{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/Primestreaming","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"Prime.streaming","excerpt":"For students who stream, their hobby is a constant balancing act.","headline":"Live From the College Dorm","author":"Paco Bacalski","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/Prime.streaming/Copy_of_IMG_3034-2942337b5c5216a2d6dce205e8b158d8.jpg","covercred":"Helen Juwon Park","coveralt":"Illustration of a person playing a video game while streaming.","articleType":"article","updated":"","content":[{"type":"text","value":"For most college students, playing video games is a way to relax after a day of hard work."},{"type":"text","value":"But when Cory Poon came back to his apartment in Levering Terrace and sat down at his computer, his job was just getting started."},{"type":"text","value":"From 2020 to 2024, the fourth-year cognitive science student was perhaps better known as the Twitch streamer Reversah. Primarily streaming himself playing the first-person shooter \"Valorant,\" Poon amassed a fanbase of 20,000 followers – placing him in the upper echelons of creators on the platform."},{"type":"text","value":"As Reversah, Poon lived a life alien to most UCLA students. He posted daily across numerous platforms such as Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. He participated in a contest with a million-dollar prize. He stayed at a Beverly Hills mansion and networked with some of the biggest names in streaming – people with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers. He had managers and sold merchandise. He even took a gap year between his sophomore and junior years to focus on his career."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Because classes were all online, I was like, ‘I really want a college experience. Let’s just take college back up later,’\" Poon said. \"During this time period, I really took time to develop my channel and my personality online.\""},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Illustration of a boy wearing an apron looking thoughtful.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/Prime.streaming/Copy_of_IMG_3032-54c0abe4ba815d66d030094480d822e2.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Helen Juwon Park/Illustrations director\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Poon’s experiences as a student streamer may be uncommon, but the fact that he was a streamer is not. There are more than 7 million active streamers on Twitch – several UCLA students among them. Whether they stream out of passion, or a desire for money or fame, streaming demands undiluted time and attention like no other form of content creation, making it all the more challenging for busy college students."},{"type":"text","value":"Twitch, the most popular streaming platform,is perhaps best described as an amalgamation of YouTube and broadcast TV. It’s a social platform centered on independent creators recording themselves doing any number of online or in-person activities. But the twist is that it’s all 100% live. There are no flashy cuts, no corrected errors – just pure, uncut footage. Like other social media platforms, most people who use Twitch don’t make it big – but a select few manage to do so."},{"type":"text","value":"Founded in 2011, Twitch has since grown into one of the largest websites on the internet. It provides ample tools for its more than 200 million monthly users to interact with their favorite personalities, including the chat – a live group text between the streamer and their viewers – and donations in the form of various currencies such as bits and subscriptions."},{"type":"text","value":"The service’s most explosive growth occurred in 2020 during the pandemic because of people seeking companionship during quarantine, said Rachel Kowert, a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge who studies digital games."},{"type":"text","value":"\"This sense of loneliness decreased more when they were watching Twitch versus watching YouTube,\" Kowert said. \"There was something different about that dynamic.\""},{"type":"text","value":"This was certainly the case for Poon, who started his channel in July 2020. Inspired by the popular streamer Tiffae, he said he wanted to create a safe space free from the misogyny and homophobia present in the \"Valorant\" community."},{"type":"text","value":"Twitch’s gimmick of watching individuals live on air is indicative of young people’s changing media consumption habits, said Emory Daniel, an associate professor in the department of communication at Appalachian State University. It enables creators to become increasingly specialized in the content they create, he added."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We’re becoming more and more niche in terms of our interest areas,\" Daniel said. \"It’s these kinds of things that make a channel extremely specific, and we get to invite them to our worlds, and we get to be a part of that.\""},{"type":"text","value":"On a platform all about niche interests, video games dominate the list. Twitch’s live-viewing format dovetails neatly with how audiences have historically engaged with gaming, said Mark Johnson, a senior lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Illustration of a bear wearing a suit standing in front of a plate of food.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/Prime.streaming/Copy_of_IMG_3024_(1)-f6c4889b28d3f7c67018f8a0ee4a2247.