Not many know the story of the platform Twitch, and how it went full circle in a way. It started as Justin.tv, where anyone could stream what they were doing. However, the creators noticed how the gaming section was getting way more attention and started the streaming site called Twitch. This quickly became a social hub exclusively for gamers, and from it, a whole slew of internet celebrities rose. Now, Twitch is owned by Amazon and has a massive user base. What’s more, just like the original intention behind Justin.tv the streaming content has become more diverse.
People just chat with subscribers, comment on the latest events and developments, and some create exciting content by gambling. In fact, Twitch had a big impact on the gambling industry as it inspired live dealer games. According to experts from casinoofthekings.ca traffic on their project started to grow at the same time as Twitch launched a separate category for gambling and online casinos.
The Appeal of Twitch for Celebrities
Everyone is pretty much aware that most celebrities have teams of people in charge of their social media accounts. In other words, when you interact with your role models online chances are you are just talking to the members of their staff. That’s not the case with Twitch streaming.
Here you see the person, and you directly interact with them. That’s why both fans and celebrities love this platform. It helps them form a more genuine connection. Not only that but Twitch makes it easy to send money or make donations. So, if a celeb wants to run a charity event and help gather funds for a specific cause, Twitch is a perfect place to do so.
Not only that but Twitch can help celebrities reach more people. Maybe someone didn’t find them interesting based on their music or sports career. But now they get to know the other side of them and maybe re-evaluate the initial image they had of that person.
Celebrities Influencing Twitch Culture and Content
As stated, this platform started out as a social hub for gamers. Over the years they manage to attract socialites from other walks of life, and celebrities were an important factor in this change. Now there are several new categories that aren’t gaming-related:
- IRL (In Real Life) – Category that features podcasts, live chatting, ASMR, sports, discussion on politics, and other more general topics.
- Music and DJ – A category for music artists where they create new music and collaborate with fans. It’s a great way to get instant feedback and include followers in creative process.
- Creative – Category for arts and crafts that is great for live tutorials.
Clearly, there is an intention here to attract more influencers from other spheres, in order to grow the number of active users. With more active users it’s easier to attract more sponsors who wish to advertise on the site.
Top Celebrities Making Waves on Twitch
Given their busy schedules, celebrities don’t stream as frequently or regularly like other top creators. But whenever they are online users definitely notice. Below are some notable examples.
Post Malone
As a young artist, Post Malone is adored by younger generations. In other words, many gamers love his songs. It comes as no surprise that when Post Malone starts to stream his channel lights up. He also plays very popular battle royale titles like Apex Legends. Not only that but he is genuinely good at it; he even reached the rank of diamond.
Snoop Dogg
Music made Snoop Dogg famous, but his success as an artist is only matched by his achievements as an entrepreneur. And to this day his portfolio of business ventures continues to expand. Back in 2023, he even launched a game studio with his son called Death Row Games, and Snoop has been involved with the industry for quite some time now.
Felicia Day
A lot of World of Warcraft players know Felica from the web series she created The Guild, but she was also in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Supernatural TV show. People who love narrative-driven games like God of War, and Last of US also love to watch Felicia on Twitch. She is very committed to gaming and does a full playthrough of these games.
Mike Shinoda
Before Linkin Park found its new lead singer, the co-founder Mike Shinoda saw Twitch as a home for his creative outlet. While on Twitch Mike connected with his community, played Valorant, and created new music. What’s more, he collaborated with Twitch to white label the music he created on stream so that his fans can freely use it.
Madison Beer
The number one reason Madison Beer started a Twitch channel was to promote her music or music projects. But even some of those music projects were gaming-related. For example, she played or sang as League of Legends’s Evelyn during K/DA concerts.
That said she does play games on her streams and easily attracts over 30,000 viewers. Madison plays indie releases like Only Up as well as some popular titles like Valorant and Fall Guys.
Impact on Twitch’s User Demographics
Obviously, celebrities help this platform grow further. They have a lot of star power and a fan base of devotees who are eager to socialize with them. It helped Twitch become more than just a place for gamers.
However, the core users of Twitch are still gamers, so the platform also helped these celebrities reach more people. As you can see, all of them played different games while on the stream, and many players who don’t necessarily know these celebrities will hop on to check out their stream. After all, the platform directs viewers to those channels that have the highest view count.
Of course, this is in a way bad for other content creators who are trying to make it and have a low number of followers. Now with celebrities streaming getting noticed will be even harder.
How Celebrity Involvement is Attracting Brands and Advertisers
There are many other celebrities who occasional stream T-Pain, Keke Palmer, Soulja Boy, Doja Cat, and Neymar Jr. to name a few. Unlike other social networks, Twitch is a place where streamers reply to messages in chat. These are all big names in their respective industries and that’s incredibly relevant for brands who want to advertise on Twitch.
Unlike with ads on YouTube, users have an incentive to stay on Twitch when the ads start to roll. The stream is happening right there and then, you can’t come back tomorrow or after a few hours and enjoy the same content. Ever since Twitch grew the ads campaign became more aggressive, which once again kills the discoverability of smaller creators. People just don’t want to sit that long and wait for ads to stop playing.
This isn’t the case with celebrity streams. These are high profile individuals and viewers look forward to interacting with them. So, even when ads are unskippable on these streams viewers will stick around. As a result, more brands who want to advertise on Twitch, especially during these streams.
Conclusion
To sum up, Twitch has drastically changed over the past decade and celebrities and influential internet personalities played a big role. It can be difficult to re-brand especially when your identity is so heavily centred around one hobby. Luckily, Twitch has managed to follow through and create a place that Justin.tv was meant to be. They did this thanks to a strong infrastructure for socializing, advertising and online donations.
In a way, whenever someone who is famous wants to connect with their fans and raise funds in the process, Twitch is the go-to option. The brand is visible and already has a big user base, and it has categories that invite creators from different niches.
The post Top Celebrities Taking Over Twitch: How Stars Are Changing the Streaming Game first appeared on .
The post Top Celebrities Taking Over Twitch: How Stars Are Changing the Streaming Game appeared first on .