How many hype trains are we going to get this subathon do you think? asks Mathia Koolhout out loud. In the leftmost of the three computer screens in front of her, the answers follow each other in rapid succession in a chat conversation. The viewers know exactly what she is talking about in the sense incomprehensible to many Dutch people. They are followers van Koolhout on streaming platform Twitch and more often watch live when she plays games with headphones on, drinks a cup of tea or arranges domestic affairs. “We’re going to put up the Christmas tree together first,” she promises the audience.
On this gray Friday morning in December, 29-year-old Koolhout will start the second subathon of this year in her game room in the Gelderland town of Maurik. That is a streaming marathon, in which her live video is automatically extended by one and a half minutes for every euro donated. “Until the donations stop, then I can stop,” says Koolhout. That her followers are willing to give Mathia, in addition to her first name, also her game name, was already apparent earlier this year. The first subathon in May this year lasted nine days.
In those days Koolhout lives together with her followers, over the years she has started to share more and more of herself. Viewers see her play the fighting game League of Legends with other gamers, but also go outside when she takes a walk in the neighborhood. Then the telephone stabilizer that Koolhout bought especially for it comes in handy. The video is also on at night. “That’s a little awkward. But I pull the duvet over me and then I usually fall asleep,” says Koolhout.
The biggest difference with the subathon in the spring is that the main character is now 27 weeks pregnant. That is why Koolhout has also purchased a flexible standing desk for the game room. “It’s not good for my body if I sit too long.”
Parasocial Relationships
Koolhout is one of 27,000 streamers with a Twitch partnership: half of the money subscribers pay goes to her, the other 50 percent goes to Twitch. Individual donations from followers are entirely for her. Streamers with a steady and growing group of followers can sign up for a partnership with Twitch, after which the platform determines whether it wants to work with the streamer. Supplemented by her income from sponsorship deals, Koolhout is left with a “normal monthly salary” – more than what she earned at her previous job at the gym.
She is, however, concerned about her intended eight weeks of maternity leave. If you don’t stream, you owe your audience an apology. “That will certainly cost me followers. It is difficult to see that counter go back.”
Koolhout has been a professional streamer for four years now. More than 42,000 users now follow her life on Twitch. That makes her one of the many professional streamers on the platform. On average, there are approximately 2.5 million unique users active on the platform worldwide at any given time. They watch over a hundred thousand Twitch streamers who are currently sharing their lives or computer screens.
Motives for following a streamer on Twitch differ per viewer, says Christine Tran, a researcher at the University of Toronto. According to her, one of the reasons is the relatively high purchase price of new games. “Why pay $70 for a game I’m not good at, when I can also watch someone who can do it well, is funny and talks to me like a friend?”
According to Tran, the latter partly explains the appeal of the platform. Viewers enter into a so-called ‘parasocial relationship’ with the streamer, a certain semblance of friendship is cultivated. One that can be compared to the bond between television stars and viewers – the live streamer as a family friend.
The advantage of internet stars is that they are much more approachable than other celebrities. Only the screen seems to stand between Koolhout and her followers. Everyone who reports in the chat during the subathon this Friday will be welcomed with equal enthusiasm. Interest is potentially even greater when a new subscriber joins the community. “Very nice to have you here, Johnny!”
Forms of recognition are extremely important for the sense of community, explains researcher Tran. “I once saw a tweet comparing a reaction from your favorite Twitcher to being greeted by Zeus at the foot of Olympus. That covers the load a bit.”
‘boots up’
Twitch provides a variety of tools to help streamers build a sense of community. Such as emotes, small drawn images. A kind of emoticons, which streamers with sufficient subscribers can make themselves (or have them made). Followers and other viewers cannot use the dolls in the chat; subscribers – who pay a fixed amount – can. Koolhout had, among other things, a buttocks emote (“not modeled after mine”). If ‘booties up!’ sounds, the pictures stream into the chat.
“It actually turns a Twitch channel into an online living room,” says marketer Kevin Loos, who uses the platform a lot for his work. “Viewers and streamers speak the same language, all users know what they are doing there.”
Also for Koolhout, Twitch started seven years ago as a virtual living room, a safe haven where like-minded people could come together. “Initially I was looking for fellow gamers, I already played a lot of League of Legends at the time,” she says. “When I started streaming myself, I found that the few viewers I had felt very comfortable with it, while for them in the real world it wasn’t always the case. That’s why I continued with it at the time.”
One moderator per 200 viewers
Koolhout still finds it important that her followers feel safe in the chat box. Trolling, making fun of each other online, is prohibited. Moderators, supervisors appointed by Koolhout, ensure that this does not happen. Koolhout also has contact with them outside of Twitch. This month they will visit Maurik for a high tea.
Supervisors are important for the streaming platform, Twitch advises partners to appoint two or three moderators for every two hundred viewers. It is an attempt to keep the textual part as decent as possible. But preventing atrocities from being shown among the thousands of live images broadcast every day is even more complex. At the beginning of 2018, hundreds of viewers witnessed a shooting in the American city of Jacksonville.
At Koolhout, violence can only be seen in the games she plays. She saw the number of viewers increase in corona time. “But at the same time, more people have started streaming themselves. So there was more competition in that sense.”
“The platform has indeed grown considerably in the past two years,” agrees marketer Loos. During that time, Twitch expanded the number of pillars. “Twitch is a very strong gaming brand, but is now focusing on more diversification. Music streams and broadcasts of people cooking are doing well right now. Real life streams, direct vlogs, are also becoming more popular,” says Loos.
The rise of the so-called hot tub stream underlines that Twitch is now more than just a game streaming platform. The genre is all about (young) women in bikinis broadcasting from an inflatable pool. There is hardly any gaming, chatting all the more. It rubbed some of the users against the hair. Researcher Tran: “They believed that hot tub streamers were cheating and using their bodies to make money.”
In May, this prompted Twitch to publish a blog post on the bikini stream policy. “It is not against the rules to be considered sexy by others and Twitch will not take action against women, or other users, for their perceived attraction,” the statement read. Streaming in a bikini is allowed in “contextually appropriate situations,” such as from an inflatable pool, Twitch clarified the house rules. With the entry of the ‘Polish, Hot Tubs, and Beaches’ category, the bikini stream definitely became a legitimate genre.
“Streaming is increasingly being sold by Twitch as a lifestyle,” Tran says. “That’s more than just gaming, it’s going to be a way of life that affects relationships as well. Couples that stream together, stay togetherthat idea.”
In a sense it also applies to Koolhout, who is increasingly portraying her personal life. Her boyfriend Nicky also regularly appears in the streams. During the stream marathon, the camera only does not go to the shower and toilet. She plans to show her unborn daughter to her viewers once.
For the time being, however, Koolhout is still streaming: she wants to continue broadcasting until the birth. It’s getting cozier in the game room. The Christmas tree was decorated with the help of the viewers. Donors and subscribers have chosen the balls.
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