{"id":1462225,"date":"2026-01-27T15:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T12:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1462225"},"modified":"2026-01-27T15:51:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T12:51:00","slug":"this-debut-novel-exposes-the-dark-side-of-the-creator-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1462225","title":{"rendered":"This debut novel exposes the dark side of the creator economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"square\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1\" data-template=\"Standard Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"square\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lior Torenberg author photo (1)\" class=\"img\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1435289-1.jpg\" width=\"500\" title=\"1435289-1\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Photography courtesy of <span class=\"nowrap\">Lior Torenberg<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-01-27T15:51:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"27 January 2026\"><span class=\"month\">January<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"27\">27,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"standard-tag-container\"><a class=\"standard-category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a> \/<br \/>\n<a class=\"standard-series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>This debut novel exposes the dark side of the <span class=\"nowrap\">creator economy<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>Documenting a 20-something\u2019s desperate quest for money and fame, Lior Torenberg\u2019s Just Watch Me reads like a cautionary tale <span class=\"nowrap\">on virality<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-01-27T15:51:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"27 January 2026\"><span class=\"month\">January<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"27\">27,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-01-27T15:51:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"27 January 2026\"><span class=\"month\">January<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"27\">27,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/isabelbekele\">Isabel Bekele<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Can you maintain privacy while having an online presence? Can virtual relationships be substituted for real community? Why are we so drawn to watching pain? Lior Torenberg wrestles with these very existential, very current questions and more in her debut novel, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Like many others operating within the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lowes-creator\/2025\/06\/16\/how-the-creator-economy-is-reshaping-modern-marketing--and-why-brands-are-paying-attention\/\"><span>$250 billion creator economy<\/span><\/a><span>, Dell Danvers, Torenberg\u2019s protagonist, has found a way (albeit a niche one) to make a living online. Burdened by chronic stomach pain, a rent payment she can\u2019t afford, and a younger sister on expensive life support, Dell turns to a livestreaming platform to make money. After discovering she has an unusually high spice tolerance, Dell makes eating spicy foods the hook of her livestream, and as a result, quickly develops a rapt audience that has the potential to transform her financial reality. The cost of that transformation, though, is the question Torenberg is most concerned with. How much of yourself would you give up before logging off for good?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Released last week, the novel has arrived at a moment when we\u2019re only beginning to interrogate the blurred lines between our real selves and the versions we portray online. As Torenberg writes, \u201cThe line between surveillance and communion is thin but strong; not a knife\u2019s edge, but a discernible, navigable border.\u201d Over the course of seven chapters, one for each day of Dell\u2019s livestream, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span> brings readers to that border again and again, using humour and rapid pacing to make commentary on parasocial relationships and surveillance culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Below, we spoke to the author about writing \u201cinternet speak\u201d, the cost of living crisis, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>First off, congrats on publishing your debut novel. Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a writer? Was this something you always knew you wanted to pursue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> Yeah, definitely. I moved to America when I was three and didn\u2019t speak English at home, so I really just started learning English when I was in school. I was in the ESL programme for a few years, and I really think of reading and writing as my way into the world \u2013 the way I could learn to communicate and understand people around me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I really became obsessed with reading and I won a poetry contest in second grade; I was the proudest person. I think that was the highlight of my career and I\u2019ve been chasing that feeling ever since. So, I do think that I\u2019ve always wanted to be a writer and I\u2019m lucky because I also think I feel compelled to do it. It\u2019s an incredibly hard thing to do unless you feel a bit compulsive about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Though novels about the internet are now becoming plentiful, the plot of <\/strong><strong><em>Just Watch Me \u2013 <\/em><\/strong><strong>where the protagonist live-streams herself eating spicy food for money \u2013 is so specifically absurd and unique. Where did that idea come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I started this book in 2021 and I was home a lot, watching a lot of TV and just taking in constant content, being way more online than usual. Then, I discovered Twitch, which I know has been around forever, but I wasn\u2019t clued into it until then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>99 per cent of Twitch is watching people play video games, but one per cent [of content] is in a category called \u2018Just Chatting\u2019, where it\u2019s people at their computer, or folding their laundry, or making lunch, and they\u2019re just chatting. I was so confused and intrigued by this \u2013 like, who are the people watching? But also, and maybe more interestingly, who are the people just live-streaming their day-to-day life?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The pepper aspect of it surprised me while I was writing it, but it is a subculture that I know a lot about. I am someone who loves hot peppers and hot sauce. I watch shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span> and I go to the New York Hot Sauce Expo, where the climax of the book takes place, every year, so I was able to put that specificity in there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>In real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just speaking parallel or perpendicular<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>So much of the text features conversations taking place in the online chatroom of Dell\u2019s livestream. Though including \u2018internet speak\u2019 in fiction can easily feel quickly dated or gimmicky, you really nailed the choppy, stream-of-consciousness syntax of the internet. What was it like writing those sections and what were you using as source material?