Justin Lundstrom

Ethnography of Twitch.tv

Twitch.tv is a website that offers online live streams of video games by professional gamers,

amateur gamers, and any other personality that believes they can deliver good gaming content. It is free

to view all broadcasts and free to stream any broadcast of your own. What helps push Twitch.tv to be

more than a live stream YouTube service is in the chat rooms that are attached to every broadcast. It is

in these channels that viewers can chat in real time to each other and to the broadcaster. Thus it is

through the interactions of the viewers and broadcasters that an online community is formed. That

larger community is Twitch.tv.

Broadcasters

There are essentially two roles that are filled in the social dynamic of the Twitch.tv community.

There are broadcasters and there are viewers. However, this relationship is skewed in the sense that

there are only a few thousand broadcasters for every 100,000 viewers. Now, anyone can become a

broadcaster if they wish. All you need to do is log into your Twitch.tv account, go to your profile, and

[start your stream]. You begin to stream in real time whatever fits within a ‘click-and-dragable’ window

on your computer monitor. Why is the ratio of broadcasters so dramatically different than the viewers?

The answer is in the competition for attention. If a broadcaster, henceforth called a streamer, has

30,000 people currently watching his stream then it shows up higher on a list for their particular game

being streamed than a streamer who only has 500 viewers. This creates a cycle where anyone searching

for, say, League of Legends would see the stream with the most current viewers at the top of the web

page. Due to the nature of social proof, a majority of new viewers are then sucked into the most popular

streams. As Phillips defines in her book A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling,

“Social proof is the demonstration that something has been done or thought of before by other

people. The need for social proof is why few people like to be the first person to ask a question in class.

It’s why shows with a laugh track are rated as funnier by test audiences. It’s why you have a better

chance of finding a job or a date if you have one already.” (Phillips, p.154)

What Phillips is explaining here is that if someone logs into Twitch.tv with the intent to spend

time watching someone stream their favorite game, they are more likely to commit their time to the

most popular stream because X thousand other people decided it was also worth their time. While there

are other reasons why the ratio of broadcaster to viewers is skewed, one of the major reasons is that to

fully reap the benefits of being a broadcaster you absolutely need viewers. Viewers however are a tricky

resource to gather and the most popular broadcasters tend to be like a giant vortex sucking up all

potential viewers. Without a large viewer base, the appeal to broadcasting your games/show/time

decrease dramatically.

The ultimate goal when deciding to become a streamer, broadcaster, on Twitch.tv is to

eventually become a “Partner”. As the Twitch.tv partner tab on their webpage states “Twitch Partners

are an exclusive group of the world's most popular video game broadcasters, personalities, leagues,

teams, and tournaments.” There is a catch however; the exclusivity of the partnering program is due to

the fact that you must apply to become one. When you access the “application page” on Twitch, above

the application form there is a section that details the general guidelines from which the company uses

to determine who would make a good partner. Some of the requirements they recommend that make

for a good applicant are as follows: average concurrent viewership of 500+ (not just a one-time peak),

regular broadcast schedule of at least 3 times a week, and content that conforms to their Terms of

Service and DMCA Guidelines. However, Twitch partnership isn’t just for someone experienced in the

twitch streaming community. Twitch encourages anyone who makes pre-recorded video content, such

as on YouTube, to apply for partnership and begin live streaming using their service. Recommendations

for application of pre-recorded content makers are as follows: Average views per video 15,000+,

subscribers 10,000+, and content that conforms to their Terms of Service and DMCA Guidelines. A final

portion on the application page makes a point that both of these minimum recommended requirements

are simply guidelines and that they include exceptions on a case by case basis. The bottom line is they

are always looking for unique personalities and as they state, “We want the best gaming content out

there, so help us find it!”

If becoming a partner is difficult and exclusive, why would anyone exert the effort to apply to

become one? The answer is simple, money. Becoming a Twitch.tv partner is the best way to monetize

your stream. As the Twitch.tv Partners Overview Tab states, “Earn a share of the revenue generated

from all broadcasts on your channel.” This can be done through two methods, advertisements and

subscriptions.

The first, advertisements, are different ads that the partner has control over for when and how

long to play for their audience. The ads are split into three types. The first is pre-roll advertisements.

