aprilmarch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aprilmarch) wrote2021-06-12 11:29 pm
aprilmarch) wrote2021-06-12 11:29 pm
Entry tags:
Anomalous Media - Recording of a Stream
File name: whereamy_stream_20171128.mp4
Filetype: Video, live recording, 19 minutes. However, due to the original file's glitched video input, only audio is necessary for enjoyment. Audio files are available to club members in all common formats, but copies of the original video file are also available upon request.
Description: Video file posted to several subreddits by user r/FUME1024, regarding an apparently nonexisting gaming stream of the game GeoGuessr performed on the channel WhereAmY.
For context, these elements must be explained.
GeoGuessr is a browser-based game in which players must find a location in a world map based on images from Google Streetview. They must make a guess, and gain more points the closer to the actual location their guess was. There are many ways to tailor the experience, but the most commonly played method is to go through five discreet locations within a time limit of five minutes for each; each location is referred to as a 'round'.
WhereAmY, birth name Amanda Fuentes, is a Spanish-born, France-based streamer. She started on Mixer, moving to Twitch after the former's closure. She streams in English and mostly plays the game GeoGuessr. Fuentes has degrees in architecture and urbanism and is a polyglot, making her remarkably apt at identifying locations in the game from buildings and language displayed in signage. Furthermore, her brother Alonso Fuentes is a geographer, making him adept at discovering locations from identifying flora shown. He does not participate in most streams, but Fuentes has learned some basics from him, allowing her to make good guesses even on mostly rural environments. Her complex analyses and high-scoring sessions were a major draw to her channel.
The file in question was posted to a subreddit built around her channel, r/WhereAmY, by an user named "FUME1024", on November 29th, 2017. The user stated that he recorded most of Fuentes' sessions for their own personal library, but had had an unknown problem with their recording equipment while recording a session the previous day. They stated that they had been surprised by an announcement of an unscheduled stream immediately before a personal appointment, were forced to leave their equipment recording the live show before leaving; when they returned, they found the resulting file was faulty. They searched the channel's archives but found no sign of a stream that day. They asked if anyone else had recorded the stream and was willing to provide a copy. Upon being told that Fuentes hadn't streamed that day due to a medical appointment, they became extremely aggressive and insulted any users who stated this, until they were banned from the subreddit. They then proceeded to go to several other subreddits with several themes, where they followed the same pattern - asking for a video, then reacting aggressively when informed there was no such video and Fuentes did not record a stream that day. They then deleted their account, preventing Club agents from discovering their post history, the device used for the recording, or any other information about them.
The file posted by the user is a 19-minute long video file. The video is mostly black, with occasional flashes of bright, glitchy images; this is consistent with faulty video capture equipment. The recorded audio is completely clear. Voice print analysis shows a perfect match to Fuentes' voice, and text analysis shows complete match to her on-stream dialogue for the most part. It is unique, and no match to any other of her streams. There is no recorded sound other than her voice.
The Club has confirmed that Fuentes was undergoing surgery on the purported date in which it was recorded, and there is no other evidence of this stream session other than the Reddit post. Fuentes took a long time off streaming after the surgery (this was expected and had been announced by her on social media). She never resumed streaming at the same rate; she publically stated that this was because of changes made to the GeoGuessr website that made it difficult for non-paying players to enjoying the game. She spent some time playing other games, but the frequency of her streams decreased, along with her audience. She still streams, but only occasionally.
Fuentes has been contacted numerous times by Club agents but refused to assist our investigations.
As the audio is the only relevant part of the recording and her voice is the only sound present, a complete transcript is present below. Timestamps are in the format MMSS. The recording starts abruptly, near the ending of what is believed to be the first round of a five-round game.
0000: [audio begins abruptly] must be Brumadinho. I need a street name, though
0005: Can it be this? I think so. It looks somewhat far from the main town.
0010: Nice. Nailed it.
0013: Ooh, spooky.
0015: This one's going to be tough!
0020: Okay... yeah, I thought this is a hotel or something, but if there is, there's no sign anywhere. It can't be natural, the trees are too clamped together around this one path, you can see how sparse they are elsewhere... the camera can't enter this path either, so it must be a private... yeah, like an entryway or something. But this doesn't help me at all, so I'm moving on.
