Twitch
Twitch
xQc gives his take on Ninja multi-stream debut, viewership
Olivia Richman
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins made headlines when he declared that he was going to be streaming on every single platform, including TikTok and Facebook, and Felix “xQc” Lengyel gave his take on the event. Ninja took a break from streaming, surprising his fans. He then sent some cryptic statements that led some to believe he was leaving Twitch. When he returned, Ninja said he would be streaming on Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, …
Twitch
xQc calls out Forbes for accusing him of having racist, homophobic controversies
Olivia Richman
Felix “xQc” Lengyel isn’t happy with Forbes after the publication claimed he had racist and homophobic controversies. xQc is one of the biggest influencers in the world, boasting over 11 million followers on Twitch. While he started as an Overwatch League pro, xQc has gained popularity over the years for his skillful gameplay and over-the-top personality. xQc has had his fair share of controversy, from his gambling addiction to streaming …
Twitch
Ninja reveals new stream plans after break from Twitch
Olivia Richman
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins returned from a short break to announce that he will begin to stream everywhere. In August, Ninja hinted to fans that he may be leaving Twitch for YouTube. He tweeted that he had a call with YouTube, leaving fans questioning the reason behind the delayed conversation. On September 1, Ninja tweeted that he needed a break, adding that he didn’t know exactly when or where he would …
Twitch
JiDion kicked out of US Open over YouTube haircut stunt
Olivia Richman
Jidon “JiDion” Adams is no stranger to getting banned but now he’s moved from getting a ban from Twitch to a ban from the US Open tennis event. JiDion has become a polarizing figure in the streaming community since he was permanently banned from Twitch for sending a hate raid after Imane “Pokimane” Anys. After losing his platform on Twitch, JiDion has moved to YouTube to keep creating content. A …
Twitch
Dr Disrespect accuses Warzone devs of stealing DEADROP skin
Olivia Richman
Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm is not a fan of Call of Duty: Warzone at this point, especially after the game’s dev team was accused of stealing a skin design from the Doc’s upcoming battle royale DEADROP. Dr Disrespect has made it abundantly clear that he no longer wants to play Warzone. Unfortunately, many of his friends still do. He was recently pulled into the game by TimTheTatman, but his fans …
Twitch
20,000 fans show up for 1st MrBeast Burger restaurant opening
Olivia Richman
YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson has garnered over 104 million subscribers for his over-the-top personality and ridiculous challenges. His most recent video, where he gifts a private island to a subscriber, has over 66 million views. As MrBeast has become more and more popular over the past decade, he has branched out beyond YouTube to try out new business ventures. One of his most well-known endeavors is MrBeast Burger. MrBeast Burger …
Twitch
Details on Sweet Anita net worth and Twitch income revealed
Olivia Richman
Sweet Anita has been rapidly growing over the past few years thanks to her honesty, dark humor, and relatability. Sweet Anita currently has 1.9 million followers on Twitch, but how much does that translate to in terms of net worth? Is Sweet Anita a millionaire? Sweet Anita started streaming on Twitch in 2018. While relatively new to her full-time streaming career, Sweet Anita has blown up. She went viral a …
Twitch
Pokimane calls Andrew Tate controversy “rise of the incels”
Olivia Richman
Imane “Pokimane” Anys shared strong takes on Andrew Tate right after returning from her hiatus. Pokimane returned from a month-long break with a brand new view on content creation and streaming. During her hiatus, a lot of things went down in the streaming sphere. One of the most controversial issues was surrounding Andrew Tate, an outspoken influencer that’s been banned from most social media platforms for hateful, sexist, and potentially …
Ludwig shows how police damaged his house after swatting
Olivia Richman
Twitch
YouTuber Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren is no stranger to getting swatted but was left frustrated after Los Angeles police officers damaged his home during the latest swat attempt. Last week, Ludwig had to abruptly end a chess tournament stream due to armed police officers arriving at his home. According to Ludwig, his address was given to police by a troll, resulting in officers searching his home with guns drawn. The officers …
