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Meet the Twitch Streamers Who Used Their New Audiences for Good
How these online communities rallied together during the pandemic
When the pandemic lockdowns first started, most people started staying home on nights and weekends and even worked or studied from home. Quarantine didn’t do much for everyone’s mental health, but it did have a silver lining for some Twitch streamers: If everyone’s at home, there’s more time to watch (or play) games.
The past year has helped lead to a massive shift for some streamers who have managed to grow their audience and build up their community at the same time.
For people fortunate enough to start working from home, one of the most substantial differences was the lack of a commute. Suddenly, the time viewers might’ve spent driving to work could be devoted to Twitch. That extra free time allowed variety streamer EchoChlo to start streaming games like Apex Legends and more for her audience.
“Before, when I did have to go into work. I had like a 90-minute commute,” EchoChlo told Debugger. “When I no longer had to go into work, suddenly I had so much more time and energy, like, ‘Oh, I can now play video games, and you know what? I can stream it to people.’” This gave her more time to stream and develop an audience who also had a lot more time to…