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I did watch a ton of streams, mostly to observe the chat. I remember taking an English class in undergrad where the teacher had us go sit in a cafe and listen to how people talk to each other \u2013 as in, go eavesdrop on a table and write down their conversation. What you notice very quickly is that, even in real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just [speaking] parallel or perpendicular, and it\u2019s all very loose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reading the stream chats, I was actually surprised that it followed a similar pattern, but with even more people not talking directly to each other. That randomness and those word associations were fun to write \u2013 things like typos or different ways that people emote. I dedicated an entire document to pulling out every individual viewer\u2019s chats and making sure they have an allure and a consistency in the way they type, whether it\u2019s all caps or whether they\u2019re obsessed with the fact that they\u2019re from Canada. It was also important to me to get to know all the stream viewers as characters. They\u2019re not three-dimensional characters, but they are not flat either \u2014 they are always there. They operate like a Greek chorus to everything Dell is doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Something else that stood out to me in the book was the way you write about Dell\u2019s financial struggles. I think her plight \u2013 struggling to make ends meet in a major city \u2013 will feel familiar to a lot of young people. For example, there\u2019s a particularly relatable scene in which she\u2019s job hunting online, only to find that even retail positions have hundreds of applications. How did the current affordability crisis affect your writing process and that backdrop?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I feel like writing about money in very specific terms is important. I wrote this book in 2021. At that time, I was in six-figure student debt. I\u2019ve since paid it down and I\u2019m really happy about that, but my monthly payment would\u2019ve been close to a thousand dollars a month for, like, 30 years. That is just crippling; that is another rent. If you lose your job for some reason, or if you have any medical issue, that can quickly put you in a hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There was a time in my life when I had more of Dell\u2019s mindset. She and I are super different, but when you are under duress in this way and have a loan over your head, it feels like you can\u2019t live a normal life. There\u2019s this constant battle of thinking about the price and doing mental math for everything you buy. I wanted to put that in Dell because I felt that way. Money becomes a very all-consuming thing when you have that type of debt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>As for the book\u2019s themes, I feel like this novel perfectly encapsulated the paradox that drives the loneliness epidemic: the internet provides us these endless means for connection, but it can also make people like Dell feel more isolated than ever. What about this tension interested you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> There\u2019s a quote by Donald Winnicott, and it\u2019s something like, \u2018It\u2019s a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.\u2019 I think that quote really encapsulates this dilemma. Dell, for example, is in a place in her life where she is in such strong denial. She can\u2019t be alone with her thoughts for even one second. The people in her life that really know her, like her mom or her best friend, she\u2019s avoiding at all costs because to face them is to confront herself; so, she has created this perfect world in her livestream where she can be seen only and exactly the way she wants to be seen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you\u2019re posting online, you are controlling what you say. Dell chooses what to share and what to withhold, and it\u2019s just not real communion. Ultimately at the end, she has to finally face her real life and be seen for who she actually is. I think it is a really interesting theme; I don\u2019t have an answer to this question, but I think about it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>Even though Dell\u2019s followers begin to demand more and more of her, she tries to convince herself that she\u2019s still the one in charge through this mantra she repeats throughout the book: \u2018If anyone is going to exploit me, it\u2019s me.\u2019 Do you think this is na\u00efve? Once you open yourself up to online consumption, do you think it\u2019s possible to still remain in control?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think that if you\u2019re doing your job right as a creator, your purpose under capitalism is to generate as much demand as possible. If Dell is doing her job right, her consumer\u2019s appetite will be limitless and insatiable. The consumer will always want to have more access, more intimacy, more information. If you\u2019re building that parasocial feeling on purpose, it\u2019s part of what makes people donate and feel like they really know you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dell\u2019s denial is such an active force. Understanding the mechanism of denial really broke open the book for me, because denial is not passive. Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over. So, she needs to maintain control every second of her life so that she does not have to be alone with her thoughts. But no, I don\u2019t think she can maintain it forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The novel also does a great job of documenting the internet\u2019s appetite for \u2018trauma porn.\u2019 In one line, Dell describes her followers as \u2018animals drawn to the smell of death.