Dramatic music plays. Right now, Steve Kornacki is not on-air, broadcasting to MSNBC viewers on election night. He is off-air, hence the insane, repetitive elevator dirge. But those of us on YouTube -- at the time of writing, a stunning 171,947 of us -- are watching him scrolling through districts in Michigan, the index finger of his right hand gently touching the screen to zoom in on areas, and then survey percentages for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump alongside it.
Kornacki is dedicated, intent -- know this, whatever you see on TV, Kornacki is still crunching numbers with a steely focus when the cameras are not rolling.
We are watching via "Kornacki Cam," an election night wheeze dreamt up by MSNBC to feed the insatiable lust/hunger/devotion that his fans have for MSNBC's be-chino'd, white-shirted, hot-nerdy king of the stats. It is, basically, an MSNBC OnlyFans account made just about respectable.
Whereas on TV the cameras face Steve head-on, the Kornacki Cam is way more mischievously placed to the side of our hero, and -- for primetime TV anyway -- proudly voyeuristic. It is to the right of the TV screen you see Steve jabbing at on TV. He takes no notice of the Kornacki Cam, which likely drives his fans even wilder. He has -- even hotter! -- likely forgotten that it is there. He has a pen in his mouth. There's a laptop on the table. He maneuvers the mouse. He looks at the screen. He is immersed in the number-crunching task at hand.
This is what his fans want. This is pure Kornacki porn.
Here is Steve leaning over a small desk to look at papers and a laptop!
Here is Steve with his producers (we guess!), one of whom is dressed in a fashion-winning combo of pork-pie hat, with ponytail emerging from the back. They confer with Steve, gravely.
Steve has come over to the table to ruffle papers.
He has returned to the big plasma screen. He has two microphone packs attached to the back of his chinos
He has disappeared, the tease! Where to? Even the Kornacki Cam draws a line at toilet breaks, presumably.
The papers on the desk show a probably brilliantly analytical scrawl. Swoon.
The music stops. When the music stops, Kornacki fans know that Steve is back on air and Kornacki Cam viewers must share him with the mainstream MSNBC audience who do not deserve him.
Steve is talking about Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania; we're approaching a critical moment.
He has already talked about what was happening in North Carolina -- in his usual gumshoe mile-a-minute, we learned that Trump was outperforming his 2020 performance there. "When you get to 80 per cent in a county generally what there's left to come is that same-day vote."
Later we're back to on-air Kornacki. The Kornacki Cam watches him address the nation but side-on, the rising Kornacki Cam audience -- now at 177,235 and still climbing -- is watching the back of his ruffled white shirt (coming untucked) and back of blue chinos (not fitted, very regular guy). Shirt sleeves are carelessly rolled up. Forget it Clooney, with your tuxes. This is it.
The stress of watching Election Night is not alleviated by Kornacki Cam, but it is mesmerizing watching this master of numbers front his own internet side show, and satisfy his many thousands of fans by not looking at them once. One pair of chinos, one white shirt, one pen in the mouth. A furious, single-minded focus. Pass the Doritos as the endgame nears. For a Kornacki stan -- 212,688 at 10.20pm ET, as Steve talks about the critical numbers Harris needs in Allegheny Co. in Pennsylvania -- it doesn't get any better.