Great idea. One of my saddest projects was making a site to help Twitch streamers get sponsorship for playing games. You automatically got picked if your view count was high enough. I saw thousands of people streaming on Twitch by themselves for weeks with no viewers whatsoever. Surely many of them had families and partners, but I'm also sure many did not.
Maybe I'm naive, but my sense is not everyone streaming on Twitch is trying to make a career out of it. Even for those that are -- everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully those that aren't successful on first brush notice and realize that it takes more than simply starting a stream to build a sticky audience.
Also, there are many people out there who lead fulfilling lives without families and partners. Either way, I don't think you should pity people so readily. At best it's somewhat condescending and missing much of the complexity and nuance of what it is to be a human person
Your comment (along with mmarvin's) really just shows you are making grand assumptions about Twitch and streaming on Twitch that are not based on any level of real information. That you would equate viewers to followser is silly at best. (And don't pretend you did, either, as there is NO reason to bring up IG follower counts otherwise)
> I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.
For many reasons, they aren't what many would consider to be influencers. The ignorant might sugget that streamers are influencers, but that's, well, ignorance. Secondly, most people do it for fun. Not as a full time job. This is a hobby. And it's a fun one.
It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.
Tbf to them, most people equate streamers with individuals having thousands of viewers.. From that perspective, their statements kinda make sense.
While I personally wouldn't be able to perform under such a setting, I'd be lying if the idea isn't kinda charming - it's like wanting to be a rock star, a small part thinks it'd be cool, even if most don't actually want to live the life of a rockstar.
Though the wealth it comes with would be neat to have (I mean most streamers with thousands of non-botted viewers are millionaires at this point, right?)
I used to live code on Twitch regularly with zero viewers and it didn't really bother me. It forced me to actively talk through my decision making processes just by streaming which slowed me down but was often useful. I'm not sure what the family/partners part is about, I certainly had both while streaming.
Last year I would larp as a Spanish-speaking gaming streamer on Youtube to practice Spanish, talking out loud while trying some new game to force myself to speak it.
If I were trying to do that in private, I would stop after two minutes.
But the mere threat of someone watching me forced me to take it seriously even though I knew nobody would.
It was so effective that I would default to Spanish for the rest of the day, or I'd listen to Spanish and then realize how I could have communicated certain things better instead of just passively ingest it.
Though the same reason it was so effective also created a mental toll that I started avoiding by not doing it at all. Need to start it back up.
That said, I reckon the vast majority of streamers are gamers who do want viewership and aren't using it as some productivity hack.
Yeah, the snark by some commenters is unwarranted.
There is this programmer and he is just chilling, programming and listening to music. Just 2-3 viewers. On occasion I say hi, make a chitchat. It’s harmless and a bit of fun/socializing.
Does knowing that someone could be watching change your performance? I wonder if the "Live" status acts as a mental catalyst that you can't get by just talking to yourself offline.
I wouldn't watch a live coder so recording for myself wouldn't do it. With Twitch you will often have viewers pop into chat even when the viewer number is zero so you have to always great it as if you are being watched because you might be.
I’ve thought about doing this at work. Schedule an hour of programming once a day or once a week where others are free to join and watch, and comment or otherwise engage, or not.
What does having a family have to do with anything? I see many people with different hobbies that aren't "successful", do you also think if they have families or not?
I don't even get the implications, presumably it'd be worse to stream all day if you have a family you're neglecting, but even that is making wild assumptions.
If you have a family, why would you be screaming into the void while playing video games? Go spend time with your family, where there's endless company and good to be done.
Yeah, it makes it sound like your attention is given as an act of charity. A lot of online discourse tends to be very "creator-first" framed, rather than "audience-first".
Am I crazy or is this just social/financial charity roulette for streamers. Also is there not inherently an issue building the foundations of a friendship on the predicate of one person being watched and the other having to watch and potentially pay the other? If one side doesn’t like or subscribe are they friends.