These are ads that play as soon as someone “tunes” into your stream. They last anywhere from

15seconds to 1min. Twitch.tv controls the length and selection of the pre-roll adds. The second type is a

mid-roll advertisement. The mid-roll is completely within the control of the Partner. They trigger the

length and frequency of mid-roll advertisements within their own broadcasts. There is a caveat that

Partners can only trigger an add every 8min, but Twitch makes a note to caution that abusing mid-roll

advertisements can be detrimental to a Partner’s brand. The third type is post-roll advertisement. The

post-roll is played at the end of a broadcast, once the Partner goes offline. Examples of any and all

advertisements can run from new games coming out, hardware companies marketing computers, food

products such as Mountain Dew and Doritos, to car companies such as Toyota and Lexus. Twitch.tv are

the ones who handle acquiring the ads from companies, and the broadcast Partners reap the benefits of

getting a cut of the money they earn from broadcasting to all the hundreds of thousands of viewers

they’ve obtained.

The second method that Partners have access to, to monetize their broadcasts is Subscriptions.

As the Twitch.tv Partners Overview tab states, ”With this feature, viewers can purchase a monthly

subscription to your channel in exchange for perks such as a custom chat badge, custom emoticons,

access to subscriber-only chat, and more.” The subscription feature that becoming a partner gives

access to is what I consider to be a chance for a truly charismatic, entrepreneurial, and popular streamer

to earn some serious money. The set price that a viewer pays for a channel subscription is $4.99 USD.

Twitch takes a $1.00 cut and the $4.00 goes to the partner. At first this seems like a very small stream of

income that can barely pay for one Venti Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. However what you need to

keep in mind is that the best streamers realize subscriptions can be their best source of income and as

such employ many tactics to encourage many viewers to subscribe. The results are that a streamer who

has an average nightly viewership of 50,000+ (which is not an unreasonable number) can hope to have

about 5-7% of those viewers subscribe to their channel. That’s 2,500 – 3,500 people subscribed every

month. The low end of that, 2,500 subs, equates to almost $10,000 every month! If you multiply that

out over the course of a year we’re looking at a yearly “salary” of $120,000. Who said playing games was

a waste of time?

Being a Partner on Twitch.tv has many perks. The most important, however, is how Twitch gives

partners access to built in money generating tools. As explained before, there is potential for Partners to

earn some serious cash through subscription options and add-revenue. The reason then that the

partnership is exclusive and has an application process is to maintain a certain level of quality. Anyone

can create an account on Twitch.tv and broadcast their game-play or host a live show. Anyone logged

into Twitch.tv can choose to “bookmark” their favorite streams and follow them. However, Twitch

understands that the streamers who can qualify as Partners will have a consistent viewership of 500+

viewers that come back day after day. Just as with television, Twitch can view these consistent viewers

as a particular demographic and then market Ads to them. Thus the broadcasters who can qualify as

Partners through an application process become valuable assets. The ease of access isn’t the simplest

when becoming a Twitch.tv partner, but the door is open and just requires hard work and dedication.

A Broadcaster, be they a partner or anyone simply streaming, has a lot of control over their

stream. An important part of any broadcaster’s stream is the look and feel of it. Some broadcasters

stream competitive game-play and as such a simpler layout works best. Some broadcasters don’t even

stream game-play at all and instead host daily/weekly “shows” which require something that looks a

little more elaborate. Whatever your purpose in broadcasting a live stream, the ability to customize the

look and feel of your stream is important to building your brand. This customization comes in the forms

of: Chat badges, emoticons, and moderation, Stream overlay, video archives, and Panel Customization.

The chat is a vitally integral part of building a micro-community within the larger ethnographic

community of Twitch.tv. The chat allows viewers to communicate with each other and the broadcaster

in real time while watching the live stream. Even when the broadcaster isn’t live, anyone who visits the

broadcaster’s page and has permission can post to the chat box. What ends up happening is certain

broadcaster’s develop “inside-jokes” between them and their viewers. As such when a viewer types said

obscure phrase or word or whatever it is in the chat, the other “dedicated” viewers understand the

meaning and can share in an “insider” experience. Why this is important to the customization of a

broadcaster’s stream is in chat emoticons, badges, and moderators.

