It took 31 days of non-stop streaming, but variety streamer Ludwig Ahgren has finally broken the all-time Twitch sub record of 269,154 set by Ninja all the way back in 2018. "There it is, you were here. This is the new record on Twitch," he announced to an audience of over 80,000 just as his sub count crossed the threshold.
The achievement comes just as Ludwig is preparing to wrap up the month-long subathon. It wasn't supposed to go this long. Ludwig began streaming on March 14 with a simple rule: each sub adds ten seconds to a countdown clock that signals the end of the show. That was four weeks ago. Viewers kept the 'never-ending stream' dream alive for a ridiculous amount of time, but Ludwig is finally pulling the plug tonight April 13 at 9 pm PT for some well-needed time away from a webcam. Given the chance, the subathon could probably continue indefinitely.
The live reaction from Ludwig: pic.twitter.com/CbycLEkkkzApril 13, 2021
For a while, it has appeared as if the unlikely stream was winding down—I said as much over two weeks ago when the timer was at 8 hours. Man, was I hilariously wrong. To be fair, Ludwig must've been surprised as well. He and his mods had already begun planning a finale in case the timer struck zero that weekend. Seems quaint at this point.
- Super Mario Bros. speedrunner sets a new world record on a PC using keyboard controls and boldly proclaims they're 'now 0.3 seconds off of absolute perfection'
- FF14 streamer yields to the MMO's bounciest catgirl, after inspiring them to beat his new speedrunning record 3 times before he could finish making a video about it
I've continued to check in on the subathon since then and have witnessed the stream almost end what seems like a thousand times. The timer has dropped below one minute on several occasions, but viewers always chip in with $5 subscriptions in the knick of time, often adding several more hours within minutes.
For the final day of the stream, Ludwig promised to match each sub with a $5 donation to either St. Jude Children’s Hospital or the Animal Humane Society. The last-minute boost helped propel him to the top of the charts, where he currently ranks as the most subscribed-to streamer right now and of all time with 273,058 (and rising as I write this).
As he returns to a more regular streaming schedule, I'll be curious to see how long Ludwig stays on top. Three years after setting the last record (and leaving Twitch for a Mixer exclusivity deal for a while), TwitchTracker estimates Ninja has around 7,800 active subscribers today. That's still a lot, but far from his peak. (Not that he needs the money anymore. Microsoft payed him a lot.)
