Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch

An in-depth investigation of the Twitch streamers who make up the largest population on the platform- those streaming to small audiences or even no one. An in-depth investigation of the Twitch streamers who make up the largest population on the platform- those streaming to small audiences or even no one. The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us, Mia Consalvo, Marc Lajeunesse, and Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals. For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex "metas" that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017-2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
1 Understanding Streamers
2 Authentically Me? Being Real, Live
3 Quality, Theorycrafting Twitch, and the Livestream Metagame
4 Becoming Streamers: An Autoethnographic Account
5 Twitch Systems: Many Menus and Many Streamers
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

About the Author :
Mia Consalvo is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design at Concordia University. She is the coauthor of Real Games (MIT Press) and Players and Their Pets and the author of Atari to Zelda and Cheating (both MIT Press). Marc Lajeunesse holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University. He produces several academic podcasts including the Connecting to Game and Humour and Games series. Andrei Zanescu is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University. His research explores the intersection of Hollywood film and prestige television as cultural institutions and blockbuster game companies operating in the Euro-American context.

Review :
“A timely and insightful study of the millions of people left out of popular narratives about livestreaming: those who broadcast to just a handful of viewers, or even to no one at all."
—Bo Ruberg, Professor, Department of Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine; coeditor of the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

“Through an exploration of microstreamers’ motivations, practices, and experiences, this book invites us to rethink contemporary theories and practices about authenticity, liveness, and theorycrafting.”
—Larissa Hjorth, Distinguished Professor and Director of Design and Creative Practice, RMIT University, Melbourne; coauthor of Screen Ecologies and Ambient Play

“Streaming by the Rest of Us offers integral insight into the under-examined phenomenon of small-scale streamers… Due to its illumination of an important phenomenon through skillful application of multiple approaches, this book will no doubt be counted as a seminal work within conversations about livestreaming.”
—International Journal of Communication

“[Streaming by the Rest of Us] evinces a sustained, thoughtful engagement with questions of identity.”
—American Journal of Play