The chat emoticons are actually a feature reserved for Partnered broadcasters, but can be

accessed by anyone with permission on streams. First a partnered broadcaster can apply through Twitch

to add certain mini .jpg’s to be coded to their stream chat. An example of this is “dyrus_ghost” which if

typed exactly like that in the streamer Dyrus’ chat panel, would yield a tiny picture of a ghost next to

whatever else the viewer included in their message. Dyrus personally has 22 unique chat emoticons that

anyone subscribed to his channel can type into the chat. These are relevant and important to his specific

viewership because of a running joke he has about “ghosting” which is a folk term described later on in

the paper. If Dyrus would make a comment about someone “ghosting” him, his community could share

in the joke by typing out their own personal messages to him/themselves and include the “Dyrus_ghost”

picture to add depth to their messages. The Chat emoticons are a simple and minute portion of

customization, but they carry a lot of weight in terms of building a larger more cohesive following for

your personal brand.

While emoticons help add depth to the messages the broadcaster and viewers send each other,

the chat badges help define who is a dedicated or casual viewer. Chat badges are also a feature reserved

for Partnered Twitch broadcasters. If a viewer is subscribed to a channel, when they type into the chat

an icon appears to the left of their name. The broadcaster will have already applied to Twitch for

whatever the icon can be, but it also always is a small .jpg that is somehow important to the Partner.

Thus when dedicated viewers of a stream type into chat, everyone will see that they are someone who

subscribes to the channel. This gives another level of depth for a micro-community that might form

around a popular Twitch Streamer. A side note is the broadcaster has his/her own special chat badge

that signifies them as the owner of the stream. The final thing about chat badges is there is another tier

of badges above subscriber badges, those would be moderator badges. This then brings us to the

customization option of moderators and moderation.

Any broadcaster, be they Partnered or not, has the ability to moderate their chat. Twitch

understands however that in the middle of a game it can be nearly impossible to monitor and moderate

a chat room full of tens of thousands of people. As such, every broadcaster has the ability to add

whomever they choose to be a moderator of their channel. These moderators have full permissions that

the broadcaster would have to run the chat room. These permissions include: Banning words or phrases,

banning users, putting the chat room into “slow mode”, putting the chat room into “sub-only” mode,

and allowing/disallowing links. The two options of slow or sub modes are restrictions on which viewers

have permissions to post into the chat. The slow mode simply means that all viewers must allow 30

seconds between each message posted. This cuts down on people spamming the chat. The sub mode

only allows people who are subscribed to post into the chat. The majority of the moderators jobs tend

to be around banning people from the chat and/or policing the chat for words/phrases that the

broadcaster has established as “off-limits”. The broadcaster and moderators can literally type out a

word or phrase that when is attempted to be submitted will just be omitted from the chat entirely, but

trolls do exist and they find fancy ways of spelling things to get around this base level of protection. As

such a moderator can delete the offending comment, and subsequently ban the offending poster from

the chat room. Moderators are important to a broadcaster as they serve proxy as the broadcaster’s rule.

While the chat is important in establishing the “tone” of the language of your video stream, a

broadcaster’s “overlay” can be seen as the backdrop of which they set their scene. An overlay is a tricky

thing because it is something that a streamer must go outside of the normal Twitch.tv service to obtain.

When a streamer is streaming you see the viewable stream, and a portion where they have allowed a

camera to be put on themselves. This is the basic set-up for game streams. A stream that is more of a

show would have the entire screen be the camera of them and their co-hosts. What an overlay is, is

something coded by a 3rd party that sits on top of the video that is streamed to the Twitch.tv servers and

subsequently to the viewers. Streamers can customize the look, color, text, images, and whatever else

they want in their overlays as long as it fits within the Twitch Terms of Service and DMCA Guidelines.

Examples of overlays for professional gamers can be of their sponsor’s products. Cell phone companies

such as Samsung are major sponsors for many E-sports teams, and their players who stream their game-

play have overlays that feature the name Samsung in the corner. Other popular examples of overlays

are count-downs. Partnered broadcasters who have access to a subscription option sometimes

incorporate a portion of their overlay to show an X out of Y showing how many new subscribers they

want until they do something. This is an effective and popular tactic that when the motivation is good,

like the broadcaster raffling off prizes to subscribers, can get viewers to subscribe to their stream. There

are also more interactive elements that can be incorporated to stream overlays. When someone

donates money to a broadcaster or even subscribes there are some overlays that have a graphic pop up

or special music that plays. A popular streamer imaqtpie has an overlay that plays a song “money money

money” whenever someone donates to him. All these elements of overlays add a look and feel to a

broadcaster’s stream that help further define the uniqueness of that specific micro-community.

