What Kind of Twitch Viewer Are You?
While my “treadmill thoughts” at the fitness center are usually along the lines of, “Ok, self, let’s introspect why we’re depressed today and whether that’s from internal or external forces,” yesterday I was knocking around the idea of creating a Twitch viewer survey.
I’m not a fan of making any such thing, but I admit that when I’ve been approached in the past about paid opportunities, they often want to know my demographics, which have conveniently been obfuscated by platforms in a means to not hold user information they don’t need to collect or look after.
Most of the companies care about the basics, age, region, and gender1 because they’re usually trying to increase awareness of a product. I, on the other hand, am generally only curious about such surveys because I want to know what kind of content my viewers want to see on the channel.
I have no problem choosing games on my own, but I don’t want to throw too many curveballs if people are coming looking for Animal Crossing and I’ve decided to play DOOM that day.
Generally my streams are pretty chill. I hesitate to say “cozy” because that’s sort of become a muddled genre of both games and streamers. But I do find myself curious about what kind of viewers I have out there in the audience. So the survey question would be something like…
Do you consider yourself to be:
- an active viewer – chats often to streamers and others, uses channel redeems, comments on gameplay
- a passive viewer – says hi, doesn’t chat much, mostly lurks and listens
- a feral gremlin – has multiple tabs open with different streams, chats across them as best they can, combines tabs after raids
I always try not to look at the viewer numbers, it’s one bit of streamer advice I agree with. But it’s nice to know if people see your channel as a place to chill and lurk vs. being super chatty. I’ve seen more than one anxious streamer constantly looking at their chat window to see if anyone’s there. And it is hard to say, “Just relax and don’t worry about it.” But I force myself, and I do my roughly 2 and half hours streaming and that’s that.
I personally feel weird being on stream longer than the length of a major motion picture. This is no shade to people who stream for hours and hours on end, but I know I’d be exhausted trying to hold viewer attention for so long, plus I’m a grown up who lives alone that has things to do or they don’t get done.
Because I stream weekend mornings, 8am Eastern time, I tend to assume that it’s lurk o’clock for most US viewers, and I’m happy that others pop in from across the Atlantic. Even so, I’d have to say regardless of the game that those are “chill” streams. I’ve only been awake for a few hours and it’s the weekend, I’m not taxing my brain or being super high energy.
Still… regardless, whatever kind of viewer you are, know that your presence is appreciated whether you chat up a storm, immediately lurk, or post something to the wrong channel because you have 5 streams up at once… you gremlin. 😂
- I bet I could make the form as inclusive as possible, but a company rep wouldn’t care past “men” or “women” anyway. ↩︎
Do you consider yourself to be:
an active viewer – chats often to streamers and others, uses channel redeems, comments on gameplay
a passive viewer – says hi, doesn’t chat much, mostly lurks and listens
a feral gremlin – has multiple tabs open with different streams, chats across them as best they can, combines tabs after raids
I am all of the above 😀 If there’s maybe 1-10 people active in chat, I’m much more likely to be also active in the conversation.
Also just depends on how many spoons I have, sometimes I’m just talked out and disassociate unless I hear/read something I want to respond to. I appreciate lurk friendly streams. I also follow enough people that I almost always have 2-3 people I would like to watch, so, I’m often in multiple tabs.
I tend to lurk in streams a lot, especially when they’re during my workday. So I might have multiple tabs open, but the only thing I’ve said is “Hi.” And sometimes not even that when it’s a close friend streaming because I can’t necessarily engage in conversation-via-chat at the moment.
I think I’m an active viewer. Despite finally getting there when you’re almost done, I still like being at streams.
Definitely active. You always say hi when you’re able to hang out and I appreciate it. Especially since my streams don’t always work well with your mornings–sleep is far more important than watching me–and work breaks!
Definitely a lurker when I’m able to make it. To your point, the time of your streams don’t generally align well with when I am clicking through Twitch, which normally happens for a short bit after work or potentially later on a weekend day. And even if I catch you (or other streamers) I almost always fall into lurking, although occasionally I’ll make myself known. As someone who’s done a stream here or there I’m aware of the impact that can have on a streamer.
As nice as it is to have a bunch of people stop by, I still see streams as the equivalent of TV. It may be on in the background while you do other things, or you might actively engage in it, with the bonus of being able to live chat with others and the streamer. I’m a big lurker myself!
While it’s great to know people watching are active, it’s also a good thing to try to ignore in a way because it detracts from focusing on streaming in a way I enjoy vs. trying to shift what I’m doing to satisfy each and every potential viewer.
I am somewhere between:
An Active Viewer and A Feral Gremlin
I usually have one or two streams up, and add comments when I feel i have something to say, sometimes (OK, often) in some form of word play.
I like your streams as they are usually pretty chill on the weekends, and your commentary makes me chuckle. It is a good way to ease into the weekend as I putter around making breakfast and planning my day.
Perfect! If I could just play Saturday Morning Cartoons on stream, I’d do that. Because that’s about the level of engagement anyone should be concerned with at that time of day!