It's about 7:30 pm on a sweaty Wednesday night in Brooklyn, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a consummate son of Brooklyn, has just accomplished the seemingly insurmountable task of quieting an 8,000-square-foot beer hall full of New Yorkers. Save for the whir of an industrial-sized fan overhead and intermittent rounds of applause and whoops of "That's right!" ringing out from the crowd, Sanders' is the only voice you hear.

Tonight, the Democratic presidential candidate is talking, as he always does, about building a revolution to fight wealth inequality. He's talking about how the "millionaires and billionaires" are getting richer, while the United States continues to have the highest rate of children living in poverty of any industrialized nation. "Enough is enough," the rumpled elder statesman repeats.

Sanders is on his soapbox, and to use his campaign vernacular, his nearly 200 followers in the bar are most definitely "feeling the Bern." Then, all at once, a spinning wheel pops up, obscuring Sanders' face.

Bernie is buffering.

A few seconds—and at least one joke from the woman sitting behind me about Hillary Clinton hacking the live-stream—Sanders is back on the massive projector screen at the back of the bar, and he hasn't missed a beat. Sanders is actually hundreds of miles away in D.C., but his speech is being broadcast to more than 3,000 watch parties across the country. In three more hours, he'll do it all over again for the West Coast.

Welcome to the age of live-streamed politics. YouTube has factored prominently in politics for years, and candidates have been dabbling with mobile broadcasting products like Periscope. But on Wednesday night, the Sanders campaign amplified the impact of the live-stream by organizing thousands of so-called "online house parties," to create what Sanders staffers are calling the largest campaign event of 2016 so far. These house parties, run by volunteers, not staffers, took place in coffee shops, bars, and living rooms in every state across the country and received more than 100,000 RSVPs online, though it's hard to say how many people actually showed up.

"Live-streams are not a new phenomenon, but I think what we've done is very unique," says Kenneth Pennington, Sanders' digital director. "We're really excited about being able to maximize the size of room. By adding to those rooms we'll have 100,000 people gathering together to listen."