Here’s who Jerma is and how he became a famous Twitch streamer
William Davis
Twitch
Jerma is now a famous name on Twitch, but he didn’t become a streaming star overnight. Few of the streamers innovating on the field can hold a candle to Jerma985. The YouTuber-turned-Twitch-star has hosted everything from live wrestling events to interactive carnivals and even a chat-controlled life simulator. However, his absurdism has been slowly developing over more than a decade of content creation. Here’s how Jerma got his start and …
Ninja abruptly ends stream after meltdown, announces break
Fariha Bhatti
News
Fortnite icon and Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’s abrupt stream end has led some fans to believe that a platform switch may be on the horizon. Ninja is one of the oldest names in streaming. His channel blew up in 2018, breaking Twitch records as he partnered with the likes of Drake, Travis Scott, and more. It’s tough to translate a sudden hike in popularity into something long-lasting, but Ninja …
Asmongold blasts Blizzard after seeing his name is taken in WoW
Olivia Richman
Twitch
World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold has noticed a big issue with the MMORPG and is calling on Blizzard to make some changes. Asmongold is extremely well known, especially in the World of Warcraft community, so he has run into a very specific problem that other players may not have ever dealt with. While streaming WoW Classic: Wrath of the Lich King recently, Asmongold attempted to enter in his name and …
Pokimane announces huge career move after month-long break
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Imane “Pokimane” Anys’ fans have been anxiously awaiting her return to Twitch after a break that lasted more than a month. Now, Pokimane has finally decided to tell her community what’s in store for content now that she’s back online. Pokimane decided to take a break late July that saw her leave Twitch, content creation, and social media behind due to feeling a bit of burnout. After a month of …
Heelmike banned from Twitch for wardrobe malfunction
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Twitch partner Heelmike has been banned from the streaming platform after a wardrobe malfunction during a live broadcast. The ban was first made public on August 31. Going to Heelmike’s Twitch channel results in the following message: “This channel is temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.” At first, fans were confused as to what happened to Heelmike, who has over 7 million …
Kai Cenat reacts to claim that he’s “bad marketing” for Twitch
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Twitch faced some backlash earlier this month when the site didn’t acknowledge streamer Kai Cenat for reaching 60,000 subscribers. After some content creators pointed out a possible reason why, Cenat decided to respond himself. Cenat made waves after becoming the second-most subbed streamer on Twitch, following behind only star streamer Felix “xQc” Lengyel. YouTube prankster Kai Cenat has been swiftly growing on Twitch thanks to his over-the-top personality, but some …
Ludwig swatted during chess tournament broadcast
Olivia Richman
Twitch
YouTuber Ludwig Ahgren hosted a chess tournament broadcast on August 28 that ended with the streamer getting swatted. Ludwig’s chess tournament was suddenly shut down when police officers from the city of Los Angeles charged into his home. The armed officers barged into his home after receiving a concerning call and then began searching through his rooms. After the incident, Ludwig got on stream and informed his viewers that everyone …
Dr Disrespect rips into Heroes vs. Villains CoD: Warzone event
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Another day, another Call of Duty: Warzone complaint from Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm. Dr Disrespect has been grinding Warzone since Season 5 shipped its final update ahead of the release of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. Season 5 includes a lot of map and weapon changes, but it also dropped an event called Heroes vs. Villains that the Two-Time can’t stand. Heroes vs. Villains is an event that has …
What happened to Andrew Tate’s Twitch account?
