A solo show is never actually solo if it’s live. The transcripts show Thomas working the chat like a switchboard — “let’s see what’s going on in the chat,” relaying questions, taking program notes, crediting donations. In March, with the world on fire, the chat was triage: virus tips, market calls, movie recommendations for quarantine. The phrase “super chat” appears exactly 0 times in fifty-four transcripts — support came as direct Bitcoin donations and Patreon, called out by name instead.
One more data point, from July 24: “I’m not sure the chat is working. We might have been shadow band. We don’t get a chat anymore.” Even the co-host had platform trouble.
On-air references to the chat per episode, in date order. The dense left edge is March 2020: more chat interaction in the crash fortnight than in the rest of the run combined. The summer news-desk episodes read fewer comments on air, by design — the news itself had gotten long.
| Name | Callouts | Episodes |
|---|---|---|
| Jeremy Sagers | 7 | 5 |
| Zaza Zaza | 5 | 4 |
| Dan Trev | 2 | 2 |
| Martin | 2 | 2 |
| Ben | 2 | 1 |
| BB Cameron | 1 | 1 |
| Voss | 1 | 1 |
| Chewie | 1 | 1 |
| Harmony | 1 | 1 |
| M-B-T-C | 1 | 1 |
| Sheffield | 1 | 1 |
| Malcolm | 1 | 1 |
| Alleriza | 1 | 1 |
| Derek | 1 | 1 |
| Tyler Jank | 1 | 1 |
| Yuvaz | 1 | 1 |
| Byzantine | 1 | 1 |
| Xantium General | 1 | 1 |
| Jennifer | 1 | 1 |
| Gerbots | 1 | 1 |
| Quasim Rashad | 1 | 1 |
| Shine Fuel | 1 | 1 |
| Star Duster | 1 | 1 |
Handles as the transcript heard them — “Zaza,” who funded the fundraiser, may well be the same person as “Zaza Zaza.” No merging was attempted; garbled handles stay unlisted.
“Maybe they're saying in the chat that I should try out some other things.”2020-03-03
“So, oh, we've got a different app in the chat says he's enjoying the Picard series.”2020-03-03
“It's always hard people kind of comment in the chat and then they don't come back after the show to comment.”2020-03-04
“But according to Jeremy here in the chat, Mike Bloomberg has dropped out of the president residential race that's half a billion dollars for one day and he didn't even have a very good day.”2020-03-04
“I prefer to, I wish I could just get the politics news, but they mix that scary virus stuff in there to meanwhile in the chat.”2020-03-04
“Uh, they said it in the chat and it happened during the show.”2020-03-05