Twitch’s Hottest New Thing: Vlogging
The video game streaming site is seeing a rise in people streaming anything but games
In 2016, two years after Amazon bought the company for $970 million, the livestream giant Twitch introduced the largest change ever implemented on the platform.
The website, known for its dominance in esports broadcasting and the burgeoning world of video game livestreaming, announced it would allow content not related to video games within its digital ecosystem.
Since opening its virtual doors to content outside the video game industry, Twitch has hosted an array of non-gaming content including partnerships to broadcast live sports with the NFL and Major League Soccer (MLS), and a catalog of classic TV shows like Power Rangers and Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting — the latter a meme-driven movement that pushed the late painter to be reborn as an internet celebrity in his own right.
The majority of non-gaming content on Twitch exists today within the world of “Just Chatting”, a category on Twitch presented the same as any video game. “Just Chatting” is the third most-watched category on Twitch, surpassing games like Overwatch, Dota 2 and Apex Legends. During the first half of 2019, the section’s popularity rose by 55% compared to the same period the previous year…
