the.com/streamer
A person paid to play video games while you watch, somehow not lying about it.
means A person who broadcasts live video over the internet — typically gaming, chatting, or performing — for an audience watching in real time.
from From 'stream,' the Old English 'strēam,' a flowing body of water, cousin to the German 'Strom.' For centuries a stream was something you crossed, fished, or fell into. The figurative leap to data came with computing, where information 'streams' continuously rather than arriving in lumps; by the early internet era 'streaming' meant playing media as it downloads. The human 'streamer' — the person doing the broadcasting — surfaced once platforms let anyone open a live channel, and the word floated downstream from the technology to the people riding it.
- top earnings
- Elite streamers pull in millions yearly from subs alone
- the grind
- Many stream 8-plus hours daily, six days a week
- parasocial pull
- Viewers feel like friends with people who can't see them
- origin
- Justin.tv launched in 2007 streaming one guy's life
- raid culture
- Streamers fling their entire audience to others mid-broadcast
pokimane — most-followed female twitch streamer with 9m+ followers
xqc — highest-earning twitch streamer, earned $8.5m in 2021
valkyrae — youtube gaming streamer, signed exclusive deal in 2020 for reported $100m+