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Helen Juwon Park/Illustrations director\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"\"Viewing has always been a huge part of games, whether it’s viewing a sibling or friend at home playing a single-player game or back in the ‘80s and ‘90s watching people in arcades,\" said Johnson, the author of a book about Twitch. \"It’s easy to overlook that because Twitch is so big now.\""},{"type":"text","value":"However, Twitch is far from a gaming-exclusive platform. One of the most popular genres on the site, with more than 30 million followers, is \"Just Chatting,\" which ranges from hanging out with friends to talking politics. Numerous smaller categories exist on Twitch, too – from animals to art to ASMR."},{"type":"text","value":"Kevin Nguyen’s work fits into these alternative categories. On his channel sugiednd, the third-year student – juggling majors in business economics, mathematics of computation, and statistics and data science – streams his sessions playing Dungeons & Dragons: still gaming, but of a decidedly different kind."},{"type":"text","value":"D&D is a tabletop game fundamentally focused on storytelling. It allows players to collaboratively explore a custom world and plot over several sessions spanning hours each. But for Nguyen, who has played D&D for more than half a decade, this has always been a process tinged with disappointment – once a story has run its course, there’s no way to access it again. Unwritten, it fades into memory."},{"type":"text","value":"Enter Twitch."},{"type":"text","value":"As part of his online friend group’s latest campaign, \"Eclipse,\" Nguyen uses Twitch to record every session played. Afterward, he uploads the recordings in their entirety – the VODs, in Twitch parlance – to YouTube, where they will remain preserved for posterity. Nguyen said streaming in this way inspired him to take his game sessions and production values to the next level."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Going into my next campaign, I wanted to do something I’m proud of, that I can look back (on),\" Nguyen said. \"I can even share to my friends and family when I get older.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Nguyen is not the only UCLA student whose Twitch recordings double as an archive. For fourth-year economics student Ashley Tsao, playing them back is the whole point."},{"type":"text","value":"Tsao, who is also a former Daily Bruin Podcasts contributor, serves as the coach and manager for UCLA esports’ varsity and junior varsity \"Rocket League\" teams. In addition to her responsibilities handling the teams’ communications, advertising and scheduling, Tsao uses her channel to stream any and all official matches they play. The purpose of this, she said, is so her players can look back at prior games and improve their skills. This enables the teams to learn from their mistakes and formulate new strategies, she added."},{"type":"text","value":"As the coach of two teams, Tsao must maintain an active presence on her channel – streaming up to five times a week. The demands of such regular streaming in terms of both spent time and spent labor can be difficult to balance as a college student. Tsao said that while she, a fourth-year, is able to handle the workload, she has to be careful not to overwork her players, many of whom are younger than her."},{"type":"text","value":"Other student streamers, however, are not as lucky."},{"type":"text","value":"For Nguyen, balancing his D&D streams with his three majors – and not to mention his social life – is a monumental task. He drafts a new schedule every week, planning out the 15 hours he spends on D&D like a part-time job. In order to maintain his story’s long-term momentum, he finds time to stream once a week, even if he has upcoming midterms or if he’s vacationing with his family."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Illustration of a video game character wearing purple.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/Prime.streaming/Copy_of_IMG_3026_(1)-bfd1fde2ea2de4a83ac09603ddbb65c6.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Helen Juwon Park/Illustrations director\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"In such environments, he has gone to extreme lengths to ensure he has time to play."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Sometimes I stream in the bathroom,\" Nguyen said. \"That’s happened before.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Streaming, not studying, is his top priority when scheduling, he said. Still, he said, it’s worth it for his campaign and his channel."},{"type":"text","value":"Space presents another challenge for student streamers – many have roommates whose own schedules may conflict with the demands of regular streaming. Nguyen said he and his roommates have reached an understanding regarding his D&D sessions: He lets them know in advance when he’ll be playing, and in return, they’re willing to leave the room until he finishes around 1 a.m."},{"type":"text","value":"For Poon, his roommates proved to be less accommodating of his schedule – streaming five days a week, four hours each day."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Having roommates while streaming was one of the hardest things to do,\" Poon said. \"Obviously, staying up to edit long videos wasn’t really something that they really liked.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Poon eventually decided to move into a solo studio apartment, but streaming created other issues for him that weren’t as easily solved."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"Sorry, I need to go home and play video games.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"After Poon returned from his streaming-focused gap year, his social life suffered, and he found himself without the time to participate in clubs or school activities. In essence, he was missing out on the college experience he had come back to UCLA for."