Another aspect of customization that the broadcaster has control over is his video archive.

Twitch.tv automatically archives the past month’s recordings after every live broadcast. When a viewer

wants to access the archive, the first option presented to them is “highlights”. This is a special section

from which the broadcaster can indefinitely save past broadcasts he deems as worthy. Thus a viewer is

presented with past videos the broadcaster wants his publics to see first. Examples of these from the

popular stream Day[9] are informative broadcasts teaching first time players to play the game Starcraft

2. What is important in terms of a customization aspect here is that Day[9] presents himself as a teacher

of games and his brand being overall an informative place to learn. By placing his best intro to game

videos in his Highlights section of past broadcasts he is indirectly announcing that he wants to teach

people.

Finally, the place that Twitch officially provides all broadcasters with the maximum amount of

creativity and customization is the “panels”. The panels are the area below the video portion of a

broadcaster’s page. When in broadcaster edit mode, you are given the option to add as many panels as

you want that stack vertically. You can add any images and text, within the Terms of Service and DMCA

Guidelines of course, into these panels. Here is where extended bios of a player are written. If a player is

part of a professional e-sports team that is sponsored, this is where they advertise those sponsorships

and provide links to their sponsor’s websites. Some more enterprising players have, as I have briefly

mentioned before, added “donate” buttons. These donate buttons are linked to PayPal services and are

literally just that, donations. Some streamers have linked their overlays to their donate buttons and have

a scrolling text across their broadcasts that list “top donators of the month!” that say the name provided

upon donation and the amount donated. Other streamers have an option where they donator can leave

a small message that the broadcaster is entitled to read, if it’s appropriate that is. Finally, the panels

section is very important because it is here that smart broadcasters provide links to their other media

platforms such as Facebook, twitter, WordPress, and YouTube.

Customization is an important aspect of building a unique micro-community within the greater

Twitch streaming community. The tools are provided, and with enough creativity a good broadcaster

can shape a dedicated and loyal following from the masses of viewers. The amount of effort, time, and

dedication put into a broadcast is very evident and the viewers can see this. With hard work comes loyal

followers, with enough loyal followers comes the ability to be accepted as a Twitch Partner, and with a

Twitch Partnership comes your reward for your dedication to the streaming community.

Viewership

As previously stated, there are two roles that are filled in the Twitch.tv streaming community.

Broadcasters have been shown to be the producers of the content. The viewers are the consumers of

said content. Without the viewers there would be no reason for the producers to even exist. The

Viewers are the lifeblood of the community, their capriciousness nature detail the rise and fall of

broadcasters. They are the ones that come together in the hundreds of thousands to form communities

surrounding not just games, but the patron broadcasters of those games. There are two major ways in

which a viewer impacts the greater twitch community. These are through “following” a broadcaster and

interacting in twitch chat.

When a viewer logs onto Twitch.tv they are first presented with a list of the “live streams” that

they follow. Whenever anyone logged onto twitch goes to a broadcaster’s page, there is an option to

“follow” them. Once done they are linked to that page for as long as they wish, and their home

dashboard will update to show if that broadcaster is ever “live streaming”. In addition to having all the

live broadcasters they’ve followed appear first on their dashboard, viewers can set up to receive

notifications when a broadcaster goes live. I personally follow 27 different broadcasters and have email

and text notifications when 5 of those 27 go live with their daily streams. The broadcasters that I follow

all have stable schedules from which they stream every week, but it’s still exciting to get a notification

on my phone saying that Numot_the_Nummy has just “gone live”.

Following these broadcasters is more than just watching a live show. This is because when you

follow a broadcaster you are also accepting the micro-community they have developed around them.

Following a broadcaster means that you are also a follower within that community and with enough

time observing them you can pick up on their specific language and mannerisms. Each community that

follows a broadcaster is still generally bound within the greater Twitch community. However, just as

Southerners in the US speak and act differently than Northerners, so do the League of Legends viewers

speak and act differently than the Magic the Gathering Online viewers. They are different games with

different broadcasters, and I’ve had the opportunity to experience both ends of that spectrum. What

the major differences really comes down to, besides the obvious differences in games, is what brings me

to my second major point about viewership.

