When Cady Hoffman’s labor began on the evening of October 7th, she decided to share it live with the world.
Typically, 32-year-old Cady Hoffman can be found streaming from her Austin, Texas, home, navigating her avatar through the expansive world of “World of Warcraft” for her Twitch followers. But on this particular evening, she was seen wincing on her living room floor, adorned in a crimson gown, her labor unfolding for a live audience. Over an intense eight-hour period, viewers witnessed her journey: whimpering into a couch cushion, squatting and grunting in a corner, gripping the edge of a birthing pool, and letting out involuntary screams. Friends and birth attendants provided care while a live chat scrolled across a large TV screen above them. At 2:45 a.m. on October 8th, a baby girl, Luna, made her grand entrance into the digital spotlight.
Just three days after the birth, Ms. Hoffman likened her labor experience to a gamer achieving a ‘flow state.’ ‘I just had to lock in,’ she explained. ‘I had to completely forget the cameras were there and truly surrender to the experience.’
Ms. Hoffman, known as ‘Fandy’ to her Twitch community, typically entertains a few thousand viewers. However, her labor and childbirth stream soared to an incredible peak of 29,489 simultaneous viewers. This diverse audience included her 15-year-old daughter, watching from her bedroom upstairs, and even Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, who personally joined the live chat to wish her: ‘Fandy, best of luck and congratulations. Wishing you the best in this journey.’
The archived Twitch video of the event has since garnered over 769,000 views, with news of the unprecedented stream spreading to major entertainment outlets like TMZ and E! Online. A Twitch spokeswoman confirmed this was the platform’s inaugural childbirth broadcast.
This, however, wasn’t the first time a birth had been publicly broadcast. In 2001, ‘Good Morning America’ famously featured five live births from American hospitals during a ‘Super Baby Tuesday’ segment, which host Charlie Gibson likened to watching a golf tournament. More recently, in 2020, Emma Isaacs, CEO of Business Chicks, shared her own birth with thousands of followers on Instagram. Beyond live broadcasts, countless births have been captured in film and video, from instructional hospital tapes of the mid-20th century and the 1982 Nova documentary ‘The Miracle of Life,’ to the flourishing genre of edited birth videos found on YouTube.
What truly set Ms. Hoffman’s live birth apart was its unique social backdrop. While traditional news programs tailor content for a broad audience, and Instagram already serves as a hub for documenting (and often monetizing and debating) women’s personal lives, Twitch is fundamentally a video game streaming platform. Its audience is predominantly young men, and their collective desires and sensibilities heavily influence the platform’s discourse.
Bryan Loyd, Ms. Hoffman’s husband and gaming partner (known as Adamax in ‘World of Warcraft,’ where they met in 2019 before he moved to Texas), noted that ‘the vast majority of our viewer base is men.’ He added, ‘I think it was extremely educational to a good majority of them.’ During much of the stream, he was seen nervously pacing or bouncing on a birthing ball.
When Ms. Hoffman streamed her birth, she dramatically interrupted Twitch’s typical content. She effectively replaced the lighthearted spectacle of video game action with the raw, intense drama of childbirth. Her live chat transformed into a humorous forum where gaming terminology was repurposed for her reproductive journey. Viewers dubbed it a ‘character creation stream,’ requested the newborn’s ‘specs,’ and lauded Ms. Hoffman’s ‘in-game’ achievements with phrases like ‘w contraction,’ ‘w push,’ and ‘w baby.’
While cinematic depictions often compress childbirth into mere seconds, and even YouTube videos typically offer a highlight reel, a livestream provided Ms. Hoffman the opportunity to present the complete, unfiltered experience. As her labor advanced, the stream evolved into a live, impromptu educational seminar on the birthing process. The chat buzzed with curious questions: ‘Guys is she clip farming or does it really take this long?’ (On average, it takes much longer.) ‘If she stood up, would the baby fall out?’ (Regrettably, no.) ‘What would happen if she pooped?’ (She did, and a birthing attendant discreetly removed it from the pool with a net – a moment that generated significant excitement in the chat.)