0035: This biome is... yeah, I'm guessing Russia. Maybe Finland. This doesn't help much.
0043: Come on! Show me a sign!
0046: I mean a literal sign, of course! [laughter] Or a car, anything. There's nothing around, only road. There was a car near the path, the beginning, but it was a Land Rover, I think it was an import. I'm pretty sure this isn't the UK.
0109: OK, a car. Never seen that model. Looks soviet. Russia it is then.
0112: I still need something else.
0159: Finally, a sign! Let's see if it helps.
0202: I can't read it, so it's not Russian. Definitively Cyrilic alphabet though. Not many places where that happens.
0249: Not really finding anything that helps me.
0303: Trying to get back to that sign now.
0329: There was something in the sign that...
0333: Yeah. You know, this last word, right there, I think it's Russia. That's how it would be pronounced. So I'm thiking, we're near the Russian border.
0338: Not that even that helps much... it's a big border, you guys.
0343: Restarting from here...
0434: Not a lot of luck... only old Soviet cars. I think it's...
0445: Yeah, I'm running out of time. I'll have to give it my best guess.
0458: I can't narrow it down more than this.
0510: We're about to run out of time, so this is gonna be it.
0514: Close enough. I mean... with the info I had, I think I did very well. I got the right country, at least... nearly the other side of it though [laughter]. It was a good try. Not gonna beat my score, though. Okay, moving on. The next one will be easier!
0520: Oh, this looks familiar. Is this...
0524: Oh, okay. This is where I live! I've been streaming for years, and this has never happened! I just need to get my bearings, I could probably go to this place.
0529: Oh, this hospital is where I'll - where I have the...
0537: Huh.
0540: Anyway, I know exactly where this is.
0542: Absolute perfection. On to the next round.
0545: OK, off the bat: that seems to be a cedilla, but it's not. I know it because I speak French, and I speak Portuguese, and this is neither. Is this Romanian?
0554: It kinda looks like Romenian, but the buildings... that's way off. Turkish?
0606: I'm leaning Turkey, but it looks, I dunno. Off. I don't think it really is Turkey. It's similar, but not enough.
0608: Might be, though... maybe it's like a border town or something. A military installation. I don't know. Weird vibes. Weird vibes from this place. Cyprus?
0616: I'm going to guess Cyprus, but it's off. It's way too dense. I don't recognize any of those cars either. But I don't know - well, I thought Cyprus would have European cars, but maybe I'm wrong.
0628: I think this is way bigger than Cyprus. But I'm drawing a blank on where else it could be.
0644: What's this?
0647: That's weird.
0706: Still no clue.
0721: Yeah, no idea. If I was - If I had to choose between Cyprus and, like, any other place, I'd choose the other place. But I don't have any idea of where else it could be. The flora is - well, I'm pretty sure this is Northern Meditarranean, and...
0733: I'm only like... wandering, trying to find anything, but there's nothing.
0741: It feels like - it looks like Turkey, but it definitively isn't Turkey. There's this... it's like, there's this influence from somewhere else, but I can't identify what it is.
0747: Yeah, I can't figure it out.
0801: Really huge town, though. This is very large. I can't see the end of the urban area.
0812: I'm gonna be really pissed off if this is, like, an island in the Arab Emirates meant to imitate Turkey or something.
0821: But I don't think this... like, I think this flora is natural.
0827: This is not the Arab Emirates.
0848: Something weird about the streets as well. Can't tell what. Like, the street plan, not the literal streets.
0909: Less than a minute now. Still no clue. All I've been able to find about this place is that it probably has pretty good beaches.
0926: I don't know what that is.
0937: Yeah, I keep running into...
0940: This doesn't help me.
0949: Yeah, I'll make my guess. This is weird.
0959: Used up all my luck getting the town I live in.
1006: Yeah, I think I'll make my guess. I don't think thirty seconds are gonna make a difference.
1009: Huh.
1013: That's strange. Is this a glitch?
1017: I don't think there's... it's... like, it might be a port or something, but it's too big.
1021: Chat's quiet today.
1025: Yeah I don't check chat much while playing because there's always some sucker to spoil things, you know? [laughter] But I'd like you to post something, if you know this glitch.