},{"type":"text","value":"\"After classes, my friends were like, ‘Oh, do you want to go to a coffee shop?’ or, ‘Do you want to go and study with me?’\" Poon said. \"I would have to tell them, ‘Sorry, I need to go home and play video games.’\""},{"type":"text","value":"Ultimately, Poon chose to retire from Twitch in March 2024, choosing to dedicate himself to his remaining time at UCLA."},{"type":"text","value":"Still, he said, being a student enabled him to connect more easily with members of his audience, approximately 80% of whom were between the ages of 13 and 24 and thus could relate to his academic experiences. This sense of community and relatability is one of the cornerstones underlying Twitch’s enduring popularity, researchers said."},{"type":"text","value":"\"A successful livestreamer appears to be both a celebrity and a friend,\" Johnson said. \"That combo is very exciting because we don’t tend to get to be friends with celebrities in general.\""},{"type":"text","value":"By and large, a close relationship between a streamer and their community tends to be positive, Daniel said. However, this degree of interaction can be a double-edged sword, Poon added. He said he tried to cultivate an authentic connection to his audience, making his name and face public. But to prioritize his safety, he had to keep aspects of his personal life private, which proved to be emotionally taxing."},{"type":"text","value":"He added that he has had weird interactions with viewers that made him uncomfortable."},{"type":"text","value":"One term that often comes up in association with Twitch is \"parasocial relationship\" – a one-sided connection between a person and someone who cannot reciprocate their affection, such as a celebrity or a fictional character. However, it’s also a fraught term when it comes to Twitch scholarship, Johnson said. Some researchers, such as Daniel, argue that they are ubiquitous regardless of genre or how popular a given streamer is."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It doesn’t matter if you have three people in your chat or 300 – you are going to have a person that has this connection with you,\" Daniel said."},{"type":"text","value":"And as that connection builds, so too does the potential for profit. On Twitch, viewer donations often come in exchange for perks on the channel, and consequently, increased status within the community. On Poon’s channel, for instance, viewers could pay a subscription to watch his broadcasts ad-free, access exclusive cosmetics and join a private, subscriber-only chat. For a select few, this can be a very lucrative endeavor – receiving donations up to hundreds of dollars at a time."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"It doesn’t matter if you have three people in your chat or 300 – you are going to have a person that has this connection with you.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"But despite the stories of college students using streaming to pay for their education, this is only a small part of the story."},{"type":"text","value":"Tsao and Nguyen do not engage with Twitch’s monetary system at all. Even for Poon, with his tens of thousands of followers, Twitch’s systems alone barely made a dent. The majority of his income from streaming came from sponsorships and merchandise, he said."},{"type":"text","value":"Despite his popularity, he would not have been able to make it his full-time job, he added."},{"type":"text","value":"\"When I was streaming, I was a top .01% streamer – which seems high,\" Poon said. \"But in order for you to ... call it your career, I think you needed to be a top .0001% streamer.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Tsao added that while streaming may be profitable for those who partner with resource-rich esports companies, independent streamers are forced to spend their own money buying expensive equipment and specialized software – with no guaranteed return."},{"type":"text","value":"Still, Johnson said he understands why some people might pursue Twitch as a career anyway, as it gives them the opportunity to spend their time doing something they enjoy."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It’s not hard to see the appeal of working on Twitch, of streaming games or streaming some other stuff as your job,\" Johnson said. \"It’s not hard to see why that’s more appealing than working in fast food or doing a 9-to-5 in the office.\""},{"type":"text","value":"This enjoyment is precisely why students choose to stream on Twitch. Tsao is passionate about \"Rocket League\"; Nguyen loves D&D; Poon cares about making a difference in the \"Valorant\" community. They make sacrifices, big and small, all for the sake of what they’re passionate about."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"It’s not hard to see why that’s more appealing than working in fast food or doing a 9-to-5 in the office.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Poon added that although he no longer is a member of the streaming world, he doesn’t regret his time on Twitch, and it was ultimately a positive influence in his life."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It was a really fun experience, and I think it’s taught me a lot about the world besides what academia offers,\" he said. \"It has been beneficial, ... even though it may not be a big part of me right now.\""}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"spring25","slug":"Prime.streaming"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}