The idea that people turn to streaming to either support themselves or make friends and people feel the need to help them do so is everything right and wrong with society. It’s nice people are willing to support someone else and wrong that the most supported are often the worst and really we should just support people socially and financially outside of the streaming charity system we have created. I find it all a bit mind boggling.
really fun! already found an MLB stream, someone streaming Age of Empires 1 no talking and chat in emote mode, someone going absolutely crazy on a racing game I think multi-streaming with their audience primarily on YT. and now I'm on a BG3 playthrough I'm pretty sure.
these types of projects are always fun, whether it is the old youtube videos with no views, or the few other twitch ones like this i have seen. thanks for sharing it.
it would be great to be able to filter by language, but i have no idea if twitch exposes that information or if it would have to be some hack with the title/game/etc data.
and, probably not your fault, but, probably 1/2 of the spins give me a 10-second pre-roll. weirdly, it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up". i am signed in, so not sure what is going on there.
anyways, spun the wheel for awhile and had fun talking with a few people. crazy amount of people still playing call of duty, i had no idea.
> it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up"
Twitch pre-roll played an ad for me on mobile in the web browser. Maybe you have an ad blocker in the browser you are using so it’s not loading the ads themselves and instead falling back to some twitch-related message?
Also I only got preroll on the first one not on the second or third. Maybe if you have an ad blocker it keeps trying prerolls more often?
i do have an adblocker, but i use the same browser to regularly watch twitch and have never seen those specific pre-rolls before. only when using the roulette. which is why i thought it was a bit weird. might have something to do with it being embedded instead of directly watching twitch or something.
I ended up with someone as their only viewer and we bonded quickly, he was happy to have someone there because he was in a really tense situation in Arma - he said he'd never been more frightened. I can vouch - it was a sticky situation - was riveting to watch but he managed to beat all odds and come out on top. He was stoked! Friend for life. ;-)
Appreciate it. I don’t use Twitch or watch popular streamers, but sometimes when I’m bored I look up small streamers with 1–3 viewers and chat with them. It’s usually pretty wholesome.
A friend of mine who has streamed for years, maybe garners 3 viewers at the most, but he's absolutely terrible at viewer engagement. Despite having a dual monitor setup, it often takes him 5 minutes to recognize a single line in his chat and respond.
Growing a base followership on Twitch seems like it'd be an interesting challenge considering how saturated the market is.
This was an interesting site and was the first time I tried Twitch. It seems like video-based social interaction is an interesting field in general, since it's easier and cheaper than going someplace for an event (which is naturally limited by space, as well). How does Twitch work in general? Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
whats the other end of some of these? you showed which categories tend to have 0-1 viewers, what categories have the least? what categories have lowest average age of accounts with 10+ viewers etc. What should you do to stand out?
For anyone who is curious btw: twitch will count you as your own viewer. So anyone with their own chat open in a browser (almost everyone so they can read it) will have that 1 viewer. Which is why the bottom of the distribution is so weird looking.
Mhm, I clicked the thing and got shown World of Warcraft. I'm not sure the streamer needs the views the most. Perhaps it's a single mother desperately trying to raise money through streaming to feed her ten children?
Edit: it's a bit different now. Instead of loading one from the homepage, it always loads a stream. And it has a play button on every one of them. Nothing happens when I press it. Anyone else has this?
I once scrolled all the way to the bottom of the streamers and it was a little kid trying to stream Fortnite using a phone camera and it kept falling down and he was happy to have one viewer. It was adorable
Great idea for when you bored and want to discover new twitch channels.
Just a suggestion: it would be better if you can ask the user what their preference is and then suggest accordingly.
Cool concept! Discovery is the hardest part for small streamers — most viewers only see the top channels and never scroll down. The real-time stats breakdown sounds interesting.
my first one was junk essentially. I don't even think the host was there.
They said they were streaming music videos, which is already questionable.
Instead they were streaming an interview with a music artist.
what? no, i love projects like these. but re-reading my comment, it does sound a little messed =p. what i meant was it gave me old HN vibes, back when weird, fun projects popped off instead of everything being AI-wrapped.
On the other hand, this might be like buying someone's overpriced mediocre product at the artisanal weekend market: probably better not to encourage them so they drop the delusion and do something else.
