LoFi Girl

Fans of the long-running YouTube streaming channel Lofi Girl were caught off guard today when, upon heading to the usual “lofi hip hop radio” station, they were instead redirected to a mysterious new stream consisting of what appeared to be clouds backed by intriguing, sparse music.

This isn’t the first time Lofi Girl has disappeared. Back in 2022, the stream was disabled due to a malicious copyright claim scam. The stream was later restored with a new link and thousands of hours previously streamed were archived as their own video for posterity.

Then, earlier this year, the titular character (whose name is Jade, for those interested in Lofi Lore) disappeared from her own stream for nearly a full day, causing a “LoKey” panic among fans as the video zoomed into an apartment across the way from her now ubiquitous window.

The stunt turned out to be the surprise rollout for a new channel featuring a Synthwave Boy, who took up residence on his own stream alongside the restored LoFi Girl, back at her desk for another infinite study session. Now, both have disappeared, as the Lofi Twitter took care to capture:

Considering that, it certainly seems as though the Lofi Girl YouTube channel is rolling out yet another expansion. As this is being written, the clouds on the stream have begun to resolve into what appears to be an aerial view of an island. Once again, the stream is slowly zooming in, and almost certain to reveal more about what I’m going to dub Lofi Land — including possibly a new stream focusing on another of easy listening tunes for studying/sleeping/whatever else you choose to do with these stations in the background.

We’ll be back with more updates as the reveal gets closer. For now, you can follow along above.

When last the LoFi Girl YouTube Stream made headlines, it was because bogus copyright claims had crashed the stream, ending two years, four months, and two weeks of nonstop streaming of pleasant, downtempo “beats to study to.”

This week, though, LoFi Girl made headlines for another reason: After apparently receiving a message via a blue light flashing Morse code in one of the distant windows behind her, the stream’s mascot, Jade, mysteriously vanished. That’s right: LoFi Girl has lore now — and it’s kind of glorious. (Apparently, Jade finally took a break from studying to nap earlier this month, too)

With the titular LoFi Girl out of the picture, as it were, the stream instead began to slowly zoom in on the distant blue window over the next 24 hours. As of press time, it’s apparently stopped doing so after settling on a new room — this one decidedly more cluttered and masculine, according to fans in the chat — but that same familiar pair of headphones rests on the desk.

Meanwhile, fans who hashed out the Morse code message discovered that it directed them to a new website, lofiworld.com. Clicking a button on the site marked “launch” sends users to another YouTube stream, this one playing ambient music in yet another bedroom (with a fishtank! and Gundam models! and a GameCube!) where a clock on the wall has been counting down. As of press time, about 30 minutes remain; we’ll update you when we know exactly what’s going on.

So there you have it: A nice, relaxing little mystery to start your day. Let’s all tune in together.

Music fans looking for lofi beats to relax/study to will find it that much harder to do so, as the number one stream on YouTube, the popular LoFi Girl, has reportedly been disabled over a copyright claim. Over the past few years, the LoFi Girl channel — which was previously known as Chilled Cow, for some reason — has grown in ubiquity, eventually renaming itself for its most popular stream, which featured an endless loop of an anime-style animated girl ostensibly listening to the downtempo, often-sampled hip-hop beats on her headphones while writing in a notebook.

According to Futurism, the channel’s proprietors have called the copyright claim that took down the stream “false” in a post on Twitter, writing, “The lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes. Hopefully, @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly…”

Fans checking out the LoFi Girl profile can still see the “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/studio to” thumbnail, but rather than its usual bright red “Live” marker, it now shows the truly incredible runtime of 20,843:42:51 (that’s 868 days or about 2 years, four months, and two weeks of music). Clicking on it only retrieves an error message: “This live stream recording is not available.” The comments are filled with messages in at least six languages describing the stream’s personal significance to the commenters, many of whom, of course, wish for its return. The stream was last interrupted in February 2020, when it was taken down by an error at YouTube.

They might just get their wish; a reply from @TeamYouTube confirms that “the takedown requests were abusive” and that the stream should be restored in “24-48 hours.”