Stream: Communities and Social Media.

Abstract:

This paper explores the peer-to-peer streaming platform, Twitch. It details how the pandemic, and our subsequent isolation, occurred concurrently alongside the platforms unprecedented rise in popularity, and how digital substitutes for community began to form, aptly named ‘digital communities’, throughout the platform, with users congregating around live-streaming content creators that share their interests. This is further emphasised in an analysis of the tangible benefits resulting from these digital communities, from charity events, to emulated social interactions with isolated individuals. This essay concludes that foundation of Twitch’s success, especially over the past few years, lies in the platform’s technical infrastructure, built to incentivise and promote friendship, companionship, and community, at a time when their real-world counterparts were unfeasible.  

Thesis:

The advent of COVID-19 acted as the catalyst that legitimised social media platforms, and in particular Twitch, as a viable alternative to certain aspects of modern society, with a significant proportion of the public engaging in virtual friendships, support groups and fully realised digital communities throughout the pandemic.

Essay:

One of the most prominent and defining features of the recent COVID-19 international pandemic was that of social isolation, confining a significant majority of the population to their place of residence, and served to exacerbate the pre-existing “epidemic of loneliness” rampant throughout the first world (Peate, 2018). However, despite the extraordinary circumstances; social bonds, friendship, and comradery quickly became digitally emulated via social media networks, demonstrated by the explosive growth of platforms such as Twitch that occurred concurrently with the rise of COVID (Iqbal, 2018). Although prominently used by individuals interested in gaming related content, Twitch has thousands of content tags, or keywords that provide a collaborative description of the content within the platforms database (Fyefield, et al. 2020), relating to a wide variety of interests, including beauty, academia, contemporary social issues, and even global economics (Twitch, 2022.) This essay will examine how aspects of community, friendship and society are being replicated within the peer-to-peer streaming platform Twitch during these trying times, with audiences and internet celebrities (E-celebrities) alike congregating around topics of mutual interest, and subsequently forming active, supportive, and tangible digital communities as a result. As researchers Hampton and Wellman state: “The introduction of new technologies introduces transformations in how people form and maintain relationships, as well as how they gain access to information and support.” (2018).

At the genesis of the pandemic, the need for education, business, entertainment, friendship, and community to persist, in spite of the circumstances, became evident to the masses. COVID-19, indisputably, had significant repercussions in all of the aforementioned aspects of modern life, resulting in a plethora of reputable and distinguished digital media platforms acting as viable substitutes in the interim. Notably, the peer-to-peer streaming platform Twitch.TV, received a significant influx of new users throughout this time, demonstrated by the 44% rise in Twitch users and viewership since the inception of the pandemic to the current day, and with an 800 million dollar jump in revenue occurring concurrently to the platforms unprecedented rise in popularity (Iqbal, 2022). Now recognised as the biggest peer-to-peer streaming platform in the world, Twitch’s notoriety can be prominently attributed to the platform’s knack for developing proactive fanbases, and in turn, digital communities, around genres and topics displayed on the platform, that anybody with internet access and a smart-device can engage with. The open and free access to the platform coupled with a variety of significant nuance’s that the platform accentuates, distinguished Twitch from their competitors, primarily YouTube, and proactively cultivates a community. As a live-streaming platform, Twitch thrives on an active digital audience that interacts with their favourite creators, and each other, consistently, and in real-time (Woodcock & Johnson, 2019).  Via a live chat-window, users are able to type out messages reacting to their favourite creators, or other viewers watching the stream.  Furthermore, the social reciprocity exuded by live-streaming personalities on the platform to their respective chats, is a reliable, consistent, and measurable indicator of success on the platform, incentivising engagement from all parties concerned, and subsequently, over time, culminates in a lively digital community of individuals (Zhao, et al. 2021).

Throughout the duration of COVID, Twitch had fostered a reputation for building and maintaining engaged communities of people, dedicating to a specific genre, activity, or interest. Standing in stark contrast to more traditional forms of community, in which friendships, relationships, and social circles were most prominently defined via the basis of proximity (Hampton & Wellman, 2018), Twitch’s primary strength is forming participatory communities around genres in which people share common interests, whether it be beauty, gaming, fashion, etc. Via congregating to online platforms in the wake of the pandemic, the obstacle of distance between individuals has been eliminated as a communicative barrier, with platforms like Twitch now acting as a virtual “third place” for the public to congregate and socialise, at a time when in person interaction is not a feasible course of action. Third space, in this context, is defined as a setting distinct from both one’s home, and one’s work; As posited by authors Hamilton, Garretson & Kerne, “We find that Twitch streams act as virtual third places, in which informal communities emerge, socialize, and participate. Over time, stream communities form around shared identities drawn from these streams” (2014). This perspective is further enhanced when examining the specific ways in which content creators on the platform interact with their respective audiences, in real time. Mainly responding to the collective viewership of the Twitch stream via the aforementioned chat windows, the substantial majority of streamers engage with their audiences through asking, and responding to, questions posed to the chat, with successful streamers adapting their digital persona’s to better reflect, and appeal to, a growing fanbase, essentially allowing themselves to be “influenced by the perception of the audience” (Marwick, et al. 2012). Additionally, there is an entire genre of content on the site, known collectively as “Just Chatting”, which serves the primary purpose of emulating social interactions with a friend, with talented digital performers producing engaging content merely from engaging and responding to their audiences (Twitch.TV, 2022).  Thus, the development and maintenance of the digital communities formed on the platform, should be credited to both the individuals engaged and participated in said communities, and the streamers that act as digital leaders for their respective communities. Furthermore, the influx of the masses toward social media platforms, acted as the catalyst for entrepreneurial digital celebrities who already boasted a significant following on Twitch to accommodate this newfound audience within their pre-established digital communities. Often grown through, and intimately tied with, one specific genre of content, these streamers act as a physical representation, and often a point of authority, within the communities they portray and pander to, with many viewers drawing a digital identity via their association with not only a genre of content or specific interest, but through their ongoing, committed engagement to a particular streamer who happens to be covering that content. The virtual online game, World of Warcraft, for instance, has been displayed hundreds of thousands of times on the platform, however, a streamer within that specific genre of content, Asmongold, has cultivated a dedicated audience of over 2 million fans, who persistently followed his content after he transitioned from World of Warcraft, and explored other types of content.

