- A new trend called “A day off Twitch” is forcing the Amazon-owned streaming giant to pay attention to its content creators
- As a result of the trend, the preliminary statistics show a sharp decline in Twitch creators' activity and viewers' engagement
- The movement is being received with mixed feelings from both content creators and viewers, as no one seems to agree on the practice and its validity
Twitch is facing a new hardship as streamers have staged a “walkout” from the platform and plugged off to protest a number of issues with it, including the recent “hate raids,” abusive practices, and racial slurs.
What Exactly is “A Day off Twitch”?
“A day off Twitch” is the name of a new online campaign to “ditch” the streaming service. Repeated reassurances by Twitch staff that corrective actions will be taken come on the background of player protests.
The walkout is being led by streamers ShineyPen, RekitRaven, and Lucia Everblack. RekitRaven coined the #TwitchDoBetter hashtag on social media in an effort to his experiences with harassment and hate comments targeting streamers on Twitch. This hashtag was picked up by thousands of other content creators, which in turn broached the topic of online abuse on the platform to a wider audience.
Some Numbers from the Day Off
A tweet from Zach Bussey shows some preliminary data in which we can see that up to 5,000 streamers were offline as well as around half a million viewers, which is a significant drop in both statistics.
To make matters worse for Twitch, during “A Day off Twitch,” it has been confirmed that one of the platform's biggest streamers – TimTheTatman, will be quitting for good. This comes just a day after one of his friends – DrLupo – joined the likes of Valkyrae, Dr. Disrespect, and others on an exclusive new YouTube Gaming contract.
In Bussey's Tweet, we can also see that there were around 12,000 fewer streamers online during that day compared to the week before. There is also a one million drop in views from 4.5 million the week before to 3.5 million during the day of the “break.”
Not Everyone Supports the Walkout
Some content creators have shared their concerns that walking away from Twitch would just give the harassers what they want. However, as Everblack pointed out, in some of their tweets, many creators have not diminished their voices on the platform.
“The idea behind this is to try something different, to make waves in a much different way, and that requires a shift in our presence. Sometimes the absence of voices can speak louder than constant yelling. People notice when you are gone because it feels a little less colorful.”, Everblack said.
What Does the Future Hold?
Whether or not these figures will have a negative effect on Twitch is still yet to be seen. However, the desired effect was to have thousands of people go offline for at least a while, and we can say for sure that the boycott has certainly worked. While communities should become better at managing and ostracizing harassing parties, so should Twitch try to safeguard its content creators against the unruly behavior of people who simply do not fit with what the gaming industry should stand for.
