The preacher came to me in my hour of need: 12:58 pm on Wednesday. I'd spent the last two days binge-watching Periscope livestreams on "Couch Mode" via its new Apple TV app, and after gorging on a diet of real-time confessionals and B-list personal brand-building, I was approaching a state of existential exhaustion.

I had seen Jason David Frank, a mixed martial artist best known for his portrayal of the Green Power Ranger, narrate his commute for 210 followers. (“Let’s see what’s on the radio! Oh yeah, that’s not the radio, that’s a CD.”) I had watched an evangelist for Plexus weight-loss products recount a conversation she had with her daughter. (“She was 12 or 13 at the time, and she’s saying why would people not want to be part of network marketing?”) I had watched a woman from Kearny, New Jersey fend off repeated requests for nudity—"boobs," "twerrk, please," "we want to see your twins." "You can see those twins!" she replied, pointing to her small dogs, of which there were actually three. “Gabriela! Santa! Dylan! Look at me! Look at mommy!”

It was a fascinating amalgam of narcissism, salesmanship, and the age-old urge to communicate. Nevertheless, it was getting to me, and I was considering taking a break: getting some fresh air, maybe removing my eyeballs from my skull and rubbing them down with steel wool. And that’s when the pastor from Chicago popped up on my screen. "Some of you are in the middle of something," he said. "You’ve begun it, now you’re in the middle, and you’re wondering, am I going to finish?" Yes! This was exactly how I was feeling! He went on: "It’s a strategic time. Either we’re gonna go back or go forward. Lord, I pray that we make the right decision! We don’t make the wrong decision and go backward! We make the right decision and go forward!"

I can't be the only person who misses the serendipity of stumbling upon something you wouldn't actively choose to watch, but somehow find yourself unable to turn off.

All right! Newly energized, I hit the "Next" button, ready to receive another feed. Up popped a hefty gentleman in a track suit, looking a little like Big Pussy Bonpensiero crossed with Rodney Dangerfield. I apparently joined his broadcast at the end of an anecdote, the conclusion of which was: “Like I always say, you wanna buy a gun you gotta go to animal court.” He waggled an enormous hash pipe in front of the camera. “You gotta see the devil before you can be your own god,” he announced, sprinkling a hefty dose of hashish into the bowl. “Remember that, cocksuckers!” He took a deep hit. “You know what it means to be an American? That you don’t give a fuck!” The transmission ended, the screen went black; when it came to life again I was backstage at a darts tournament in Wolverhampton, England.

Channel-surfing is something of a lost art. In the streaming era, you no longer need to wile away countless hours and brain cells cycling through hundreds of TV stations, but I can’t be the only person who misses the serendipity of stumbling upon something you wouldn’t actively choose to watch, but somehow find yourself unable to turn off. A terrible movie that you still wouldn’t mind rewatching at 3 am. Comically inept infomercials. The bizarre juxtapositions of the trash-cultural bazaar, hurtling toward you through a cathode-ray tube.

Periscope’s Apple TV app, released on October 30, is in some ways a bold vision of the future of media. In an instant, anyone can beam a transmission to TVs across the globe, from their phone, for free; in homes, anyone can let those transmissions come in randomly, finding nostalgia in the experience—call it feed-surfing (if you must). Unlike the mobile app, the Apple TV version operates only in Couch Mode, which doesn’t let you follow specific accounts or comment in real-time. Indeed, other than a launch screen that shows rows of feeds in different cities, it offers very little control over what you watch. Its algorithm simply pushes what it determines to be the most desirable feed. When a broadcast ends, it loads another. You can skip ahead to the next feed, but you can’t rewind or fast-forward or pause—and if you want to post comments, you must fire up your mobile app. The result is an oddly compelling combination: all the rough intimacy of social media, with the passivity of a late-night basic-cable binge.

Weak Signals

According to Periscope CEO and cofounder Kayvon Beykpour, the goal is to provide an as-it-happens video feed of the most important events and conversations. “You can literally be sitting on your couch and wonder, ‘What’s going on?’” he says. “We wanted to create the idea of exploring the world in realtime.”

