Fourteen years ago, London's National Portrait Gallery exhibited a 67-minute video of footballer David Beckham sleeping. Sam Taylor-Johnson, photographer and filmmaker (but above all, visual artist), was paying homage, not without controversy, to Andy Warhol and his 1963 film Sleeping (five and a half hours of static shots showing an unknown man sleeping). Half a century after Warhol, a young man from California turns on his webcam's Twitch stream , lowers the blinds, and announces he's going to bed . Asian Andy, who shares only his first name with Warhol, emits snores that seem to herald the end of times; his resemblance to Beckham is limited to the whites of his eyes, and he wears underwear that screams how far he is from his ideal weight. But upon waking, Andy is $2.000 richer than the night before.
To understand what has happened It must be understood that the Internet as a source of income is no longer the exclusive preserve of poker players, camgirl sensual and y addicted to the trendy video game. The time has come to go to the next level, to expand the margins of the mind and accept the new niche (one full of bills) that millennials and gene zetas they have been pulled from the sleeve. It's called Twitch. And strange things are happening. Very strange. Without serving as an example for the entire millennial generation and zeta, we guarantee content 100% free of culture, effort and merit.
For a (large) fistful of dollars I let you humiliate me
The secret to Asian Andy's Twitch channel is, essentially, letting himself be humiliated. Any of his fans/viewers can, in exchange for a donation, play a live message on their phone or computer speakers while he sleeps. The basic message costs fifty dollars. If you pay one hundred, you get the right to have a song played at an intolerable volume. In those cases, Andy is obliged to stand up and rip off whatever shirt he's wearing.
After the success of its first pilot test, Asian Andy took things a step further by locking himself in a room for three days straight with no entertainment at all.. Twenty-eight thousand dollars ($28.000) of income was taken from donations alone. Although forced waking sessions are by far the most beneficial for him, Asian Andy has emulated the formula of text-to-speech paid in cafeterias, libraries and supermarkets. All places where most of the time you end up being expelled by employees or even by the police.
It is in these videos, away from home, that the true nature of Asian Andy is revealed. Rather than allow himself to be humiliated, what characterizes Asian Andy is leading a life with ethical and moral borders on the ground. Protected by the fact that he is not the one who devises the messages that his viewers send him, a typical Andy video includes jokes about homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia and terrorism. It's easy to click on any video on Asian Andy's Twitch channel and watch him pose as a suicide bomber in a public place. YouTube doesn't just censor female nipples. YouTube also pays people like Asian Andy in exchange for this type of content.
Among his less hardcore hits is the idea of wandering around Los Angeles all night picking up homeless people and offering them shelter in his house . In one instance, an anonymous viewer donated $500 to one of the beggars, who reacted by bursting into tears on the floor. His most-viewed video is titled: "Viewers Make Alexa Filter My Address."
Truck driver streaming
From Alexander the Great to Donald Trump, by way of Justin Bieber and Cristiano Ronaldo, the only constant is the equation: myriad followers + shrewd marketing + a differentiating factor. In the case of American Trucker (GiToez to his friends), what sets him apart from other streamers (and truckers) is his willingness to be filmed during a workday on the road.
As with the gaming channels, his channel's feed is predominantly occupied by the star event: the endless lines of the road and GiToez revealing himself in a box in the corner of the screen, answering chat questions. "Guys, now that there is a journalist in the room we have to be careful what we say," he jokes.
He's 33 years old, has three children, a military background, and a passion for video games. And trucks. Just him, his truck, and an interstate highway in the wee hours of the morning, GiToez can easily raise around $200 a night through donations from his viewers on the Twitch streaming platform.
It is enough to access the IRL (In Real Life) channel of Twitch to realize the boom. You just need a phone and something to show or say. If your personality is captivating enough, you will have fans. If you have fans, you will have donations. For having, there are channels even of people who record themselves eating.
Twitch vs YouTube
As happened in 2006 with Google's purchase of YouTube (and the subsequent monetization options for its users in 2012), Amazon's acquisition of the Twitch platform for nearly a billion dollars in 2014 opened up a world of possibilities for advertisers and content creators to help each other. It's only in the last two years, thanks primarily to the gaming community, that Twitch has truly begun to generate significant traffic figures. No one is in a position to challenge YouTube's reign as the leading video portal. At least not yet. The difference lies in the fact that YouTube is primarily an on-demand video platform financed by advertising, while Twitch focuses on capitalizing on the altruistic side of its viewers. Regarding live event viewership, this chart with 2018 audience data speaks for itself:
Live events/streaming: Twitch users vs. YouTube users. Source: Pitchbook.
While YouTube prioritizes a vast library of videos with millions of views, Twitch is all about the here and now of the live stream. If you're popular and offer relevant content (and there's no need to overstate the relevance), your viewers donate money as a reward, expecting nothing in return. Although Twitch also has ads, its funding relies on these donations, from which it can take up to 50% (the percentage drops if the user, instead of being an affiliate, pays a five-dollar monthly subscription). So, what constitutes relevant content? As in the world of film, music, and video games, once again, quantity and quality don't necessarily go hand in hand.
Despite the existence of niche channels like Asian Andy's, it's in the gaming community where the streaming business truly flexes its muscles. YouTube, which had to remove its gaming channel after a failed first attempt in 2015 , seems to be making a comeback. Specialized websites like The Verge claim that Google will once again try to position itself among gaming streamers, taking advantage of the launch of its online gaming streaming platform, Google Stadia, next Tuesday, November 19th.