\u2019 Why do you think that misery performs so well online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think this has been true for a while. We see it with longstanding shows like <\/span><em><span>Survivor<\/span><\/em><span> or <\/span><em><span>Amazing Race<\/span><\/em><span>, where the extremes of the human experience are shown for a salivating audience. But with the creator economy and specifically the rise of AI, the veneer of picture-perfect or airbrushed content \u2014 people don\u2019t want it anymore. I think there\u2019s a real desire for authenticity and vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even though a lot of people try to portray authenticity and vulnerability, it\u2019s still very controlled. Real authenticity and vulnerability in the era of AI and mass content creation \u2014 what does it even look like? To me, what comes to mind is shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span>, where even the most media-trained celebrities are just falling apart. And the reason they are losing it is because of pain. I think that pain and these extreme human emotions are almost the last frontier of authenticity available to us. When you\u2019re pushed to that extreme, you can\u2019t fake it anymore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, what do you hope the audience will get out of the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I love that you asked about money. I think we don\u2019t talk about money enough. I don\u2019t think we deal with digestion enough \u2013 I love books where people are eating gorgeous meals, but we don\u2019t get the other end of that. I know that\u2019s disgusting, but that\u2019s real life and people have tummy aches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Aside from the themes and motifs, I really genuinely hope that the book actually makes people laugh. I wrote it during the pandemic to entertain myself. If that translates even a little, then I will be delighted because it is all just entertainment. Whether you\u2019re watching TV or reading books or watching streams, we all just tune into something in order to take our minds off the day-to-day. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s \u2018highbrow\u2019 or \u2018lowbrow\u2019 \u2013 I want to entertain people.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Can you maintain privacy while having an online presence? Can virtual relationships be substituted for real community? Why are we so drawn to watching pain? Lior Torenberg wrestles with these very existential, very current questions and more in her debut novel, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Like many others operating within the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lowes-creator\/2025\/06\/16\/how-the-creator-economy-is-reshaping-modern-marketing--and-why-brands-are-paying-attention\/\"><span>$250 billion creator economy<\/span><\/a><span>, Dell Danvers, Torenberg\u2019s protagonist, has found a way (albeit a niche one) to make a living online. Burdened by chronic stomach pain, a rent payment she can\u2019t afford, and a younger sister on expensive life support, Dell turns to a livestreaming platform to make money. After discovering she has an unusually high spice tolerance, Dell makes eating spicy foods the hook of her livestream, and as a result, quickly develops a rapt audience that has the potential to transform her financial reality. The cost of that transformation, though, is the question Torenberg is most concerned with. How much of yourself would you give up before logging off for good?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Released last week, the novel has arrived at a moment when we\u2019re only beginning to interrogate the blurred lines between our real selves and the versions we portray online. As Torenberg writes, \u201cThe line between surveillance and communion is thin but strong; not a knife\u2019s edge, but a discernible, navigable border.\u201d Over the course of seven chapters, one for each day of Dell\u2019s livestream, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span> brings readers to that border again and again, using humour and rapid pacing to make commentary on parasocial relationships and surveillance culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Below, we spoke to the author about writing \u201cinternet speak\u201d, the cost of living crisis, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>First off, congrats on publishing your debut novel. Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a writer? Was this something you always knew you wanted to pursue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> Yeah, definitely. I moved to America when I was three and didn\u2019t speak English at home, so I really just started learning English when I was in school. I was in the ESL programme for a few years, and I really think of reading and writing as my way into the world \u2013 the way I could learn to communicate and understand people around me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I really became obsessed with reading and I won a poetry contest in second grade; I was the proudest person. I think that was the highlight of my career and I\u2019ve been chasing that feeling ever since. So, I do think that I\u2019ve always wanted to be a writer and I\u2019m lucky because I also think I feel compelled to do it. It\u2019s an incredibly hard thing to do unless you feel a bit compulsive about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Though novels about the internet are now becoming plentiful, the plot of <\/strong><strong><em>Just Watch Me \u2013 <\/em><\/strong><strong>where the protagonist live-streams herself eating spicy food for money \u2013 is so specifically absurd and unique. Where did that idea come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I started this book in 2021 and I was home a lot, watching a lot of TV and just taking in constant content, being way more online than usual. Then, I discovered Twitch, which I know has been around forever, but I wasn\u2019t clued into it until then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>99 per cent of Twitch is watching people play video games, but one per cent [of content] is in a category called \u2018Just Chatting\u2019, where it\u2019s people at their computer, or folding their laundry, or making lunch, and they\u2019re just chatting. I was so confused and intrigued by this \u2013 like, who are the people watching? But also, and maybe more interestingly, who are the people just live-streaming their day-to-day life?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The pepper aspect of it surprised me while I was writing it, but it is a subculture that I know a lot about. I am someone who loves hot peppers and hot sauce. I watch shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span> and I go to the New York Hot Sauce Expo, where the climax of the book takes place, every year, so I was able to put that specificity in there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>In real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just speaking parallel or perpendicular<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>So much of the text features conversations taking place in the online chatroom of Dell\u2019s livestream. Though including \u2018internet speak\u2019 in fiction can easily feel quickly dated or gimmicky, you really nailed the choppy, stream-of-consciousness syntax of the internet. What was it like writing those sections and what were you using as source material?