The event drew in other prominent streamers. Tim Esfandiari, who boasts 1.4 million Twitch followers, offered live play-by-play birth commentary to his own audience, even using a green screen to virtually insert himself into the birthing room, complete with a mystical horn and a plunger prop. Members of the e-sports team FaZe watched her stream on their channel, reacting with shouts when Ms. Hoffman screamed. Upon Luna’s arrival, 21-year-old FaZe member Jason Nguyen generously gifted Ms. Hoffman 200 free subscriptions, totaling $998 in value.
Later, with her newborn sleeping peacefully nearby, Ms. Hoffman reflected on the experience. She admitted she had been too engrossed in labor to monitor the chat’s discourse. It wasn’t until the following day, as she began to recover and scroll through her phone, that she understood not all online observers had embraced her decision.
On platforms like Twitter and Instagram, strangers flooded Ms. Hoffman with messages, labeling her as ‘vile’ or ‘disgusting’ and insisting she should be ‘ashamed.’ They alleged the birth violated Twitch’s terms of service, questioned the safety of her home birth, and criticized her for exposing her newborn to the content world without consent. Her prior OnlyFans account, where she shared photos of her body, also became a point of contention. Gaming blog Kotaku declared she had ‘broken unsettling new ground.’ Prominent Twitch streamer and commentator Charles White Jr. (with 5.7 million followers) argued that Ms. Hoffman’s stream transformed a ‘private’ and ‘sacred’ moment into a ‘monetizable spectacle.’
White asserted, ‘There’s really no other reason to be livestreaming the delivery of your child other than the obvious attention it’s going to bring with it.’ He controversially claimed, ‘She actually went out and was breastfeeding the entirety of the Twitch ecosystem.’ Ironically, Mr. White delivered his critique after a promotional speech for his branded soap company, seated before a display of his branded energy drink, effectively monetizing the very event he criticized.
Mr. Loyd countered, ‘It’s just very apparent that a lot of the people that are critiquing did not actually watch any of the stream.’ Ms. Hoffman herself feels many critics misunderstood her intentions and wrongly assumed the stream was more explicit than it truly was. She clarified that she had consulted with Twitch representatives beforehand to ensure the livestream adhered to all platform guidelines.
Ms. Hoffman meticulously planned her home birth, consulting with doctors who deemed her pregnancy low-risk, and assembling a team of a midwife and nurse. She remained clothed throughout her labor. Family, friends, or attendants would occasionally adjust camera angles or place a hand over the lens for privacy. As labor progressed, she entered a birthing tub, which naturally kept most of her body out of direct view.
Addressing accusations that the livestream was solely a monetization tactic, Mr. Loyd stated that it was not configured to aggressively promote subscriptions or advertisements, unlike some of their previous marathon streams. He revealed the stream generated approximately $6,000, covering about half the cost of their birth attendants. He dismissed concerns about his daughter being bullied, commenting, ‘I don’t know why kids would make fun of someone for being born.’
Ms. Hoffman, accustomed to public scrutiny, said, ‘I’ve been in the public space for so long, I’ve heard a lot of criticism.’ She acknowledged, ‘I could see how some people may not approve from the outside, not knowing anything about us. But a lot of it, honestly, was pretty easy to brush off.’
Following Luna’s birth, Ms. Hoffman deactivated her OnlyFans account. This was a pre-planned decision with Mr. Loyd, aimed at allowing her to dedicate more time to their child, rather than a response to her critics. ‘Neither of us have any shame about how we made a living, and how we made our money, whatsoever,’ Mr. Loyd affirmed. ‘We’ve reached a point financially where we just don’t need the money.’
This wasn’t Ms. Hoffman’s first experience with childbirth. She had welcomed her first daughter at 17, shortly after high school graduation, in a hospital setting. That experience, she recounted, felt disempowering. ‘I kind of just did what the doctor told me to do back then, and that’s how that went,’ she said. ‘I wanted something different for Luna.’
This time, Ms. Hoffman opted for a home birth, surrounded by her chosen friends and attendants, in an environment she meticulously controlled. She remained clothed, adopted preferred positions, and filmed the event from supervised angles. The entire experience was streamed on her personal channel, to her dedicated community, without a hint of shame – an act that commanded her audience to momentarily set aside their gaming consoles and truly engage with a profound human experience.