1031: Aw, thank you.
1034: Yeah, I don't know either.
1039: I don't think so.
1043: No, never.
1047: Yeah. I don't know. It may be a glitch. I'm - I gotta say, I'm kinda disappointed. I wanted to know where that was. If it was a glitch. My score wasn't even that low. But...
1058: Yeah, I think I'll move on.
1101: I'm gonna move on, chat. I won't be looking at you until I'm done with the last round. You behave! Kisses!
1103: Huh.
1104: Things got even weirder, huh?
1106: No idea what this alphabet is. No idea. I like - I don't even have a guess.
1111: Not faring much better with the architecture. I don't...
1118: Yeah.
1122: I'm pretty lost.
1124: Okay, I don't to start a, how you say, not a speech, like, sermonear [to give a sermon/lecture], but you see this building? I can't tell what style it is. If I had to guess, I'd say it's Nigerian Tropical Modernism. Problem is, that's late fifties, maybe early fifties. This building's older than that. This building's turn of the century. You can see the...
1131: I'm just, like, super confused.
1149: Even the streets are weird. I don't... what's the point of this? I can't... like, if you ask me the social purpose of this little, what's the word, this cul-de-sac, I can't tell you. Is that a store? I don't know.
1158: I can't even recognize these cars. Where is this?
1207: Okay, that's a Land Rover. So I'm not completely crazy. But I can't recognize any other car on these streets.
1220: Is this a funicular?
1228: This is definitively a funicular. This is pretty cool, actually. There aren't many of these around. I know there's one in Lisbon, I think there's a few in Hong Kong.
1230: This place ain't either, though.
1233: This would be a good moment to be a public transport nerd instead of a building nerd.
1247: Okay, what the f... what the hell? This building, look at it. Is it a pastiche?
1255: I am so confused.
1401: OK, I am - the reason I've been silent, is that, if you see here, I think there's a river here, or a lake, or something. There's a big area without any buildings, you can see over the wall, the nearest buildings are very far apart, they're, like, must be over a kilometer. I first thought it was a park, but there are no trees. If it was like a festival site, or a skate park, we'd see, like, lightposts, stuff like that. So it's gotta be a water feature. I'm just hoping it has a vaguely recognizeable shape, because I'm at a loss.
1412: I can't get any closer, though.
1417: Time's running low and I can't get closer to that place!
1428: Huh, cool.
1441: If there was, like, a bridge or something, at least I could see the shape of... I don't know what I expect to see, really.
1448: Like, if there was a sort of, if I had narrowed it down, then this would help. Like, remember that time, that Canadian city that we guessed because of the shape of the lake? But we were already, like, I already knew even which province it was, probably, it was just that I couldn't find the town's name on the map. I don't think I can expect to...
1459: Like, I wouldn't be able to find this on the entire planet.
1509: There! There's a little road leading us down...
1513: This is strange.
1517: I thought it would be, like, a marina or something. A ferry terminal.
1523: What is this?
1531: How does...
1546: I'm just... what does this mean? Why would anyone build...
1552: It goes all the way down.
1558: It looks like... I don't know, like someone was playing SimCity or something and the game glitched. It goes all the way down. I don't know why anyone would build anything like this. It makes no sense. I can't read the language, I can't read, like, the architecture, the, the urbanism, and now this, this doesn't make sense.
1600: I'm going to run out of time. I'm not going to make a guess. I don't even know what to guess.
1603: What's this?
1605: Is this another glitch? I think it is.
1607: Maybe this is like, the zero-zero point? No... it's way too far North.
1611: Maybe this is a problem with the servers?
1617: Chat, you there? Is GeoGuessr working normally for you?
1621: Chat, you're too quiet today.
1627: I don't think I've ever opened up chat and saw no messages. And just today, it happened twice.
1637: Is there no one online?
1645: I've never... I don't know why no one is replying.
1657: There's something...
1711: What does this mean. Is this real?
1721: I don't - this must be... a problem with the site, and with my Internet, right? I just can't see the messages, or...
1733: But where did this island come from?
1759: Alonso, ¿estás ahí? [Are you there?]
1800: Alonso!