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I did watch a ton of streams, mostly to observe the chat. I remember taking an English class in undergrad where the teacher had us go sit in a cafe and listen to how people talk to each other \u2013 as in, go eavesdrop on a table and write down their conversation. What you notice very quickly is that, even in real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just [speaking] parallel or perpendicular, and it\u2019s all very loose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reading the stream chats, I was actually surprised that it followed a similar pattern, but with even more people not talking directly to each other. That randomness and those word associations were fun to write \u2013 things like typos or different ways that people emote. I dedicated an entire document to pulling out every individual viewer\u2019s chats and making sure they have an allure and a consistency in the way they type, whether it\u2019s all caps or whether they\u2019re obsessed with the fact that they\u2019re from Canada. It was also important to me to get to know all the stream viewers as characters. They\u2019re not three-dimensional characters, but they are not flat either \u2014 they are always there. They operate like a Greek chorus to everything Dell is doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Something else that stood out to me in the book was the way you write about Dell\u2019s financial struggles. I think her plight \u2013 struggling to make ends meet in a major city \u2013 will feel familiar to a lot of young people. For example, there\u2019s a particularly relatable scene in which she\u2019s job hunting online, only to find that even retail positions have hundreds of applications. How did the current affordability crisis affect your writing process and that backdrop?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I feel like writing about money in very specific terms is important. I wrote this book in 2021. At that time, I was in six-figure student debt. I\u2019ve since paid it down and I\u2019m really happy about that, but my monthly payment would\u2019ve been close to a thousand dollars a month for, like, 30 years. That is just crippling; that is another rent. If you lose your job for some reason, or if you have any medical issue, that can quickly put you in a hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There was a time in my life when I had more of Dell\u2019s mindset. She and I are super different, but when you are under duress in this way and have a loan over your head, it feels like you can\u2019t live a normal life. There\u2019s this constant battle of thinking about the price and doing mental math for everything you buy. I wanted to put that in Dell because I felt that way. Money becomes a very all-consuming thing when you have that type of debt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>As for the book\u2019s themes, I feel like this novel perfectly encapsulated the paradox that drives the loneliness epidemic: the internet provides us these endless means for connection, but it can also make people like Dell feel more isolated than ever. What about this tension interested you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> There\u2019s a quote by Donald Winnicott, and it\u2019s something like, \u2018It\u2019s a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.\u2019 I think that quote really encapsulates this dilemma. Dell, for example, is in a place in her life where she is in such strong denial. She can\u2019t be alone with her thoughts for even one second. The people in her life that really know her, like her mom or her best friend, she\u2019s avoiding at all costs because to face them is to confront herself; so, she has created this perfect world in her livestream where she can be seen only and exactly the way she wants to be seen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you\u2019re posting online, you are controlling what you say. Dell chooses what to share and what to withhold, and it\u2019s just not real communion. Ultimately at the end, she has to finally face her real life and be seen for who she actually is. I think it is a really interesting theme; I don\u2019t have an answer to this question, but I think about it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>Even though Dell\u2019s followers begin to demand more and more of her, she tries to convince herself that she\u2019s still the one in charge through this mantra she repeats throughout the book: \u2018If anyone is going to exploit me, it\u2019s me.\u2019 Do you think this is na\u00efve? Once you open yourself up to online consumption, do you think it\u2019s possible to still remain in control?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think that if you\u2019re doing your job right as a creator, your purpose under capitalism is to generate as much demand as possible. If Dell is doing her job right, her consumer\u2019s appetite will be limitless and insatiable. The consumer will always want to have more access, more intimacy, more information. If you\u2019re building that parasocial feeling on purpose, it\u2019s part of what makes people donate and feel like they really know you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dell\u2019s denial is such an active force. Understanding the mechanism of denial really broke open the book for me, because denial is not passive. Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over. So, she needs to maintain control every second of her life so that she does not have to be alone with her thoughts. But no, I don\u2019t think she can maintain it forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The novel also does a great job of documenting the internet\u2019s appetite for \u2018trauma porn.\u2019 In one line, Dell describes her followers as \u2018animals drawn to the smell of death.\u2019 Why do you think that misery performs so well online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think this has been true for a while. We see it with longstanding shows like <\/span><em><span>Survivor<\/span><\/em><span> or <\/span><em><span>Amazing Race<\/span><\/em><span>, where the extremes of the human experience are shown for a salivating audience. But with the creator economy and specifically the rise of AI, the veneer of picture-perfect or airbrushed content \u2014 people don\u2019t want it anymore. I think there\u2019s a real desire for authenticity and vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even though a lot of people try to portray authenticity and vulnerability, it\u2019s still very controlled. Real authenticity and vulnerability in the era of AI and mass content creation \u2014 what does it even look like? To me, what comes to mind is shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span>, where even the most media-trained celebrities are just falling apart. And the reason they are losing it is because of pain. I think that pain and these extreme human emotions are almost the last frontier of authenticity available to us. When you\u2019re pushed to that extreme, you can\u2019t fake it anymore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, what do you hope the audience will get out of the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I love that you asked about money. I think we don\u2019t talk about money enough. I don\u2019t think we deal with digestion enough \u2013 I love books where people are eating gorgeous meals, but we don\u2019t get the other end of that. I know that\u2019s disgusting, but that\u2019s real life and people have tummy aches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Aside from the themes and motifs, I really genuinely hope that the book actually makes people laugh. I wrote it during the pandemic to entertain myself. If that translates even a little, then I will be delighted because it is all just entertainment. Whether you\u2019re watching TV or reading books or watching streams, we all just tune into something in order to take our minds off the day-to-day. