What’s With the Rise of Streamers?

Is streaming becoming a new norm?

By Chanel Thorpe

Graphic by Catarina Koehler

A “streamer” is defined as “a person who broadcasts video or audio footage of themselves live over the internet, typically while playing a game or engaging in everyday activities, and interacting with followers at the same time.” This concept has long been popular, but it has primarily appealed to a specific demographic: boys and young men. According to Streamscheme, about 80% of Twitch users are male, and about 20% are female as of July 2023. Back in 2017, the percentage of male users was 83.5%. Twitch streaming has always been a world primarily dominated by boys and young men watching other men play games on their gaming setups, interacting with them and being able to support their favorite Twitch streamers in real time. 

Streaming has become a lot more mainstream as another way for individuals to both promote themselves and have steady, more frequent contact with their fans (and even earn more money). Growing Twitch streamers like Vanillamace and Katie B have grown their platforms tremendously through Twitch streaming. Vanillamace started her journey on YouTube first, but quickly switched to  streaming on Twitch because it directly helped her achieve her goals within the realm of social media. Katie simultaneously started on Twitch and YouTube  — YouTube specifically for collaborating with others, vlogging, doing challenges and posting some of her streaming content on there for viewers who missed out. 

The rise of Twitch streaming and TikTok content demonstrates that the attention span of Gen-Z’ers is getting shorter. The ability to “clip” different parts of a stream and then post it on TikTok to attract more attention to their stream is not only smart, but incredibly easy to do. With TikTok being one of the leading social media platforms for Gen-Z, it makes sense to have one platform in which you can do long-winded content for hours that is highly interactive, and have a second platform where you can post the funniest, short “clippable” content that can go viral.

It makes sense why streamers are at an all-time high and why they are still growing today. It’s fun, collaborative and easy to garner attention from how much content it brings. Compared to shorter, high-effort YouTube videos, streaming encompasses all of that and more.