Like that time I spent $9 on some guy's 8oz "turmeric milk" and he said I was the first sale all day, so thanks for the support. Felt bad for making him think this thing has a shot.
While tone often portrays poorly over text, I think this is an example where the sarcasm is very overt. I don’t think anyone would think the comment is serious.
Great idea. One of my saddest projects was making a site to help Twitch streamers get sponsorship for playing games. You automatically got picked if your view count was high enough. I saw thousands of people streaming on Twitch by themselves for weeks with no viewers whatsoever. Surely many of them had families and partners, but I'm also sure many did not.
Maybe I'm naive, but my sense is not everyone streaming on Twitch is trying to make a career out of it. Even for those that are -- everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully those that aren't successful on first brush notice and realize that it takes more than simply starting a stream to build a sticky audience.
Also, there are many people out there who lead fulfilling lives without families and partners. Either way, I don't think you should pity people so readily. At best it's somewhat condescending and missing much of the complexity and nuance of what it is to be a human person
why would you stream on Twitch then? just because it‘s „fun“? come on
You think everyone on instagram/tiktok with a public profiles tries to become an influencer?
I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.
But aside from that, nearly everyone on Instagram has followers, at least their families and friends.
Your comment (along with mmarvin's) really just shows you are making grand assumptions about Twitch and streaming on Twitch that are not based on any level of real information. That you would equate viewers to followser is silly at best. (And don't pretend you did, either, as there is NO reason to bring up IG follower counts otherwise)
> I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.
For many reasons, they aren't what many would consider to be influencers. The ignorant might sugget that streamers are influencers, but that's, well, ignorance. Secondly, most people do it for fun. Not as a full time job. This is a hobby. And it's a fun one.
It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.
> It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.
It's ok not to be a condescending twat as well, and yet here we both are.
Tbf to them, most people equate streamers with individuals having thousands of viewers.. From that perspective, their statements kinda make sense.
While I personally wouldn't be able to perform under such a setting, I'd be lying if the idea isn't kinda charming - it's like wanting to be a rock star, a small part thinks it'd be cool, even if most don't actually want to live the life of a rockstar.
Though the wealth it comes with would be neat to have (I mean most streamers with thousands of non-botted viewers are millionaires at this point, right?)
I used to live code on Twitch regularly with zero viewers and it didn't really bother me. It forced me to actively talk through my decision making processes just by streaming which slowed me down but was often useful. I'm not sure what the family/partners part is about, I certainly had both while streaming.
Last year I would larp as a Spanish-speaking gaming streamer on Youtube to practice Spanish, talking out loud while trying some new game to force myself to speak it.
If I were trying to do that in private, I would stop after two minutes.
But the mere threat of someone watching me forced me to take it seriously even though I knew nobody would.
It was so effective that I would default to Spanish for the rest of the day, or I'd listen to Spanish and then realize how I could have communicated certain things better instead of just passively ingest it.
Though the same reason it was so effective also created a mental toll that I started avoiding by not doing it at all. Need to start it back up.
That said, I reckon the vast majority of streamers are gamers who do want viewership and aren't using it as some productivity hack.
Yeah, the snark by some commenters is unwarranted.
There is this programmer and he is just chilling, programming and listening to music. Just 2-3 viewers. On occasion I say hi, make a chitchat. It’s harmless and a bit of fun/socializing.
I think most streamers know what they are doing.
Does knowing that someone could be watching change your performance? I wonder if the "Live" status acts as a mental catalyst that you can't get by just talking to yourself offline.
I wouldn't watch a live coder so recording for myself wouldn't do it. With Twitch you will often have viewers pop into chat even when the viewer number is zero so you have to always great it as if you are being watched because you might be.
I’ve thought about doing this at work. Schedule an hour of programming once a day or once a week where others are free to join and watch, and comment or otherwise engage, or not.
Actively doing this. It indeed forces me to think things through, organize thoughts and speak them out. I open paint/miro to draw. It's good practice.
What does having a family have to do with anything? I see many people with different hobbies that aren't "successful", do you also think if they have families or not?