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s \u2018highbrow\u2019 or \u2018lowbrow\u2019 \u2013 I want to entertain people.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Can you maintain privacy while having an online presence? Can virtual relationships be substituted for real community? Why are we so drawn to watching pain? Lior Torenberg wrestles with these very existential, very current questions and more in her debut novel, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Like many others operating within the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lowes-creator\/2025\/06\/16\/how-the-creator-economy-is-reshaping-modern-marketing--and-why-brands-are-paying-attention\/\"><span>$250 billion creator economy<\/span><\/a><span>, Dell Danvers, Torenberg\u2019s protagonist, has found a way (albeit a niche one) to make a living online. Burdened by chronic stomach pain, a rent payment she can\u2019t afford, and a younger sister on expensive life support, Dell turns to a livestreaming platform to make money. After discovering she has an unusually high spice tolerance, Dell makes eating spicy foods the hook of her livestream, and as a result, quickly develops a rapt audience that has the potential to transform her financial reality. The cost of that transformation, though, is the question Torenberg is most concerned with. How much of yourself would you give up before logging off for good?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Released last week, the novel has arrived at a moment when we\u2019re only beginning to interrogate the blurred lines between our real selves and the versions we portray online. As Torenberg writes, \u201cThe line between surveillance and communion is thin but strong; not a knife\u2019s edge, but a discernible, navigable border.\u201d Over the course of seven chapters, one for each day of Dell\u2019s livestream, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span> brings readers to that border again and again, using humour and rapid pacing to make commentary on parasocial relationships and surveillance culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Below, we spoke to the author about writing \u201cinternet speak\u201d, the cost of living crisis, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>First off, congrats on publishing your debut novel. Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a writer? Was this something you always knew you wanted to pursue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> Yeah, definitely. I moved to America when I was three and didn\u2019t speak English at home, so I really just started learning English when I was in school. I was in the ESL programme for a few years, and I really think of reading and writing as my way into the world \u2013 the way I could learn to communicate and understand people around me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I really became obsessed with reading and I won a poetry contest in second grade; I was the proudest person. I think that was the highlight of my career and I\u2019ve been chasing that feeling ever since. So, I do think that I\u2019ve always wanted to be a writer and I\u2019m lucky because I also think I feel compelled to do it. It\u2019s an incredibly hard thing to do unless you feel a bit compulsive about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Though novels about the internet are now becoming plentiful, the plot of <\/strong><strong><em>Just Watch Me \u2013 <\/em><\/strong><strong>where the protagonist live-streams herself eating spicy food for money \u2013 is so specifically absurd and unique. Where did that idea come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I started this book in 2021 and I was home a lot, watching a lot of TV and just taking in constant content, being way more online than usual. Then, I discovered Twitch, which I know has been around forever, but I wasn\u2019t clued into it until then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>99 per cent of Twitch is watching people play video games, but one per cent [of content] is in a category called \u2018Just Chatting\u2019, where it\u2019s people at their computer, or folding their laundry, or making lunch, and they\u2019re just chatting. I was so confused and intrigued by this \u2013 like, who are the people watching? But also, and maybe more interestingly, who are the people just live-streaming their day-to-day life?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The pepper aspect of it surprised me while I was writing it, but it is a subculture that I know a lot about. I am someone who loves hot peppers and hot sauce. I watch shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span> and I go to the New York Hot Sauce Expo, where the climax of the book takes place, every year, so I was able to put that specificity in there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>In real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just speaking parallel or perpendicular<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>So much of the text features conversations taking place in the online chatroom of Dell\u2019s livestream. Though including \u2018internet speak\u2019 in fiction can easily feel quickly dated or gimmicky, you really nailed the choppy, stream-of-consciousness syntax of the internet. What was it like writing those sections and what were you using as source material?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I did watch a ton of streams, mostly to observe the chat. I remember taking an English class in undergrad where the teacher had us go sit in a cafe and listen to how people talk to each other \u2013 as in, go eavesdrop on a table and write down their conversation. What you notice very quickly is that, even in real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just [speaking] parallel or perpendicular, and it\u2019s all very loose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reading the stream chats, I was actually surprised that it followed a similar pattern, but with even more people not talking directly to each other. That randomness and those word associations were fun to write \u2013 things like typos or different ways that people emote. I dedicated an entire document to pulling out every individual viewer\u2019s chats and making sure they have an allure and a consistency in the way they type, whether it\u2019s all caps or whether they\u2019re obsessed with the fact that they\u2019re from Canada. It was also important to me to get to know all the stream viewers as characters. They\u2019re not three-dimensional characters, but they are not flat either \u2014 they are always there. They operate like a Greek chorus to everything Dell is doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Something else that stood out to me in the book was the way you write about Dell\u2019s financial struggles. I think her plight \u2013 struggling to make ends meet in a major city \u2013 will feel familiar to a lot of young people. For example, there\u2019s a particularly relatable scene in which she\u2019s job hunting online, only to find that even retail positions have hundreds of applications. How did the current affordability crisis affect your writing process and that backdrop?