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Andrew Tate has been running out of social media platforms to spread his controversial messaging and apparent scams, making Twitch one of his last options. But even that may be taken away from him soon. Tate is a former professional kickboxer and has appeared on some reality television shows in the past, but has recently become popular online among some niche audiences for his “red pill” rhetoric. Tate has been …
Who is Athnessa? The Twitch streamer is branching out
William Davis
Twitch
Athnessa took the Twitch world by storm in 2021, but now the popular streamer is branching out to even bigger platforms. After making a name as a popular Just Chatting streamer, Athnessa has transformed her personality into a personal brand. She now posts on a bunch of different platforms after being banned from Twitch. Here’s everything you need to know about Athnessa, from what she’s most famous for to all …
Kai Centa hit second-most subs on Twitch, but who is he?
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Relatively new streamer Kai Cenat has become the second-most subbed streamer on Twitch after reaching an impressive 60,000 subscribers. “This is unbelievable,” Cenat said on Twitter after hitting the milestone. “Love y’all so much.” The news actually left many in the streaming community confused. Despite Kai Cenat’s massive success on Twitch, a lot of people still don’t seem to know who he is. So who actually is Cenat, and how …
Twitch is the largest of all the major livestreaming platforms in and around the gaming world, but it wasn’t always that way. Th platform’s history dates back over many years and to a form of the service that had little to do with gaming. So how did it arrive to the top of the gaming marketplace from those humble beginnings?
Twitch transcends justin.tv, is acquired by Amazon
Twitch was originally born out of justin.tv, an early livestreaming website that focus more on general lifestyle streaming than on any one particular niche, gaming included. justin.tv, named after co-founder Justin Kan, was launched in 2007 and went on to feature multiple categories of streaming options. Among these was gaming, a category which quickly outpaced the growth of platform’s other categories.
Responding to this growth, justin.tv spun out its gaming section in 2011 into a new service called Twitch.tv, and that is the true starting point of Twitch as it exists today.
It would still be some time before Twitch would resemble its modern-day operation. The biggest move towards that progression came in 2014, when the streaming platform was purchased for just shy of $1 billion in cash by services and technology giant Amazon. That move transitioned the company being a private operation largely funded by private investment and internal revenues to one of many arms of one of the world’s largest and richest companies.
Twitch dominates gaming livestreaming
The growth of Twitch largely coincided with the growth of livestreaming the world over, and gaming was a key driver of that growth as audiences flocked in droves to watch charismatic personalities play through their favorite games both new and old. Some of those personalities would become so popular that they would rival mainstream celebrities in notoriety with younger audiences, from Tyler “Ninja” Blevins to Imane “Pokimane” Anys.
Some of those personalities would be poached by rival streaming platforms that cropped up in response to the runaway popularity of Twitch. Microsoft’s Mixer and YouTube’s YouTube Gaming both signed streamers with massive audiences to exclusive streaming deals via big-money contracts. But Twitch proved resilient; no matter how popular the streamers were when they were signed away, someone else seemed prime to fill their spot. Twitch had become more than just a vehicle through which popular personalities could stream. It was itself a destination for its audience.
Twitch does still continue to compete with rival platforms. Kick is perhaps its biggest competition today, offering generous
subscription revenue splits
in an effort to sway streamers away from Twitch. But Amazon’s platform remains the most popular.
Twitch finds controversy over moderation, censorship
Given the nature of the Twitch platform, one that is entirely reliant on user-generated content, it should come as no surprise that moderation and censorship have long been hot topics of conversation. Consistency, or lack thereof, is often cited as Twitch’s biggest issue as its moderation team struggles to pass judgments across a litany of streamers producing a great variety of content.
Those content types have only grown over time. While Twitch found massive popularity by moving away from the greater variety of justin.tv and focusing specifically on gaming, the platform has ironically pushed back into other categories in more recent years, attempting to find additional growth by emphasizing the streaming of art, music, and its popular “just chatting” content that sees streamers talking directly to their audience without any particular activity driving their engagement.
But while Twitch is now a lightning rod for controversy and discussion given its great size and breadth, that controversy has shown no real risk to lessening its grip on the livestreaming industry. Twitch has become the dominant name in its category, and with its biggest streamers continuing to
set new records, all signs point to that dominance continuing for the foreseeable future.
