First, it was this blog. Then, it was YouTube. Now, it’s Twitch.
About a year ago, my wife started her Twitch channel as a way to try her hand at more video games, connect with some friends, and experiment with a new performance medium. She had so much fun that I thought I should dip my toe in. I had tried livestreaming once or twice before – a million years ago, as a follow-up event to a 48-hour film competition when Twitch was still justin.tv, and again early in the pandemic to share some early experiments in making a video game. So I’m not a complete stranger to the concept.
I started streaming in June 2024, doing creative projects on stream. I started with making a prototype of a game I’ve been thinking about for a long time, a retro cyberpunk vehicle combat game for mobile and PC that I’m calling bHopper.
Soon, I added a couple of games to the mix, including the VEIN demo, a zombie survival game in the vein (ha) of DayZ. And I started another game project, Erm Lab. I’ve streamed some tech-oriented projects, like upgrading my Framework laptop, and turning my Surface Pro 3 into a cursed Ubuntu computer. I’ve streamed various VR projects I’m into, including the struggling indie darling BattleGlide and Team Beef’s incredible JKXR mod by that turns the 20-year-old Jedi Knight II into a full VR experience.
And I’ve done art streams, drawing or doing design for 3D printing projects in Fusion 360. The channel is evolving a personality and a lore. The day I first put pen to paper on this post, I spent about four hours streaming the revival of the 2013 MMO shooter game DEFIANCE, which delighted me to no end. I could barely contain my joy at the game’s return, and the sentiment was clearly shared by the other players.
But I hadn’t, and frankly still haven’t, spent a lot of time watching Twitch. To be charitable, it’s often just not my thing. To be uncharitable, I don’t like a lot of it, and large swaths of it I would classify as bad or even harmful. I don’t like watching someone stream a game nearly as much as I like watching a host talk about a game on YouTube in a scripted way, and I don’t like it as much as playing a video game myself, either. Often (but not always) I find the streamer detracts from the game, and vice versa. Often (but not always) I find streamers’ heavy reliance on cursing and being crude to be unfunny and uninteresting. (And I’m no prude, despite the wholesome brand. My hangup is, at least tell a joke with it.) And even in my niche – streaming creative stuff – I simply don’t spend enough time at my computer or in front of a screen where I’m not otherwise doing chores or tasks to develop a stable of streamers I like to check in on.
All of this adds up to a feeling of being at a party that I was invited to and people are happy enough to have me at, but that is clearly not for me, and that’s weird. I enjoy it. I’m immensely grateful to my regulars, who are delightful and who I am always super happy to chat with. But I have a hard time shaking this feeling of “what am I doing here?” even when I’m having fun with it. And I am having fun with it.
In the time-honoured tradition of overthinkers everywhere, I started putting together a little pro/con list.
Pro: The “Share” is immediate.
The hardest part of the Love Make Share mission has always been the “Share.” At one point I recorded a podcast pilot called “Step Three,” which was meant to be a place to talk about projects and whatnot in a looser, more freeform way. It still ended up with me trying to over-script things and over-produce them. I often put too much pressure on writing blog posts as well to say something novel and comprehensive. And it gives me hives to just turn on a camera and start recording for YouTube. All of this adds up to a lack of documentation of my projects and creative work, and a general lack of sharing. The medium of streaming doesn’t really allow for that constant second-guessing, writing, and rewriting. It’s creation as content.
Con: Streams are Ephemeral.
But then what? Where does it go after that? What’s the impact and the product when you stream?
The rational part of my brain says, “it’s live theatre, the product is the experience of watching it live.” But that’s never been my medium. Everything else I do produces a text or an object or a piece of art that can be shared, published, documented, revisited. It becomes part of a body of work. I don’t really know how to parse having work that vanishes. Sure, I can download VODs from Twitch and edit them into stream highlights for YouTube, or publish clips to the channel. But then it adds steps to sharing and with time already at a premium, it makes me wonder how much I’m really succeeding in “Share.”
Mixed: Twitch is (Para)Social.
Creating can be lonely work. Writing, which is arguably the creative pursuit I’ve invested the most time in, is especially so. And so cracking open the workshop door, as it were, to let people in and see the process live, is extremely cool. I make mistakes all the time, and have to fix them in real time, and it seems like people appreciate that and enjoy going on the journey.
