Seven Deadly Streams

Seven sins. Seven feeds. Nobody logs off. A Melbourne streamer starts a subathon so he won't have to answer his mum's calls, and discovers his viewers like him best when he doesn't move at all. A Gold Coast receptionist opens an adult subscription page, then watches a team of chatters in Manila, and later her own AI twin, become better at being her than she is. A cyclist in the Adelaide Hills will do anything to win back the crown on her hill. A Perth recruiter becomes a leadership guru by filming his thoughts on the freeway. A Western Sydney food creator learns that his audience loves him most when he eats too much. A Timaru spa salesman with a tax bill discovers how generous people can be to a man with cancer. And a retired deputy principal in Kingston, Tasmania, appoints herself the conscience of the local community noticeboard. After each story comes the paperwork: the meeting minutes, email threads, comment chains and performance reviews from inside the platforms, where the people who saw it coming decide it isn't their team's problem. Seven Deadly Streams is a darkly funny, unsettling collection about the sins the internet rewards, set in the suburbs, hills and highways of Australia and New Zealand. Sloth, lust, envy, pride, gluttony, greed and wrath have never been easier to monetise, or harder to switch off.