I don't even get the implications, presumably it'd be worse to stream all day if you have a family you're neglecting, but even that is making wild assumptions.
>What does having a family have to do with anything?
Presumably that at least one of their family members would be pity watching.
If you have a family, why would you be screaming into the void while playing video games? Go spend time with your family, where there's endless company and good to be done.
One needn’t spend every single waking hour with their family. Everyone needs some time to themselves.
So why live stream your alone time?
Ask them, not me.
It can also be a way yo practise or find like minded
What about https://nobody.live/?
Leads me to discover: https://www.twitch.tv/chat_loadtest_01 ... neat!
Theres a lot of weird channels on twitch, I run into ones with "ingest" in their name quite often.
also neat! never heard of it, seems like we have a bit different ways about browsing similar data. very cool site
I'm not sure about the framing from the title, it's like "find businesses which need your money the most" - not a great advertisement
Yeah, it makes it sound like your attention is given as an act of charity. A lot of online discourse tends to be very "creator-first" framed, rather than "audience-first".
Am I crazy or is this just social/financial charity roulette for streamers. Also is there not inherently an issue building the foundations of a friendship on the predicate of one person being watched and the other having to watch and potentially pay the other? If one side doesn’t like or subscribe are they friends.
The idea that people turn to streaming to either support themselves or make friends and people feel the need to help them do so is everything right and wrong with society. It’s nice people are willing to support someone else and wrong that the most supported are often the worst and really we should just support people socially and financially outside of the streaming charity system we have created. I find it all a bit mind boggling.
really fun! already found an MLB stream, someone streaming Age of Empires 1 no talking and chat in emote mode, someone going absolutely crazy on a racing game I think multi-streaming with their audience primarily on YT. and now I'm on a BG3 playthrough I'm pretty sure.
Was it Wirtual? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C98AjMOklB4
No it was someone playing a street car drifting game idk which. They were doing car reviews of people’s designs
Great concept! Brought me to a girl playing COD. She only has me as a viewer.
She thanked me so I stayed for a while lol
Very nice. Currently on mobile where it mostly works in landscape. (Unusable in portrait). Will check it out on desktop later.
Love the idea of making someone's day.
Perhaps you can add a check to see if the stream is behind a login/agegate? I pushed the random button and got a stream that I was locked out of.
ill check, I honestly didnt even know that was a thing, thanks for letting me know
these types of projects are always fun, whether it is the old youtube videos with no views, or the few other twitch ones like this i have seen. thanks for sharing it.
it would be great to be able to filter by language, but i have no idea if twitch exposes that information or if it would have to be some hack with the title/game/etc data.
and, probably not your fault, but, probably 1/2 of the spins give me a 10-second pre-roll. weirdly, it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up". i am signed in, so not sure what is going on there.
anyways, spun the wheel for awhile and had fun talking with a few people. crazy amount of people still playing call of duty, i had no idea.
> it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up"
Twitch pre-roll played an ad for me on mobile in the web browser. Maybe you have an ad blocker in the browser you are using so it’s not loading the ads themselves and instead falling back to some twitch-related message?
Also I only got preroll on the first one not on the second or third. Maybe if you have an ad blocker it keeps trying prerolls more often?
i do have an adblocker, but i use the same browser to regularly watch twitch and have never seen those specific pre-rolls before. only when using the roulette. which is why i thought it was a bit weird. might have something to do with it being embedded instead of directly watching twitch or something.
those preroll "ads" are the alternative to mid stream ads.
I ended up with someone as their only viewer and we bonded quickly, he was happy to have someone there because he was in a really tense situation in Arma - he said he'd never been more frightened. I can vouch - it was a sticky situation - was riveting to watch but he managed to beat all odds and come out on top. He was stoked! Friend for life. ;-)
Appreciate it. I don’t use Twitch or watch popular streamers, but sometimes when I’m bored I look up small streamers with 1–3 viewers and chat with them. It’s usually pretty wholesome.
Egalitarianism for Twitch, nice project.