A viewer fully immerses themselves within the twitch community once they participate within a

broadcaster’s chat room. Chatting and using the folk terms of the micro-community of a broadcaster

and the larger pool of folk terms all of Twitch chat is the most visible way in which viewers participate

within the overall ethnographic community found on Twitch.tv. As previously stated, each Partnered

broadcaster has additional unique emoticons that their viewers can use within their chats. In addition to

the partnered unique emotes, the larger Twitch community has over 100 different “basic” emotes that

are all unique in nature. These emotes can be used within any chat of any broadcaster, with the caveat

of them not being banned by said broadcaster. These emoticons represent different pictures, actions,

phrases, and emotions. While not all folk terms are derived simply from these general twitch chat

emoticons, many are.

A good few examples of the folk terms for general Twitch Chat are: Ghosting, Kappa, salt/salty,

Hype train, rekt/shrekt, and sniping. The use of ghosting and sniping are almost synonymous. Sniping is

when you watch a streamer playing a game, and you try and maneuver yourself in the same game they

are playing to be entered in their specific match. If the streamer is playing a game that requires them to

put themselves in a queue that would then launch them into a “match”, to snipe someone you would

enter in the queue at the same time as the streamer so that you could try and make it into the same

game as them. Ghosting then is when you are playing in the same game as a streamer and watching

their stream at the same time. You then would have an unfair advantage over the streamer because not

only can you see exactly what they are doing, the streamer usually announces their moves or plays etc

in a teaching sense to their viewers. Next, the term Hype Train is when referencing something that has

become super popular. Usually this is reserved for whatever the larger gaming community is getting

overly excited about. It’s mainly used in a sarcastic sense and when one person posts something about

it, there can be sure to follow a slew of 30 other unique posts of people typing Hype Train, in essence

making a “hype train”. The terms rekt/shrekt are interchangeable and are used when someone is

making a point about someone or something be utterly defeated in some way; Examples of this are if a

character died in a brutal fashion he was “rekt” or even if the streamer himself made a glaring mistake

that everyone saw and paid dearly for it in game, someone might say he “got shrekt”. The Term Salt/

being salty or any form or reference to salt is a VERY common folk term. It has even transcended

Twitch.tv and made its way into mainstream media and everyday speech. Being Salty or any reference to

salt is a folk term for frustration, anger, sadness, and overall disgruntled gamer rage. There is a general

Twitch chat emoticon badge that anyone can type into any chat channel that represents a salt shaker

and this combined with the general adage “salt in the wound” is what gave birth to this specific folk

term. It is now widely used to commiserate failures and trash talk losers. It is the perfect representation

for frustration in the Twitch chat. Finally the last general folk term that I’ll go over here is unique, it’s

“Kappa”. Kappa can either be typed or switched out for the icon it represents because it is also a general

twitch chat emoticon. The emoticon is the face of one of the founders of Twitch.tv and the face is one of

someone looking very…sly. This face gave birth to the meaning behind Kappa which represents sarcasm.

Being that sarcasm is generally very hard to convey over the internet and through text, Kappa has been

Twitch chat’s way to perfectly convey this emotion. When someone wants to be sarcastic they type out

whatever it is they are saying and somewhere, be it at the beginning or end or even somewhere

randomly in the middle, Kappa then anyone reading the message will know it’s sarcasm. Inserting the

face is just as good if not better than actually typing Kappa.

The use of these and other hundreds of unique folk terms signifies to the other viewers that

they are part of an “in-crowd”. They understand how to communicate within the larger community. It is

by embracing and speaking the folk terms that viewers become more than viewers but part of

something larger. They are no longer just gamers who happen to love the same games, but an online

community who interacts daily with one another.

Twitch.tv is a medium through which an online community has formed and thrives. What

enables this is consistent new content produced by the members of the community, and the ability for

the community to speak with each other in a chat in real time. The amount of time and dedication put

into creating excellent looking broadcasts shows the commitment of the streamers, and the viewers

respond by pledging monthly subscriptions and maintaining a fierce sense of loyalty to “their streamer”.

This loyalty persists outside of the Twitch bubble and into other media realms that the streamer might

own and operate such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube. The Ethnography of Twitch.tv is

defined by the intimacy by which they form bonds within their own groups, whilst still being merely an

“online community”. They are a community of gamers; they are the future of gamers.

Bibliography

Phillips, Andrea (2012-06-21). A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences across Multiple Platforms (p. 154). McGraw-Hill Education. Kindle Edition.

Twitch. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://www.twitch.tv/