But it is worth remembering that these are not replacements for actual engagement and interaction in real life, and while I feel like I have developed genuine relationships with many of my regulars (and some are people I know in real life as well) it’s all still mediated by the technology and filtered through an element of performance. I don’t go out of my way to perform, but I am always aware that I am on camera, and engaging in a one-to-many interaction. So, while it’s me, and real, and I’m not playing a character or intentionally heightening my delivery, it’s also arguably not genuine. The act of observing changes the state of the thing, etc. I am cautious about putting too much weight on the social aspect of Twitch… while also really enjoying the social aspect of Twitch.
Mixed: It’s a Set Amount of Dedicated Time, On A Schedule.
I have a hard time carving out time for myself and my projects. It’s kind of incredible that I am now, fairly successfully, finding three to four hours of sustained project time every week, where I can both work on a project and educate on how and why I’m making creative and technical choices. I like to think I’m also demystifying some of the forms I work in. I hope I’m making game dev seem more accessible. It’s extremely cool.
At the same time, streams almost definitionally need to be long enough to capture an audience and sustain their interest and engagement. So the days of jumping on my computer or running into the shop and doing an hour of work on a project, in and around a busy schedule, are kind of over. If I’m going to stream, it’s got to be for a block of time, and there’s friction there.
Con: Streaming Creates Opportunity Cost for Non-Stream-Friendly Forms.
On the one hand, doing it live has substantial benefits.
On the other hand, it limits the type of projects I work on.
I love game dev and 3D modeling and visual art. They lend themselves well to an audio-visual medium where I can show my work and comment on what I’m doing. But arguably, first and foremost, I am a writer. I’m never going to be wildly successful off the backs of bHopper or Erm Lab, no matter how much I like those video game projects. I definitely won’t get there off of streaming alone. Writing is arguably where my greatest successes will be as a creator. And I don’t stream writing.
There are writers who stream. Shout-out to friend Krista Walsh, who does so very successfully. It’s a sort of co-working arrangement, where people work together as accountability buddies and get to share what they do. At some point, I might do the same. But for now, I don’t have a version of a writing stream that feels authentic to me.
Streams, like I said, are long. I only have so many hours in a week to dedicate to craft. And so when I choose to stream, it means that I’m taking substantial dedicated time away from projects that are not so stream-friendly.
At some point I hope I get over it, but right now, every stream is an exercise in managing the guilt of not building towards my future as a writer, recognizing the opportunity cost of not dedicating time to my writing.
Con: The Slop Problem.
There’s almost no way to say this without sounding condescending, but I’ll try.
Like I said at the top, there’s a real limited slice of Twitch that I really enjoy. I think a lot of media on the algorithmically-driven social internet is slop. (Hot take, I know.) There are people whose goal is entertainment, first and foremost. More power to them. I’m not one. I’m not a performer, I’m a creator and an educator. I feel uncomfortable contributing to the attention (or worse, distraction) economy. I want to create space for collaborative creativity.
It’s hard to see people very successfully performing overblown reactions, filling their screen with colourful widgets and calls to action, and not feel drawn to do the same to optimize for growth and earnings. It’s hard to observe the difference in channel growth between when I play video games and when I do creative work, and not draw the conclusion that I should do less art and play more games.
The draw to create slop is strong and I don’t care for it. I feel constantly at odds with the conventions and incentives of the platform I’m using. And I’m just not confident enough yet in what I’m doing on Twitch to not resent that tension.
Pro: An Education in Yappin’.
I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but no matter how many meetings and calls I take for my day job, no matter how many presentations and workshops I lead, the more I stream, the more confident a speaker I am. The brain-mouth connection feels quicker and more sophisticated than it used to. And I’ve never wanted for words (he says, 1800 words into this essay), but they come easier and better now than they ever did.
Conclusion
Plot twist: there is no real conclusion here. I feel about Twitch much the way I do about most of the algorithmically-driven internet, which is, as the kids say, not great. I’m getting a ton out of it. It feels increasingly like a form I can make my own and increasingly like a form whose conventions and incentives run counter to my own. It’s changing my creative priorities but I don’t mind the new ones. The connections are parasocial but they’re meaningful. I’m sharing more but preserving less.
It’s a big bright ball of contradictions, but it’s a joyful one. And for now, conflicted feelings notwithstanding, that joy is valuable.
As always, folks, paddle your own canoe.
– Trevor
