Twitch: The Rising Media
Twitch.tv has become one of the leading media sources on the internet that is not reiterating content that has been on television. Twitch is a popular streaming platform that allows individuals or groups to stream themselves live onto the internet to any viewer that decides to watch. Each day Twitch.tv has millions of viewers watching content from different creators live and from recordings of previous live sessions. They watch a variety of games and chats that allow creators to connect with their audience in a meaningful and connected way, all live in real-time. The viewer and creator base of Twitch has even over time developed a personal set of emoticons that are often used as slang on the website for different emotions and common events. These emoticons include “PogChamp, WidePeepoHappy, Kappa, 4head, LUL, and so many more. This evolution of technology would not have been possible at the dawn of the internet. Even prerecorded videos were sparse until 2005. Twitch began its platform in 2007, not long after the first video of the internet, “Me at the Zoo,” by YouTube’s co-founder Jawed Karim on his channel ‘jawed’. Regardless to say, Twitch was a revolutionary platform that has built and retained a fanbase and creator base that entertain millions a day with interesting and new content.
Twitch is a massive streaming platform where creators and their fans can connect with one another and watch the content of various forms including gaming, chatting, sports, and music. There are hundreds of big creators on the site that reach audiences of thousands of people of all ages, but mainly teens and young adults. Streamers often collaborate with one another as well, playing games and chatting together for their combined audience. Now don’t think by any means that streamers aren’t paid well for their hard work, often streaming 8–12 hours a day, every day. The highest-grossing streamer of all time, Ninja, made $400k to $800k a month streaming the game ‘Fortnite’ to his fan base. That’s not even including the millions of dollars he has made with brand deals, notably his deal with Adidas. An average large streamer can make anywhere from $10k to $30k per month streaming around forty hours a week, an average workweek for Americans, making anywhere from $100k to $500k a year, which is a much higher bracket than most citizens. It is reasonable to say that streamers on Twitch and other platforms gain the potential to earn as much as most celebrities. To focus farther in on the streamer ‘Ninja’, many can recognize Ninja from his notable performance at the 2018 to 2019 New Years' ball drop. However, gamers and internet junkies will know him from memes, his Twitch streams, and many other sources of content. Ninja was most famous for streaming the game ‘Fortnite’ to a large, young audience. Prior to that, he gained his popularity playing older games similar to ‘Fortnite’ such as ‘DayZ’. However, he gained the most of his popularity from Fortnite, and then his brand deal with Adidas; even being starred in their Super Bowl commercial.
Along with the amount of work that goes into streaming for thousands of viewers comes a sense of community and togetherness. Within the community of Twitch, there have been many phrases and images that have been popularized much like in any community. For instance, one of the more popular phrases among the platform is ‘PogChamp’ also known as ‘Pog’ or ‘Poggers’ in other scenarios. The origin of PogChamp is in a stream from 2011 when streamer Ryan Gutierrez won the ‘Pog Championship’ hence the name. The emoticon shows Ryan’s over-exaggerated face after he won the tournament. Ryan is also the face of another popular Twitch emoticon ‘weirdChamp’ in which he is making a less excited and more judgmental face. Each emoticon on Twitch has a story much like this where someone would do something in a stream and then it would be popularized by the community based around them. Each streamer also has their own set of emoticons and phrases within their communities that their fan base uses to interact with the streamer and one another. This sense of community would not be built if the viewers and creators couldn’t interact with one another live making it a part of the evolution of the internet. Before the internet, the closest that came to these communities were groups that would eventually develop slang. Being able to build an entire community based purely on the content of an individual is amazing and something that, in this scale, is only an option of modern times.
The history of the streaming platform is quite interesting as well, gaining its roots in 2007 but not becoming popularized until 2014. Twitch.tv was originally named Justin.tv and created by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear. Though Twitch was made for all types of content, the gaming platform is what really grew the site. In 2011 the gaming portion of the website was split off into Twitch.tv and then the platform blew up in 2014 when a stream called ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ went viral, where gamers from around the world would play Pokémon Red on the internet together. The stream has been viewed a total of 6.5 million times and had an average of 65k viewers per stream. Then on August 25, 2014, Twitch.tv was bought by Amazon for almost a billion dollars, coming in at $970 million. Amazon allowed Emmett Shear to remain the CEO of Twitch and since then they have done nothing but grow. Since then Twitch has become the most popular platform for presenting the ever-growing world of E-Sports. Twitch also provides a platform for gaming conventions such as E3 and Pax East and West to present their content to an audience that wants to know the information.
It’s easy to say that Twitch is a revolutionary platform that has brought together millions of people in a sense of community with its rich history and talented content creators. The platform was not possible before the invention of the internet and has revolutionized the way we can absorb live content from creators. In the future hopefully, we will see Twitch continue to grow and provide a platform that creators can reach their communities and build relationships around the world.