Alongside the newfound presence and power of the recently formed communities and support networks throughout the platform, were the actions of these communities, with tangible consequences, legitimising the practice. Defined by academic Mahony Simon as,  “a critical mass of people coming together with similar interests”, the digital communities formed on Twitch performed selfless charitable acts alongside their streaming counterparts as the pandemic was taking place. Illustrated in an article by Forbes titled “$83M+ Raised And Counting In 2020: Are Twitch Streamers The New Philanthropists?”, author Chris Strub described how prominent Twitch streamers such as Pokimane, Justaminx, JSchlatt, the Yogscast, Ninja, and many more, have been utilising Twitch’s in-built fundraising technology to promote and support a plethora of charities. Twitch’s creator guidelines and advice even state that, “Once you’ve built a community on Twitch, you can think about using your combined powers to help others. Millions of dollars have been raised for charities on Twitch, and supporting one can be a great way to bring your community together around a common goal, and make a positive difference.” In another example, the aforementioned streamer Asmongold, raised over $300,000 in one day, for the charity ‘games with love’, boasting a collective viewership of 120,00 people at one time, the largest Twitch stream of that month. Furthermore, the pursuit of philanthropy on the platform incentivised teamwork between creators, with streamers collaborating and expanding their brands/ content across multiple audiences, whilst simultaneously accruing larger donations for the charities they are working to help. The most prominent example of this being a charity event hosted by Twitch streamers Zerator and Dach, known as “Z Event”, featuring a variety of their peers and other content creators, of which currently holds the world record for the most money raised in a single stream, currently boasting 11 million US dollars raised for the charity ‘Action Against Hunger’ (Belous, 2022). The act of developing and maintaining a digital community throughout the pandemic should be considered an achievement in and of itself, however, coupled with the incredible feats of these communities, producing tangible benefits akin to an in-person charity should be viewed as an incredible feat.

Alongside collaborations for charity, multiple streamers also worked together independent of a greater cause, merging their pre-existing audiences and further solidifying, and expanding their communities. If there is potential benefit for both parties involved, many Twitch streamers will also opt to collaborate with their peers in an attempt to expand their brand, and widen their audience (Grayson, 2021). Intentionally or not, this brings the streamers pre-existing audience, and subsequent digital community that surrounds their content, into contact with others, developing an interconnected network of digital communities that proliferate throughout the platform, with Twitch even implementing technology dedicated to collaborative streaming on their platform, affectionately known as “Squad Stream” (Thiebolt, 2022), and further illustrating how integral the concept of community is to Twitch as a platform. Furthermore, in conjunction with all other evidence, and perspectives conveyed throughout this essay contending the validity of individual and unique groups of individuals throughout the platform, the collaborative efforts of multiple digital communities and their respective streamers, networking and forming bonds with each other,  legitimises Twitch’s place as a social media platform with an emphasis on community, and subsequently justifies its position within the “Communities and Social Media” stream in the conference.

Since its introduction, and subsequent declaration, as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March of 2021, COVID-19 has ravaged the lives of nearly everybody living throughout the world.  Amongst the fallout, in isolation within our homes, a significant portion of the population turned to social media as an outlet for communication, comradery, companionship, and friendship in the interim, whilst the ramification of COVID slowly unfolded across the world. As demonstrated, the versatile, unique, and renowned peer to peer streaming platform Twitch, served as a hub for the formation of innumerable digital communities, acting as an ethereal third space for many people, and providing that same sense of community and solidarity, that one would find in their physical communities pre pandemic. This culminated in real-life, tangible benefits, not only for users and content creators on the site, but for charity organisations and volunteer aid as well, at a time when it was needed the most. Although indisputably catastrophic for the entire world, COVID-19 acted as the catalyst that legitimised Twitch as a platform that supported and incentivised the creation and development of digital communities.

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