My theory of the "dead" chat, lots of "block" shadow-bans of otherwise what would be light trolling is suppressing the participant numbers. This is evidenced by the prestream speech about why he hides the like/dislike bar, the buttons on it still work as normal but since the totals aren't show to viewers, only still countable by programs for outsiders, they aren't a topic of discussion according to him, which suits him perfectly fine since he can't take the negative thumbs down ratio hit to his ego. So by the same logic, he blocks any minor offense, the blocked user can't tell they're not blocked and the participants stay in the double digits. Can't laugh at yourself as a lolcow = the kiss of death, even CWC learned that and started selling merch based off his shitty art a decade ago, why Phil can't allow his streams to let him be the laughing stock he acts like while ginned up for the troll donations has to be the most short sighted form of his narcissism.