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I feel like writing about money in very specific terms is important. I wrote this book in 2021. At that time, I was in six-figure student debt. I\u2019ve since paid it down and I\u2019m really happy about that, but my monthly payment would\u2019ve been close to a thousand dollars a month for, like, 30 years. That is just crippling; that is another rent. If you lose your job for some reason, or if you have any medical issue, that can quickly put you in a hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There was a time in my life when I had more of Dell\u2019s mindset. She and I are super different, but when you are under duress in this way and have a loan over your head, it feels like you can\u2019t live a normal life. There\u2019s this constant battle of thinking about the price and doing mental math for everything you buy. I wanted to put that in Dell because I felt that way. Money becomes a very all-consuming thing when you have that type of debt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>As for the book\u2019s themes, I feel like this novel perfectly encapsulated the paradox that drives the loneliness epidemic: the internet provides us these endless means for connection, but it can also make people like Dell feel more isolated than ever. What about this tension interested you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> There\u2019s a quote by Donald Winnicott, and it\u2019s something like, \u2018It\u2019s a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.\u2019 I think that quote really encapsulates this dilemma. Dell, for example, is in a place in her life where she is in such strong denial. She can\u2019t be alone with her thoughts for even one second. The people in her life that really know her, like her mom or her best friend, she\u2019s avoiding at all costs because to face them is to confront herself; so, she has created this perfect world in her livestream where she can be seen only and exactly the way she wants to be seen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you\u2019re posting online, you are controlling what you say. Dell chooses what to share and what to withhold, and it\u2019s just not real communion. Ultimately at the end, she has to finally face her real life and be seen for who she actually is. I think it is a really interesting theme; I don\u2019t have an answer to this question, but I think about it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>Even though Dell\u2019s followers begin to demand more and more of her, she tries to convince herself that she\u2019s still the one in charge through this mantra she repeats throughout the book: \u2018If anyone is going to exploit me, it\u2019s me.\u2019 Do you think this is na\u00efve? Once you open yourself up to online consumption, do you think it\u2019s possible to still remain in control?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think that if you\u2019re doing your job right as a creator, your purpose under capitalism is to generate as much demand as possible. If Dell is doing her job right, her consumer\u2019s appetite will be limitless and insatiable. The consumer will always want to have more access, more intimacy, more information. If you\u2019re building that parasocial feeling on purpose, it\u2019s part of what makes people donate and feel like they really know you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dell\u2019s denial is such an active force. Understanding the mechanism of denial really broke open the book for me, because denial is not passive. Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over. So, she needs to maintain control every second of her life so that she does not have to be alone with her thoughts. But no, I don\u2019t think she can maintain it forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The novel also does a great job of documenting the internet\u2019s appetite for \u2018trauma porn.\u2019 In one line, Dell describes her followers as \u2018animals drawn to the smell of death.\u2019 Why do you think that misery performs so well online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think this has been true for a while. We see it with longstanding shows like <\/span><em><span>Survivor<\/span><\/em><span> or <\/span><em><span>Amazing Race<\/span><\/em><span>, where the extremes of the human experience are shown for a salivating audience. But with the creator economy and specifically the rise of AI, the veneer of picture-perfect or airbrushed content \u2014 people don\u2019t want it anymore. I think there\u2019s a real desire for authenticity and vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even though a lot of people try to portray authenticity and vulnerability, it\u2019s still very controlled. Real authenticity and vulnerability in the era of AI and mass content creation \u2014 what does it even look like? To me, what comes to mind is shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span>, where even the most media-trained celebrities are just falling apart. And the reason they are losing it is because of pain. I think that pain and these extreme human emotions are almost the last frontier of authenticity available to us. When you\u2019re pushed to that extreme, you can\u2019t fake it anymore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, what do you hope the audience will get out of the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I love that you asked about money. I think we don\u2019t talk about money enough. I don\u2019t think we deal with digestion enough \u2013 I love books where people are eating gorgeous meals, but we don\u2019t get the other end of that. I know that\u2019s disgusting, but that\u2019s real life and people have tummy aches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Aside from the themes and motifs, I really genuinely hope that the book actually makes people laugh. I wrote it during the pandemic to entertain myself. If that translates even a little, then I will be delighted because it is all just entertainment. Whether you\u2019re watching TV or reading books or watching streams, we all just tune into something in order to take our minds off the day-to-day. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s \u2018highbrow\u2019 or \u2018lowbrow\u2019 \u2013 I want to entertain people.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Can you maintain privacy while having an online presence? Can virtual relationships be substituted for real community? Why are we so drawn to watching pain? Lior Torenberg wrestles with these very existential, very current questions and more in her debut novel, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Like many others operating within the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lowes-creator\/2025\/06\/16\/how-the-creator-economy-is-reshaping-modern-marketing--and-why-brands-are-paying-attention\/\"><span>$250 billion creator economy<\/span><\/a><span>, Dell Danvers, Torenberg\u2019s protagonist, has found a way (albeit a niche one) to make a living online. Burdened by chronic stomach pain, a rent payment she can\u2019t afford, and a younger sister on expensive life support, Dell turns to a livestreaming platform to make money. After discovering she has an unusually high spice tolerance, Dell makes eating spicy foods the hook of her livestream, and as a result, quickly develops a rapt audience that has the potential to transform her financial reality. The cost of that transformation, though, is the question Torenberg is most concerned with. How much of yourself would you give up before logging off for good?