What the actual **** is the deal with the streamer culture?

[RampageBW1]

My brother watches streams all the time, I don't care.

I watch youtube Lets Plays to see which games I may be interested in, or how someone else plays a game I do play. I don't see a problem with people watching other people playing games.

[WintersLegion]

My brother watches streams all the time, I don't care.

I watch youtube Lets Plays to see which games I may be interested in, or how someone else plays a game I do play. I don't see a problem with people watching other people playing games.

Yeah I have a few Youtubers I like to watch a lot of times the games I watch them play are ones I would never play myself but enjoy watching them play. Like Drea and his Gold Rush series.

[Nnyco]

There's nothing social about streams though. It's just a bunch of people worshipping the streamer and vying for his/her attention by trying to post funny comments at the right time. It's a one way street with people getting dope rushes from the streamer calling out their name when they donate or subscribe. Which strikes me as extremely weird and predatory.

Its just as social as your boomer tantrum here on the forums.

[freezion]

There's nothing social about streams though. It's just a bunch of people worshipping the streamer and vying for his/her attention by trying to post funny comments at the right time. It's a one way street with people getting dope rushes from the streamer calling out their name when they donate or subscribe. Which strikes me as extremely weird and predatory.

i think there's a huge difference in what kind of streamer people are and why they stream.
Do they do it to become successful/popular, or just because they like doing it for fun?

Bunch of my acquaintances and friends stream for the shits and giggles, and don't have any donation systems.
Some of them regularly bring in some of their viewers on occasional basis to participate in whatever they're doing on the stream.

I dont really watch streams myself, and i agree that the culture surrounding the big and popular streamers is weird, but some of them do host event and small community services for their viewers AFAIK.
Some streamers are shitty, some are decent blokes.

But is it really any different than people being obsessed with any other internet celebrity (or real life celebrities for that sake)?
You know, sending stuff to youtubers for review videos, the horde of people running around in orgrimmar screaming ''WHERE IS KUNGEN'' and whatnot.
Or people so obsessed with a football/music/movie star they they have posters, cutouts and go to events in hope to get a meet-and-greet.

[XangXu]

When does it become a problem when every young person doesn’t want to do work that benefits society? What happens when every kid getting out of school aims to become a youtube star? Or someone who makes video games? Or any other “fun” job that doesn't contribute.

I mean studying to be a doctor is pretty hard, but on the other hand, we need doctors.

[Acidbaron]

When does it become a problem when every young person doesn’t want to do work that benefits society? What happens when every kid getting out of school aims to become a youtube star? Or someone who makes video games? Or any other “fun” job that doesn't contribute.

I mean studying to be a doctor is pretty hard, but on the other hand, we need doctors.

You mean like how this is different from when i was younger and everyone wanted to become an actor or musician or some top skateboarder or other sport that was -in- at the time?

Reality hits them at a certain age like a brick and they end up getting a job.

People aspire to different things even if we took youtube and video games away we still would not have enough doctors and engineers to fill in all the positions required. One can also make the case that for some video games and computers introduce them to coding, something that should be a base line course from young age in this world in my opinion.

Of course we could plan to take away our kids freedom and childhoods and force them into certain positions like some asian countries are doing more and more. That surely would not lead to miserable lives however /s

[Tziva]

When does it become a problem when every young person doesn’t want to do work that benefits society? What happens when every kid getting out of school aims to become a youtube star? Or someone who makes video games? Or any other “fun” job that doesn't contribute.

I really don't think the core of this has changed that much over time, just the way it manifests.

I actually had a conversation not too long ago with a friend of mine who has been a high school teacher for over twenty years. He was commenting how every other student wants to be some kind of content creator or "influencer" as an adult, wherein when he started it was like professional athlete or actor or supermodel or other kind of celebrity/entertainer. It's just the specific kind that changes based on whatever is hot in pop culture at the time.

I think a lot of teenagers just go through the phase where their plans include some unrealistic job. Those jobs are seldom useful. It doesn't end up being a problem to society because those jobs are also nearly impossible to actually achieve except for an extreme minority of people and they quickly discover they have to actually seek out a "real" job.

[Orby]

Call me old-fashioned but I don't understand what's so fun about watching someone else play a game that you could be playing yourself. But anyway I finally caved in and decided to watch a couple of streams that seemed "fun".

WHAT THE ACTUAL **** IS THIS?

There are people in the chat who are actually UNIRONICALLY chatting with the streamers like they're their friends?

The streamer is NOT your friend. You're just a source of $$$ to them. They're not mentioning your name or laughing at your "clever comments" because they like you. They want you to subscribe and donate.

This is like a more cringe-y version of camgirls. Just like those greasy old farts who think they'll have a chance with a camgirl by throwing $$$ at her, stream viewers think they'll... somehow become friends with the streamer by throwing $$$ at them?

If you want friends, just play the damn game and talk to people. That's a way faster and more genuine way to make friends on-line.

It's just today's version of the early 90's video game shows, a bunch of people playing video games who we watch to be entertained by.



Games world especially had various gimmicks. But the games are only one reason to tune in,. its the entertainement value you get with your streamer.

