Dianna Russini's First Livestream Was an Unmitigated Disaster
By no means do I wish for anything but success to Dianna Russini as she tries to navigate her way into the next phase of her career. Even if her path back involves sponsorship from an offshore betting company that is still illegal in several states. Even if, as many have pointed out, her new project has all the production values of a video you see on a gas pump or the back of a NYC taxi. And even if the unfortunate situation she finds herself in was self-imposed. America traditionally loves a good comeback story.
But as Devlin mentioned Tuesday, her attempt at a career reboot hasn't been well received:
My personal favorite among the ones he chose is arguably the best outtake in sitcom history:
But you don't know until you know. If Russini and the sketchy Costa Rica-based company sponsoring her could somehow deliver a quality, informative and entertaining bit of content, why then the public would beat the proverbial path to her metaphorical door. The internet is a meritocracy, after all. And there's an endless appetite for good programming.
Apparently they couldn't:
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Source - Believe it or not, the offshore sportsbook nobody had heard of until it announced a weekly show starring Dianna Russini earlier this week wasn’t ready for its big moment.
The aforementioned sportsbook, BetUS, was unable to get its livestream of The Russini Report off the ground at noon ET on Wednesday, when the show was set to make its debut. The page on its website featured an embedded video with elevator music and rotating pictures of Russini with a caption reading “show starts soon” for more than 30 minutes past 12 p.m. ET. And funnily enough, that video wasn’t even an embedded livestream, but just a 90-second clip that would play on repeat.
Those who looked for The Russini Report on other platforms also struck out. The X page for the show posted a link that said “WATCH HERE” that was completely broken and didn’t even lead to a webpage. The Russini Report YouTube channel did not feature any sort of livestream. And the BetUS Vimeo account, which embedded the 90-second clip on its website, was set to private.
To be fair, we've all had that experience of trying to join a Zoom or a Streamyard or whatever, and have all sorts of glitches. You can't hear them. They can't see you. The screen freezes up. You're texting back and forth to figure out what to do. No one knows how it all actually works, so there's no way to troubleshoot when it doesn't work. Depending on the circumstances, it can be incredibly stressful. So we can all relate.
To be even more fair, there's no excuse for this dumbfuckery.
Russini's been plotting her comeback for months. The negotiations between her people and this obscure company went on for who knows how long. But long enough that they should've had this all buttoned up. They've been plugging this thing for days. You'd assumed they'd run all the Beta tests they needed. Because not only does her ability to earn a living depend on it, this is sponsored by an offshore company that is illegal to tens of millions of Americans asking that the rest us trust them with their money. And they can't pull off what a kid livestreaming himself playing video games can for hours everyday without a hitch.
It's still a little too soon to tell, but it might turn out that trying to relaunch your career without ever discussing how you lost it in the first place, with the help of a shadowy foreign company might not be the best idea ever. Stay tuned.