1843: Chat, I'm... I don't know if you can hear me, I... I think my internet is not working well. I'm gonna close the stream now. Bye.
Filetype: Video, live recording, 19 minutes. However, due to the original file's glitched video input, only audio is necessary for enjoyment. Audio files are available to club members in all common formats, but copies of the original video file are also available upon request.
Description: Video file posted to several subreddits by user r/FUME1024, regarding an apparently nonexisting gaming stream of the game GeoGuessr performed on the channel WhereAmY.
For context, these elements must be explained.
GeoGuessr is a browser-based game in which players must find a location in a world map based on images from Google Streetview. They must make a guess, and gain more points the closer to the actual location their guess was. There are many ways to tailor the experience, but the most commonly played method is to go through five discreet locations within a time limit of five minutes for each; each location is referred to as a 'round'.
WhereAmY, birth name Amanda Fuentes, is a Spanish-born, France-based streamer. She started on Mixer, moving to Twitch after the former's closure. She streams in English and mostly plays the game GeoGuessr. Fuentes has degrees in architecture and urbanism and is a polyglot, making her remarkably apt at identifying locations in the game from buildings and language displayed in signage. Furthermore, her brother Alonso Fuentes is a geographer, making him adept at discovering locations from identifying flora shown. He does not participate in most streams, but Fuentes has learned some basics from him, allowing her to make good guesses even on mostly rural environments. Her complex analyses and high-scoring sessions were a major draw to her channel.
The file in question was posted to a subreddit built around her channel, r/WhereAmY, by an user named "FUME1024", on November 29th, 2017. The user stated that he recorded most of Fuentes' sessions for their own personal library, but had had an unknown problem with their recording equipment while recording a session the previous day. They stated that they had been surprised by an announcement of an unscheduled stream immediately before a personal appointment, were forced to leave their equipment recording the live show before leaving; when they returned, they found the resulting file was faulty. They searched the channel's archives but found no sign of a stream that day. They asked if anyone else had recorded the stream and was willing to provide a copy. Upon being told that Fuentes hadn't streamed that day due to a medical appointment, they became extremely aggressive and insulted any users who stated this, until they were banned from the subreddit. They then proceeded to go to several other subreddits with several themes, where they followed the same pattern - asking for a video, then reacting aggressively when informed there was no such video and Fuentes did not record a stream that day. They then deleted their account, preventing Club agents from discovering their post history, the device used for the recording, or any other information about them.
The file posted by the user is a 19-minute long video file. The video is mostly black, with occasional flashes of bright, glitchy images; this is consistent with faulty video capture equipment. The recorded audio is completely clear. Voice print analysis shows a perfect match to Fuentes' voice, and text analysis shows complete match to her on-stream dialogue for the most part. It is unique, and no match to any other of her streams. There is no recorded sound other than her voice.
The Club has confirmed that Fuentes was undergoing surgery on the purported date in which it was recorded, and there is no other evidence of this stream session other than the Reddit post. Fuentes took a long time off streaming after the surgery (this was expected and had been announced by her on social media). She never resumed streaming at the same rate; she publically stated that this was because of changes made to the GeoGuessr website that made it difficult for non-paying players to enjoying the game. She spent some time playing other games, but the frequency of her streams decreased, along with her audience. She still streams, but only occasionally.
Fuentes has been contacted numerous times by Club agents but refused to assist our investigations.
As the audio is the only relevant part of the recording and her voice is the only sound present, a complete transcript is present below. Timestamps are in the format MMSS. The recording starts abruptly, near the ending of what is believed to be the first round of a five-round game.
0000: [audio begins abruptly] must be Brumadinho. I need a street name, though
0005: Can it be this? I think so. It looks somewhat far from the main town.
0010: Nice. Nailed it.
0013: Ooh, spooky.
0015: This one's going to be tough!
0020: Okay... yeah, I thought this is a hotel or something, but if there is, there's no sign anywhere. It can't be natural, the trees are too clamped together around this one path, you can see how sparse they are elsewhere... the camera can't enter this path either, so it must be a private... yeah, like an entryway or something. But this doesn't help me at all, so I'm moving on.
0035: This biome is... yeah, I'm guessing Russia. Maybe Finland. This doesn't help much.