A friend of mine who has streamed for years, maybe garners 3 viewers at the most, but he's absolutely terrible at viewer engagement. Despite having a dual monitor setup, it often takes him 5 minutes to recognize a single line in his chat and respond.
Growing a base followership on Twitch seems like it'd be an interesting challenge considering how saturated the market is.
This was an interesting site and was the first time I tried Twitch. It seems like video-based social interaction is an interesting field in general, since it's easier and cheaper than going someplace for an event (which is naturally limited by space, as well). How does Twitch work in general? Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
Old discussion has lots of comments too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114103
Similar in spirit to IMG_0001⁰, IMG_0416¹, and astronaut.io² for YouTube but live on Twitch!
⁰https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47308547
¹https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547
²https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432772
Check out a cool real time feed of people discovering new streamers here: https://twitchroulette.net/discover
And some neat global stats around twitch streams here: https://twitchroulette.net/stats
whats the other end of some of these? you showed which categories tend to have 0-1 viewers, what categories have the least? what categories have lowest average age of accounts with 10+ viewers etc. What should you do to stand out?
For anyone who is curious btw: twitch will count you as your own viewer. So anyone with their own chat open in a browser (almost everyone so they can read it) will have that 1 viewer. Which is why the bottom of the distribution is so weird looking.
You could just open your twitch chat via an IRC client, then you (might?) not count as your own viewer.
ya it's why I have the default set to 0-5, theres weirdness in what twitch counts as a viewer
Mhm, I clicked the thing and got shown World of Warcraft. I'm not sure the streamer needs the views the most. Perhaps it's a single mother desperately trying to raise money through streaming to feed her ten children?
These are really just chatboxes?
Edit: it's a bit different now. Instead of loading one from the homepage, it always loads a stream. And it has a play button on every one of them. Nothing happens when I press it. Anyone else has this?
I once scrolled all the way to the bottom of the streamers and it was a little kid trying to stream Fortnite using a phone camera and it kept falling down and he was happy to have one viewer. It was adorable
There are some soundcloud and mixcloud versions that might need inventing ...cool concept!
Great idea for when you bored and want to discover new twitch channels. Just a suggestion: it would be better if you can ask the user what their preference is and then suggest accordingly.
check out the +filter button on the homepage!
Cool concept! Discovery is the hardest part for small streamers — most viewers only see the top channels and never scroll down. The real-time stats breakdown sounds interesting.
Awesome haha, they look so shocked when you send a message, and then I get embarrassed and spin again
my first one was junk essentially. I don't even think the host was there. They said they were streaming music videos, which is already questionable. Instead they were streaming an interview with a music artist.
Kind reminder that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which is a monster of a company. Check out Owncast and Peertube for alternatives.
monster yes, but also very powerful
Is there something like this for YouTube?
i am actually even more impressed that you got this to front page
did I do something wrong or something
Not that I can see. I think most on HN root for the underdog.
Next up: HackernewsRoulette
Roulette to find all those vibe coded apps with zero users, sounds great!
what? no, i love projects like these. but re-reading my comment, it does sound a little messed =p. what i meant was it gave me old HN vibes, back when weird, fun projects popped off instead of everything being AI-wrapped.
this is pretty dope !!
was the only viewer to some guy playing far cry
Good job
On the other hand, this might be like buying someone's overpriced mediocre product at the artisanal weekend market: probably better not to encourage them so they drop the delusion and do something else.
Like that time I spent $9 on some guy's 8oz "turmeric milk" and he said I was the first sale all day, so thanks for the support. Felt bad for making him think this thing has a shot.
Can we make a version for YouTube as well? I'd love to be discovered haha
Oh my god I love this. I tell every one I load up how terrible they are and to give up now.
I think I’ve discouraged about 250 so far!!
What a wonderful project.
No, stop, you're misusing it. The purpose of this site is to build parasocial relationships with strangers online.
The danger with small streamers is you might accidentally develop a social relationship since they have nobody else to talk to!
FYI: muppetman’s profile says “don’t take me seriously”, so I think this is a joke?
While tone often portrays poorly over text, I think this is an example where the sarcasm is very overt. I don’t think anyone would think the comment is serious.