During a recent concert, British pop singer L Devine finished a performance of her grungy single “Boring People” and was met with the sound of thousands of people cheering.
Except the noise wasn’t coming from an audience — it was a stock recording available online, cued up by Devine herself, who was looking to make a livestream from her childhood living room less awkward. “Instagram, how you feeling tonight?” she asked her phone as she moved through some hyping-the-crowd gestures.
Then she added that she needed a laugh track “for when I make shit jokes like that.”Like many artists whose careers have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, the 22-year-old (real name: Olivia Devine) turned to the internet to keep busy after a European tour.