Beykpour is the first to admit Periscope remains a long way from accomplishing that. For one thing, its algorithms are pretty rudimentary. The company learned early on that the most-watched feeds aren’t always the most interesting; now it looks for feeds that many people are sharing on Twitter, or that are getting many more than their usual number of viewers. If viewer counts go up in one particular city or part of the world, they can be reasonably sure something significant is happening there. “It’s definitely an imperfect science,” Beykpour says, adding that building more sophisticated heuristics is “one of the most relatively unexplored areas of improvement.”

The other issue is that, from what I could tell, there simply aren’t enough Periscopers to produce the kind of coverage Beykpour imagines. Social media develop in stages, and Periscope is still firmly lodged in the taking-photos-of-my-breakfast stage. This means there are plenty of early-adopting local news stations essentially replicating their on-air broadcasts, or social marketing companies describing their office renovation, or narcissists with not much to say. Occasionally you can make out the dull signals of a global conversation—I saw plenty of Veterans Day celebrations, for instance—but for the most part watching the Periscope App is a little like mainlining an Internet comments thread; you walk away with an occasional splash of insight, but not enough to combat the sensations of nausea and misanthropy.

At one point, I found myself in the buttery-leather backseat of a town car, next to a Vegas lounge singer wearing a rakishly tilted fedora, making love to the camera in a silky British accent.

If I felt this as a guy, watching from the comfort of my couch, I can only imagine what female Periscopers must feel. Without exception, every broadcast led by a woman was immediately inundated with vulgar comments. Perhaps the most consistent feature of a Periscope broadcast was the first few minutes, in which women grimly insisted they would not disrobe, and blocked followers who refused to relent. “No, we’re not gonna see what I’m wearing, we’re not gonna see boobs,” one nursing student announced, with the flat monotone of someone who has said this a hundred times already. “Seriously?” asked a ‘Mommyscoper,’ who planned to talk about the trials of raising four children. “I don’t want sex.” It took her about three minutes of troll-blocking before she could discuss the matter at hand, which was homeschooling.

Hooked

Nevertheless, after a few days, I found myself oddly hooked on the experience. Most Periscopers aim their broadcasts at a dedicated audience of followers—the mobile users who have subscribed to their feeds, and therefore presumably have some relationship to them or natural interest in what they have to say. That’s not the case for Periscope TV viewers, who are automatically shunted into broadcasts without context or background. It’s a fascinating disconnect, and it gives the app an intriguing whiff of intrusion and disorientation, like you’re jumping into the middle of an intimate family conversation without knowing anyone involved. At one point, I found myself in the buttery-leather backseat of a town car, next to a Vegas lounge singer wearing a rakishly tilted fedora, making love to the camera in a silky British accent. “It’s so funny when people ask who I am,” he mused, smokily. "I’m Matt. That’s who I am. Matt.” That seemed more than enough explanation for his fans, who mostly wanted to know more details about the cruise he was organizing, as well as—and I quote—“WHAT KNICKERS DO YOU LIKE ON A WOMAN!!!!XXXXXXXX”

Combine that voyeurism with Periscope’s almost unbearable sense of intimacy, and you’ve got magic. Toward the end of my binge-watch, I was delivered a feed auspiciously titled “vent and raging.” This turned out to be a tirade from someone named Sissy Nobby, who a bit of second-screen surfing informed me is a New Orleans bounce artist. “I’m too much of a fucking artist, and I’m really pissed right now, because this bitch tells me I’m never going to be successful!” Detective work suggested that Sissy Nobby was talking about a rival bounce artist, Big Freedia, who had written a book in which she accuses Sissy of theft. It seemed that the two artists were booked to perform on the same show, and Sissy refused.

“People fucking jealous of me, point blank!” he shouted, as a non-stop stream of supportive comments climbed up the left side of the screen. “I’m really agitated right now!”

Under other circumstances, this would have felt like the usual kind of pre-packaged artistic rivalry that labels stir up to generate attention. But Sissy Nobby did seem legitimately upset, and almost physically unable to stop venting to his Periscope audience. “They don’t want to see me make it, they always hate on me,” he said, and I watched, amazed, as he started sobbing. “Don’t cry,” one comment read. “I hate to see you like this.” He wiped his tears away and abruptly ended his transmission, clearly overcome. One final comment appeared as the screen went blank: “Don’t do that shit on Periscope.”