0043: Come on! Show me a sign!
0046: I mean a literal sign, of course! [laughter] Or a car, anything. There's nothing around, only road. There was a car near the path, the beginning, but it was a Land Rover, I think it was an import. I'm pretty sure this isn't the UK.
0109: OK, a car. Never seen that model. Looks soviet. Russia it is then.
0112: I still need something else.
0159: Finally, a sign! Let's see if it helps.
0202: I can't read it, so it's not Russian. Definitively Cyrilic alphabet though. Not many places where that happens.
0249: Not really finding anything that helps me.
0303: Trying to get back to that sign now.
0329: There was something in the sign that...
0333: Yeah. You know, this last word, right there, I think it's Russia. That's how it would be pronounced. So I'm thiking, we're near the Russian border.
0338: Not that even that helps much... it's a big border, you guys.
0343: Restarting from here...
0434: Not a lot of luck... only old Soviet cars. I think it's...
0445: Yeah, I'm running out of time. I'll have to give it my best guess.
0458: I can't narrow it down more than this.
0510: We're about to run out of time, so this is gonna be it.
0514: Close enough. I mean... with the info I had, I think I did very well. I got the right country, at least... nearly the other side of it though [laughter]. It was a good try. Not gonna beat my score, though. Okay, moving on. The next one will be easier!
0520: Oh, this looks familiar. Is this...
0524: Oh, okay. This is where I live! I've been streaming for years, and this has never happened! I just need to get my bearings, I could probably go to this place.
0529: Oh, this hospital is where I'll - where I have the...
0537: Huh.
0540: Anyway, I know exactly where this is.
0542: Absolute perfection. On to the next round.
0545: OK, off the bat: that seems to be a cedilla, but it's not. I know it because I speak French, and I speak Portuguese, and this is neither. Is this Romanian?
0554: It kinda looks like Romenian, but the buildings... that's way off. Turkish?
0606: I'm leaning Turkey, but it looks, I dunno. Off. I don't think it really is Turkey. It's similar, but not enough.
0608: Might be, though... maybe it's like a border town or something. A military installation. I don't know. Weird vibes. Weird vibes from this place. Cyprus?
0616: I'm going to guess Cyprus, but it's off. It's way too dense. I don't recognize any of those cars either. But I don't know - well, I thought Cyprus would have European cars, but maybe I'm wrong.
0628: I think this is way bigger than Cyprus. But I'm drawing a blank on where else it could be.
0644: What's this?
0647: That's weird.
0706: Still no clue.
0721: Yeah, no idea. If I was - If I had to choose between Cyprus and, like, any other place, I'd choose the other place. But I don't have any idea of where else it could be. The flora is - well, I'm pretty sure this is Northern Meditarranean, and...
0733: I'm only like... wandering, trying to find anything, but there's nothing.
0741: It feels like - it looks like Turkey, but it definitively isn't Turkey. There's this... it's like, there's this influence from somewhere else, but I can't identify what it is.
0747: Yeah, I can't figure it out.
0801: Really huge town, though. This is very large. I can't see the end of the urban area.
0812: I'm gonna be really pissed off if this is, like, an island in the Arab Emirates meant to imitate Turkey or something.
0821: But I don't think this... like, I think this flora is natural.
0827: This is not the Arab Emirates.
0848: Something weird about the streets as well. Can't tell what. Like, the street plan, not the literal streets.
0909: Less than a minute now. Still no clue. All I've been able to find about this place is that it probably has pretty good beaches.
0926: I don't know what that is.
0937: Yeah, I keep running into...
0940: This doesn't help me.
0949: Yeah, I'll make my guess. This is weird.
0959: Used up all my luck getting the town I live in.
1006: Yeah, I think I'll make my guess. I don't think thirty seconds are gonna make a difference.
1009: Huh.
1013: That's strange. Is this a glitch?
1017: I don't think there's... it's... like, it might be a port or something, but it's too big.
1021: Chat's quiet today.
1025: Yeah I don't check chat much while playing because there's always some sucker to spoil things, you know? [laughter] But I'd like you to post something, if you know this glitch.
1031: Aw, thank you.
1034: Yeah, I don't know either.
