him. Police later came in while the camera was still recording.

His father is furious

According to his father on Sina News, Sun didn’t study after primary school and went to live away from home when he was 18. A year ago, he started streaming.

Sun is under a streaming contract with a company in Wuhan, with revenue splitting 70% to Sun and 30% to the company.

On the afternoon of 22 July 2019, 2 people came from the company to investigate the situation. They closed his Douyu account and his videos have been removed since.

Currently, there are no replies from Douyu.

Father’s Reaction

Sun’s father is saddened, and at the same time furious about his death.

“My son’s streaming content might be questionable, but does the streaming platform hold no responsibility? Are they allowed to broadcast this?”

Sun’s father felt that supervision from Douyu is lacking, and hope to prevent another similar tragedy.

“How are they supervising these content? Didn’t they say 24 hours supervision?

“They didn’t take action even when my son is drinking, eating centipedes and lizards all those. If they claim they couldn’t see, why did they later close his account? And If they reminded him, the tragedy could have been avoided. If my son still insisted on continuing, the broadcaster could have locked his account to stop his stream. But they didn’t do anything.

“At that time I was home, hearing this news, my mind went blank, like the whole sky was falling.”

Sun was said to be kind-hearted, though a little introverted and stubborn at times. His father added that he is filial and often called home, but never complained about hardship.

Sun also has a sister, but their mother died when Sun was 24 years old.

This year, Sun’s grandmother is over 70 with high blood pressure and a weak heart.

Girlfriend expecting in October

After Sun went to Beijing when he was 18, he stayed there for about 7 to 8 years and met his girlfriend. They went to Hefei in 2012, where his girlfriend is from. Sun worked in food delivery but swapped to streaming a year ago.

Streaming income is dependent on fan donations but can range from 2,000 to 3,000 RMB (about SGD$397 to $595) in a bad month and 7,000 to 8,000 RMB (about SGD$1,390 to $1,589) in good months.

His girlfriend is said to be even more devastated by his death. She is expecting with his child in October and is currently working part-time.

They had discussed to have Sun’s sister come over to Hefei to help them look after the kid. If it weren’t for this tragedy, they would have gone to sign the marriage contract.

Death from Hypoxia

According to the police, he might have difficulty breathing after drinking alcohol, then eating centipedes, geckos which blocked his airway. From investigations, it is confirmed that Sun did drink on stream, but the police didn’t give more information on the geckos and centipedes.

What he drank included a full bottle of Baijiu and a third of another bottle.

His death is still under investigation.

After knowing his situation, it would appear that this is more than a case of seeking attention, but doing dangerous stunts for the sake of views is still highly inadvisable.