Is it weird that people not only watch other people play games on Twitcha nd similar platforms, but sometimes they actually pay the streamers for it?From a psychologist’s or communications researcher’s point of view, what kinds of relationships do streamers and audience members have? How is it different from other kinds of online relationships? And why do people offer monetary support to streamers? Why do some streamers get more donations than others? Is it because they’re super hot? Do they do a good job of making lonely people feel included? Do they do something to make their audience members feel like they’re just two friends hanging out online? Put another way: If you were a Twitch streamer, what lessons could you draw from the research that has been done about all this?
These are the kinds of questions that I will investigate and answer with the help of this episode’s guest expert.
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Links:
Audio Credits:
- “Robot Motivation” by The Polish Ambassador, licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
- Hep Cats by Kevin MacLeod. Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