Now I will admit I am not a huge streamer watcher, at least the people I watch are not really hardcore streamers, they are more Youtubers who just pop on to stream. But streaming has helped me find out if a game is good.

Watching a streamer play a game you like can be a great wy of checking out games you are not sure about. Thanks to people Like Jesse, Cox and Totalbiscuit (RIP), I wouldn't own half the games in my steam library, or as many lol.

When I was a kid I used to watch a TV called Bad Influence... (This will give you an idea of how old I am) This show just introduced us to video games and what they were like. Fronted my entertaining presenters, although that hasn't aged well on retrospective :P



These sort of things are no different than video game streamers today. Well at leas the variety streamers I occasionally watch, I am not a hardcore stream watcher, I just watch those who I see from Youtube who I have been following for 10 years who just pop on to stream. :P

Ther ar some awful streamers it's true, but there are some fun ones.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

People enjoy watching different things and not much more to say about that. But where it gets odd is with the for and against stream viewers that zombie around the streamer constantly in game. I mean I am a big LA Lakers fan but I never thought about following Kobe or LaBron around so I could make it into some selfies. Or find them at a ball court so I could throw money at them. I just watch the game on TV from time to time and enjoy the highlights on sports center.

[Yriel]

I watch a few GTA RP streamers, they are very entertaining.
But i, too, don't understand the money thing. I don't really understand why people give them money in the first place but then you often have this strange competitions, where two or three donors give increasingly more money just to 1up the others and i'm thinking "Yeah you are number one now but you spend like 500 Dollars for nothing". And then one the others tops it anyway.
This may not be much money for them (although i'm not sure, there are a lot of big spenders in bars and casinos who don't really have the money but do so anyway) but it's so useless.. in bars or casinos you can at least have a bit of fun, just giving it to a streamer.... i'm too old for that shit.

[eoyeffteedubz]

I always have a stream open on my side screen and I actually never watch streams of games I play. I enjoy live music streams and small communities where I can make jokes with the other people in chat and stuff. Idk its just background noise while I do whatever on the computer.

[Kokolums]

I don't think it's really surprising that people entertain themselves with shitty entertainment, the late 90's and reality TV already proved without the shadow of a doubt that this was viable and highly lucrative. What I don't get is that people actually settle for streaming. There is so much content out there, why settle for shitty streaming content which is the lowest of the lowest form of content. Utterly devoid of effort. You could have at least edited and enrichted content instead.

Is the most superficial and downright fake "inter"action with the content creator really worth the added noise to the program? It does nothing but inflate the runtime with void.

Polling data of generations Y and Z show a massive collapse in trust in the system. Given a choice between edited, enriched and polished corporate content and home grown streamers, my guess is they would reject the system processed content and go for organic styles.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Polling data of generations Y and Z show a massive collapse in trust in the system. Given a choice between edited, enriched and polished corporate content and home grown streamers, my guess is they would reject the system processed content and go for organic styles.

I mean even if you don't trust TV (hardly surprising), why not go for a video on any of the platforms that actually had the presenter cut out the half an hour he went to the shitter or stuffed his face with cheetos. Streaming is just unfiltered shit and while I get the easy rebuttal here because of my choice of word, streamers are still not "real" either. They are just the epitome of low effort and poor presentation.

I get that twitch paid alot better than youtube or the other video hosters, but even then it was only viable because people settled for this.

[s_bushido]

I get that twitch paid alot better than youtube or the other video hosters, but even then it was only viable because people settled for this.

"Settled" for what. Content you don't personally enjoy? Hate to break it to you, but your personal opinion on what constitutes acceptable forms of entertainment means jack shit to anyone but yourself.

[Mekkle]

Ok Boomer.

[Cosmic Janitor]

"Settled" for what. Content you don't personally enjoy? Hate to break it to you, but your personal opinion on what constitutes acceptable forms of entertainment means jack shit to anyone but yourself.

Well since you already cut the part of my post in which I state why I think (live) streaming is objectively worse than streaming of a static video, I'm not really sure what you want from me. I guess it's good that you said something at least. *applause*

[Muajin76]

Call me old-fashioned but I don't understand what's so fun about watching someone else play a game that you could be playing yourself. But anyway I finally caved in and decided to watch a couple of streams that seemed "fun".

WHAT THE ACTUAL **** IS THIS?

There are people in the chat who are actually UNIRONICALLY chatting with the streamers like they're their friends?

The streamer is NOT your friend. You're just a source of $$$ to them. They're not mentioning your name or laughing at your "clever comments" because they like you. They want you to subscribe and donate.

This is like a more cringe-y version of camgirls. Just like those greasy old farts who think they'll have a chance with a camgirl by throwing $$$ at her, stream viewers think they'll... somehow become friends with the streamer by throwing $$$ at them?

If you want friends, just play the damn game and talk to people. That's a way faster and more genuine way to make friends on-line.

This just in! Not all streamers are the same.

[batuhandemirtas]

Its just another source of entertainment? You could either be a fan of a twitch streamer because you like their gameplay?. Streams are also very educational regardless of what genre