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Released last week, the novel has arrived at a moment when we\u2019re only beginning to interrogate the blurred lines between our real selves and the versions we portray online. As Torenberg writes, \u201cThe line between surveillance and communion is thin but strong; not a knife\u2019s edge, but a discernible, navigable border.\u201d Over the course of seven chapters, one for each day of Dell\u2019s livestream, <\/span><em><span>Just Watch Me<\/span><\/em><span> brings readers to that border again and again, using humour and rapid pacing to make commentary on parasocial relationships and surveillance culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Below, we spoke to the author about writing \u201cinternet speak\u201d, the cost of living crisis, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"instagram-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-instagram\" data-script-depends=\"instagram-embeds\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>First off, congrats on publishing your debut novel. Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a writer? Was this something you always knew you wanted to pursue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> Yeah, definitely. I moved to America when I was three and didn\u2019t speak English at home, so I really just started learning English when I was in school. I was in the ESL programme for a few years, and I really think of reading and writing as my way into the world \u2013 the way I could learn to communicate and understand people around me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I really became obsessed with reading and I won a poetry contest in second grade; I was the proudest person. I think that was the highlight of my career and I\u2019ve been chasing that feeling ever since. So, I do think that I\u2019ve always wanted to be a writer and I\u2019m lucky because I also think I feel compelled to do it. It\u2019s an incredibly hard thing to do unless you feel a bit compulsive about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Though novels about the internet are now becoming plentiful, the plot of <\/strong><strong><em>Just Watch Me \u2013 <\/em><\/strong><strong>where the protagonist live-streams herself eating spicy food for money \u2013 is so specifically absurd and unique. Where did that idea come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I started this book in 2021 and I was home a lot, watching a lot of TV and just taking in constant content, being way more online than usual. Then, I discovered Twitch, which I know has been around forever, but I wasn\u2019t clued into it until then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>99 per cent of Twitch is watching people play video games, but one per cent [of content] is in a category called \u2018Just Chatting\u2019, where it\u2019s people at their computer, or folding their laundry, or making lunch, and they\u2019re just chatting. I was so confused and intrigued by this \u2013 like, who are the people watching? But also, and maybe more interestingly, who are the people just live-streaming their day-to-day life?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The pepper aspect of it surprised me while I was writing it, but it is a subculture that I know a lot about. I am someone who loves hot peppers and hot sauce. I watch shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span> and I go to the New York Hot Sauce Expo, where the climax of the book takes place, every year, so I was able to put that specificity in there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>In real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just speaking parallel or perpendicular<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>So much of the text features conversations taking place in the online chatroom of Dell\u2019s livestream. Though including \u2018internet speak\u2019 in fiction can easily feel quickly dated or gimmicky, you really nailed the choppy, stream-of-consciousness syntax of the internet. What was it like writing those sections and what were you using as source material?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I did watch a ton of streams, mostly to observe the chat. I remember taking an English class in undergrad where the teacher had us go sit in a cafe and listen to how people talk to each other \u2013 as in, go eavesdrop on a table and write down their conversation. What you notice very quickly is that, even in real life, people are not responding directly to each other at any point; they\u2019re just [speaking] parallel or perpendicular, and it\u2019s all very loose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reading the stream chats, I was actually surprised that it followed a similar pattern, but with even more people not talking directly to each other. That randomness and those word associations were fun to write \u2013 things like typos or different ways that people emote. I dedicated an entire document to pulling out every individual viewer\u2019s chats and making sure they have an allure and a consistency in the way they type, whether it\u2019s all caps or whether they\u2019re obsessed with the fact that they\u2019re from Canada. It was also important to me to get to know all the stream viewers as characters. They\u2019re not three-dimensional characters, but they are not flat either \u2014 they are always there. They operate like a Greek chorus to everything Dell is doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Something else that stood out to me in the book was the way you write about Dell\u2019s financial struggles. I think her plight \u2013 struggling to make ends meet in a major city \u2013 will feel familiar to a lot of young people. For example, there\u2019s a particularly relatable scene in which she\u2019s job hunting online, only to find that even retail positions have hundreds of applications. How did the current affordability crisis affect your writing process and that backdrop?