In an apparent effort to reach younger voters, the Biden administration enlisted former South Bend Mayor, and current Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, to begin live streaming on Twitch, a popular video game streaming platform.
Buttigieg, 39, chose to allow viewers to watch him play Red Dead Redemption 2, a old-western themed action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games in 2018.
Viewers quickly tired of the stream, however, when it became apparent that "Mayor Pete", a nickname obtained during his run for the Democratic primaries in 2020, had no interest in exploring the fictional towns of Valentine or Saint Denis or playing through the rich and heart breaking story mode which have made Red Dead Redemption 2 such a hit with gamers. Instead Buttigieg appeared to be wholly and unconditionally fixated on having his digital avatar simulate a locomotive engineer, operating the digitized train, making stops at all stations and following all standard train protocols.
20 minutes into the broadcast, user @J1ZZD3MON asked Buttigieg: "Bro, you know there is more to this game than jus drivin' that train around, right?". Buttigieg replied: "I do know that the game offers other toxic adventures, Mr. Jizz Demon, but the Choo Choo is the best and this is where the true gamers spend their time, amirite?" No viewer of the live stream responded in the affirmative.
At one point during the broadcast, Buttigieg appeared to hyperventilate with laughter when, while operating the train whistle for the 328th time during his stream, he appeared to have scared some digitized buffalo in the New Hanover region of the game:
Buttigieg quickly apologized for his behavior, citing a "lack of compassion" to those with "selective sound sensitivity syndrome".
Later, user @MegaHugeBoner69 asked Buttigieg he was ever going to give Red Dead Redemption 2's hunting feature a try, highlighting that there are several "Legendary Animals" that the game challenges its players to track, hunt, skin for their hides and butcher for their meat.
Buttigieg responded, that he had only "foraged for plants" in the game and that "hunting and eating animal products" sounded "noxious" to him. Buttigieg then went on a three minute soliloquy including his wishes that the developers had offered players the "option to eat bugs instead of meat" as it would've sent a "a better, more eco-friendly message to gamers" before adding that "crickets are delicious, amirite?" No viewer of the live stream responded in the affirmative.
By the second hour of the live stream, few viewers remained and of the those who stuck around, several began hurling insults at the host - with an allusion to Buttigieg suffering from "train autism" being among the most common barbs. One particularly mischievous viewer of the stream, @IH8PizzaLovers, went as far as to post a meme of the Transportation Secretary engaging in sexual congress with the smokestack of a locomotive.
Undeterred, Buttigieg continued to operate the train, hour to hour, town to town, station to station, taking only short breaks to sip from a Capri Sun and giggle at the sound of the fictitious train bell he rung as he left each station.
As of the publishing of this story, Buttigieg was completing his 85th circuit around the map, and had lodged complaints with the game developers' failure to include a "strong female leads", lack of respect for "gender neutral language" and their refusal to adhere to his suggestion to allow gamers to "marry a choo choo". No viewer of the live stream responded in the affirmative.