The arrival of the digital age has brought with it a wide avenue of new opportunities for fame and fortune. One of the most explosive and unprecedented in this regard is the development of the streaming celebrity. While primarily fixated around video games, this type of streaming also includes a wide range of other focuses, including chat-streaming, casino games, and many more.
In this article, we want to look at how this evolution came about, how wide the concept reaches, and what would be required for a new streamer to reach the upper echelons of popularity.
A Slow Start
Home-based interactive streaming for the masses has long been a promise in science-fiction, but significant technological hurdles stood in the way of its actual adoption. The primary two of these were processing power, and internet bandwidth.
The processing power of computers acted as the backbone in this regard. To ease transmission rates, data has had to be compressed by the host computer, which could often end up as a great strain on resources. As streaming took off with video games, this added strain could lower the performance within these games to self-defeating levels.
As processing power increased with each new generation of devices, so to did bandwidth. With greater bandwidth, increasing quantities of data could be transmitted at one time. Combined, this meant better audio and video quality, and enough overhead that the host computer could still operate efficiently.
It was the streaming platform of Twitch, founded in June of 2011, which brought this into the mainstream. Rapidly growing in popularity, this became a hub for what would become a new wave of entertainment, which opened far more avenue that anyone would predict.
Wide Reaching Interests
While video games marked the start of this new form of entertainment, they are far from the only avenue available. A quick visit to the Twitch.com category sections reveals a few oddities in there which, while unexpected to the uninitiated, still perform extremely well.
One of the more exciting of these is that of online casino streaming. Roulette is one of the most popular in this regard. The strength here lies in the long term popularity which the game has held in the public sphere. As long as people understand how to win at online roulette they can cheer on their streamers, and appreciate their big wins all the more.
Many casino games like this, after all, have been gathering fans for generations, whereas many video games have only been around for a few years if that.
Another popular category is that which just includes chatting with an audience. This is a broad category, with many streamers going about a daily routine or hobby while sharing anecdotes or expertise with their viewers.
Scrolling further down the list of streaming topics reveals a far greater variety, including tabletop games, language and makeup tutorials, bodybuilding help, and much more. Simply put, if it has an audience, it will have viewers, and even less popular pursuits can draw attention through the strength of their hosts.
Making Your Mark
Becoming a celebrity in this age of wide-spread streaming is not going to be a quick or easy pursuit. Nobody becomes a success overnight, and the overabundance of competition means that to succeed you’re going to have to offer something special.
The best way to go about this is to not seek the most popular forms of streaming and aim for a piece of that pie. Instead, select a topic or form of streaming which appeals to you personally. Audiences can tell passion from route performance, and this is overwhelmingly the largest determinant of lasting success.
This also ties into the work which you are going to have to invest in a channel to gain viewers. Spending vast quantities of time on something you aren’t truly passionate about will only serve to burn you out, and is not a viable long-term option.
That said, variety in itself within a topic, or a few steps outside of your comfort zone, should not be avoided either. Rather than seeing streaming as a way to simply grow popular, you could use it as a time to expand your horizons, and take viewers along with you for the ride.
The Payoff
Becoming a streaming celebrity isn’t just a means of gaining attention, it can also be a viable career choice, or help your primary career. Today, many streamers subsist solely off of direct donations, or monthly subscriptions to their Twitch or Patreon accounts.
For those wishing to keep their primary careers, this form of online celebrity can offer enormous boons back to your business. With added interest come additional customers and those at the upper levels of popularity create interest where none existed before.
Just remember that nothing worth having comes easy, or without hard work.