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I feel like writing about money in very specific terms is important. I wrote this book in 2021. At that time, I was in six-figure student debt. I\u2019ve since paid it down and I\u2019m really happy about that, but my monthly payment would\u2019ve been close to a thousand dollars a month for, like, 30 years. That is just crippling; that is another rent. If you lose your job for some reason, or if you have any medical issue, that can quickly put you in a hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There was a time in my life when I had more of Dell\u2019s mindset. She and I are super different, but when you are under duress in this way and have a loan over your head, it feels like you can\u2019t live a normal life. There\u2019s this constant battle of thinking about the price and doing mental math for everything you buy. I wanted to put that in Dell because I felt that way. Money becomes a very all-consuming thing when you have that type of debt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>As for the book\u2019s themes, I feel like this novel perfectly encapsulated the paradox that drives the loneliness epidemic: the internet provides us these endless means for connection, but it can also make people like Dell feel more isolated than ever. What about this tension interested you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> There\u2019s a quote by Donald Winnicott, and it\u2019s something like, \u2018It\u2019s a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.\u2019 I think that quote really encapsulates this dilemma. Dell, for example, is in a place in her life where she is in such strong denial. She can\u2019t be alone with her thoughts for even one second. The people in her life that really know her, like her mom or her best friend, she\u2019s avoiding at all costs because to face them is to confront herself; so, she has created this perfect world in her livestream where she can be seen only and exactly the way she wants to be seen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you\u2019re posting online, you are controlling what you say. Dell chooses what to share and what to withhold, and it\u2019s just not real communion. Ultimately at the end, she has to finally face her real life and be seen for who she actually is. I think it is a really interesting theme; I don\u2019t have an answer to this question, but I think about it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>Even though Dell\u2019s followers begin to demand more and more of her, she tries to convince herself that she\u2019s still the one in charge through this mantra she repeats throughout the book: \u2018If anyone is going to exploit me, it\u2019s me.\u2019 Do you think this is na\u00efve? Once you open yourself up to online consumption, do you think it\u2019s possible to still remain in control?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think that if you\u2019re doing your job right as a creator, your purpose under capitalism is to generate as much demand as possible. If Dell is doing her job right, her consumer\u2019s appetite will be limitless and insatiable. The consumer will always want to have more access, more intimacy, more information. If you\u2019re building that parasocial feeling on purpose, it\u2019s part of what makes people donate and feel like they really know you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dell\u2019s denial is such an active force. Understanding the mechanism of denial really broke open the book for me, because denial is not passive. Denial is something that you have to work every second of every day to maintain, because if you let down your guard for even a second, the thing you\u2019re trying to keep at bay is going to knock you over. So, she needs to maintain control every second of her life so that she does not have to be alone with her thoughts. But no, I don\u2019t think she can maintain it forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The novel also does a great job of documenting the internet\u2019s appetite for \u2018trauma porn.\u2019 In one line, Dell describes her followers as \u2018animals drawn to the smell of death.\u2019 Why do you think that misery performs so well online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I think this has been true for a while. We see it with longstanding shows like <\/span><em><span>Survivor<\/span><\/em><span> or <\/span><em><span>Amazing Race<\/span><\/em><span>, where the extremes of the human experience are shown for a salivating audience. But with the creator economy and specifically the rise of AI, the veneer of picture-perfect or airbrushed content \u2014 people don\u2019t want it anymore. I think there\u2019s a real desire for authenticity and vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even though a lot of people try to portray authenticity and vulnerability, it\u2019s still very controlled. Real authenticity and vulnerability in the era of AI and mass content creation \u2014 what does it even look like? To me, what comes to mind is shows like <\/span><em><span>Hot Ones<\/span><\/em><span>, where even the most media-trained celebrities are just falling apart. And the reason they are losing it is because of pain. I think that pain and these extreme human emotions are almost the last frontier of authenticity available to us. When you\u2019re pushed to that extreme, you can\u2019t fake it anymore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, what do you hope the audience will get out of the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lior Torenberg:<\/strong><span> I love that you asked about money. I think we don\u2019t talk about money enough. I don\u2019t think we deal with digestion enough \u2013 I love books where people are eating gorgeous meals, but we don\u2019t get the other end of that. I know that\u2019s disgusting, but that\u2019s real life and people have tummy aches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Aside from the themes and motifs, I really genuinely hope that the book actually makes people laugh. I wrote it during the pandemic to entertain myself. If that translates even a little, then I will be delighted because it is all just entertainment. Whether you\u2019re watching TV or reading books or watching streams, we all just tune into something in order to take our minds off the day-to-day. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s \u2018highbrow\u2019 or \u2018lowbrow\u2019 \u2013 I want to entertain people.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article-series\">\n<h4 class=\"heading\">More on these topics<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series\"><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/books\">Books<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/internet\">internet<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> Source URL: https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69492\/1\/just-watch-me-debut-novel-exposes-dark-side-creator-economy-lior-torenberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photography courtesy of Lior Torenberg January\u00a0 27,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A This debut novel exposes the dark side of the creator economy Documenting a 20-something\u2019s desperate quest for money and fame, Lior Torenberg\u2019s Just Watch Me reads like a cautionary tale on virality January\u00a0 27,\u00a0 2026 January\u00a0 27,\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1462228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-1462225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1462225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1462228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1462225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1462225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1462225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}