This second experience was far more enjoyable than my first. For my second exploration into critically watching video game streamers, I chose someone with a much smaller audience based on the number of viewers rather than the game category. The streamer this time was Tomamoto, a person I was aware of but had never watched, with a respectable 210 viewers.
The first immediate difference from the first streamer was that when I began viewing, Tomamoto was talking to chat with the game paused, and did so for about 20 minutes. Throughout this time, I developed a sense of his personality as he read every chat message, which included an enormous amount of fake ‘lore’ about him, which I quickly caught on to. This developed into what felt like a cult of personality, but not in a cult leader way, just in a parasocial relationship ‘filling in the gaps with ridiculous lies’ way. Every donation he received put the corresponding amount of images of his head into a jar that slowly filled, which when overflowing, resulted in him pulling out his ‘scimitomar’, a scimitar. He made a reference to an episode of ‘Always Sunny’, in which I made a comment also referencing it and he responded very positively.
Throughout this whole stream, I felt so engaged and involved with what he was saying, especially when he was actually playing the game, which was a marble racing game that integrated with twitch. This allowed viewers to put their names on marbles and race them while Tomamoto commentated. With this and his interaction, it was a far more enjoyable and personal feeling stream than iiTzTimmy, and this sparked another epiphany. It shifted my thinking from ‘Big streamers are big because they have unique and interesting content, visuals, language etc’ to ‘Do big streamers need to have unique and interesting content etc?’ A lot to think about after this stream, which I will continue to develop on.
Rough Notes Below
- Chose a person I knew this time, got a notification on my phone and decided to watch
- Went on the morning the time when they first started streaming
- As someone I knew I liked, I was much more looking forward to this compared to the previous unknown streamer
- Was playing marbles, not taking it very seriously
- Constant talking with chat, more so than playing the game
- Reached a certain donation goal and pulled out a scimitar (scimitomar)
- Made a reference to Always Sunny, I commented the quote from it and he responded to my message, made me feel really good and engaged with the stream
- Focused more on reading and interacting with chat than playing the game
- Made his personality more the focus, every donation is greatly appreciated and becomes the focus of the stream for a minute
- Lots of on screen things, webcam, donation jar that represents how far until the next goal
- Logo comes up when donation, nice sounds and image make it feel rewarding even when someone else does it
- The chat were generally focusing on him rather than the game, made it feel much more engaging
- Talking about what he’s doing in his life and how his channel (youtube and twitch) is going, felt more like a Q&A than a game stream
- The marble game was integrated with Twitch, allowing viewers to take part in the game. This integration made the stream so enjoyable and I had a personal stake in it, my name was on a marble
James Burnes 