1039: I don't think so.
1043: No, never.
1047: Yeah. I don't know. It may be a glitch. I'm - I gotta say, I'm kinda disappointed. I wanted to know where that was. If it was a glitch. My score wasn't even that low. But...
1058: Yeah, I think I'll move on.
1101: I'm gonna move on, chat. I won't be looking at you until I'm done with the last round. You behave! Kisses!
1103: Huh.
1104: Things got even weirder, huh?
1106: No idea what this alphabet is. No idea. I like - I don't even have a guess.
1111: Not faring much better with the architecture. I don't...
1118: Yeah.
1122: I'm pretty lost.
1124: Okay, I don't to start a, how you say, not a speech, like, sermonear [to give a sermon/lecture], but you see this building? I can't tell what style it is. If I had to guess, I'd say it's Nigerian Tropical Modernism. Problem is, that's late fifties, maybe early fifties. This building's older than that. This building's turn of the century. You can see the...
1131: I'm just, like, super confused.
1149: Even the streets are weird. I don't... what's the point of this? I can't... like, if you ask me the social purpose of this little, what's the word, this cul-de-sac, I can't tell you. Is that a store? I don't know.
1158: I can't even recognize these cars. Where is this?
1207: Okay, that's a Land Rover. So I'm not completely crazy. But I can't recognize any other car on these streets.
1220: Is this a funicular?
1228: This is definitively a funicular. This is pretty cool, actually. There aren't many of these around. I know there's one in Lisbon, I think there's a few in Hong Kong.
1230: This place ain't either, though.
1233: This would be a good moment to be a public transport nerd instead of a building nerd.
1247: Okay, what the f... what the hell? This building, look at it. Is it a pastiche?
1255: I am so confused.
1401: OK, I am - the reason I've been silent, is that, if you see here, I think there's a river here, or a lake, or something. There's a big area without any buildings, you can see over the wall, the nearest buildings are very far apart, they're, like, must be over a kilometer. I first thought it was a park, but there are no trees. If it was like a festival site, or a skate park, we'd see, like, lightposts, stuff like that. So it's gotta be a water feature. I'm just hoping it has a vaguely recognizeable shape, because I'm at a loss.
1412: I can't get any closer, though.
1417: Time's running low and I can't get closer to that place!
1428: Huh, cool.
1441: If there was, like, a bridge or something, at least I could see the shape of... I don't know what I expect to see, really.
1448: Like, if there was a sort of, if I had narrowed it down, then this would help. Like, remember that time, that Canadian city that we guessed because of the shape of the lake? But we were already, like, I already knew even which province it was, probably, it was just that I couldn't find the town's name on the map. I don't think I can expect to...
1459: Like, I wouldn't be able to find this on the entire planet.
1509: There! There's a little road leading us down...
1513: This is strange.
1517: I thought it would be, like, a marina or something. A ferry terminal.
1523: What is this?
1531: How does...
1546: I'm just... what does this mean? Why would anyone build...
1552: It goes all the way down.
1558: It looks like... I don't know, like someone was playing SimCity or something and the game glitched. It goes all the way down. I don't know why anyone would build anything like this. It makes no sense. I can't read the language, I can't read, like, the architecture, the, the urbanism, and now this, this doesn't make sense.
1600: I'm going to run out of time. I'm not going to make a guess. I don't even know what to guess.
1603: What's this?
1605: Is this another glitch? I think it is.
1607: Maybe this is like, the zero-zero point? No... it's way too far North.
1611: Maybe this is a problem with the servers?
1617: Chat, you there? Is GeoGuessr working normally for you?
1621: Chat, you're too quiet today.
1627: I don't think I've ever opened up chat and saw no messages. And just today, it happened twice.
1637: Is there no one online?
1645: I've never... I don't know why no one is replying.
1657: There's something...
1711: What does this mean. Is this real?
1721: I don't - this must be... a problem with the site, and with my Internet, right? I just can't see the messages, or...
1733: But where did this island come from?
1759: Alonso, ¿estás ahí? [Are you there?]
1800: Alonso!
1843: Chat, I'm... I don't know if you can hear me, I... I think my internet is not working well. I'm gonna close the stream now. Bye.