EOTO Presentations: Twitch

During our Each One Teach One presentations, one of my classmates (Carmen Fugate) talked about the communication technology Twitch. I was amongst the few people in the room who was familiar with it, and I use this technology on an almost daily basis. However, I didn't know anything about its history. I was very surprised to find out that Twitch started with just one person named Justin Kan. In 2005, Justin decided to live-stream his life 24/7 to the internet. He was inspired by the popular reality TV show Big Brother which, in a similar way, constantly records and broadcasts the activities of a group of people living in a house together. This endeavor turned into Justin.tv (which would eventually become Twitch). He wore a small camera on his hat every single day, and viewers were able to see what the world was like as Justin Kan. 

Justin Kan outfitted with his gear streaming gear.

At first, this was all that Justin.tv was; Justin Kan and those around him and their viewers. After initial hesitation, the website was opened up so that viewers could stream their content. Just six months later, Justin.tv grew to have over 30,000 streamers and several categories were added. It wasn't until 2011, that the gaming category of the website was turned into Twitch.tv. Instantly, Twitch became popular and the site grew to far exceed Justin.tv to the point where the latter was discontinued in 2014. Today, Twitch is home to hundreds of thousands of streamers and millions of viewers who hang out with each other via the internet and "make their own entertainment together" as Twitch puts it. 

The impact Twitch has had on the way we share experiences is astronomical. Now several other social media sites (including Facebook and Instagram) have the capability for users to live-stream whenever they want to. Live-streaming creates a strong sense of community because as viewers are watching the streamers they feel like they're there with them in that moment. However, as with all socialization-based sites, Twitch has problems. There are several cases of cyberbullying and, most recently, hate raids. Besides this, I believe that Twitch is an amazing development in communication technology because it brings people closer together and it has created a new realm of job opportunities for people who wish to entertain others.