Like why do people spend time watching someone play a video game and occasionally talk into the air
What the hell is a hololive
It’s cuz we lonely and the streamer + chat is the only interaction we get all day.
People, especially kids, are very, very lonely right now. Livestreaming emulates being in a room with a friend bullshitting. You could be bullshitting playing games, or watching youtube, or talking about politics - but fundamentally all livestreaming is filling loneliness with a parasocial relationship.
I understand the craving for parasocial bonds that those people have...
I still fucking hate it because big-ticket upper tier streaming culture is parasitic and corrosive. :heated-gamer-moment:
I totally understand filling loneliness with parasocial relationships. But that’s what podcasts are for, livestreams are terrible at that imo
This is sort of like asking anyone to explain any entertainment to you. Why does anyone like football. Or soap operas. Or quiz shows. Or horror films. Why does anyone like any media.
Who cares what people enjoy honestly. I enjoy all sorts of shit other people don't and lots of people don't enjoy the shit I enjoy. Why would anyone waste time caring about the differences between various forms of vapid inane media consumption
- There are times I'm too tired to play games, but want to play it
Otzdarva is so chill, especially when everyone else in dbd is Uber mega toxic
It's similar to watching live sports, just seeing someone extremely good at the game is fun. Sometimes there's a parasocial element, e.g. watching someone play casually, but they have a similar sense of humor to you and riff more.
What the hell is a hololive
Holographic olive, can be with or without the stone
I just like watching Jerma/Joel/Vinny fuck around ig, don’t give a fuck about any other big names
Parasocial bonding. It's having a fake friend that pretends to like you, even love you, and that can be appealing especially with an active fandom/cult around said streamer to make nazi frog emojis with. :agony-minion:
When I think about it, top streamers in the upper echelon of streaming and their fandoms, are essentially like regular toxic celebrity stan culture, but with added chuddery, and with the celeb in question being a participant in all of it :kombucha-disgust:
Even before streaming really took off, esports celebrity culture really seemed to skip all the steps of old fashioned athletic fame and went straight for the assholish parts instead.
Not surprising, considering esports celebrities used to be regular members of various gaming communities before they became successful, and gaming communities in general have always had a problem with reactionary elements. About 15+ years ago, I used to play a few games competitively, and people casually throwing slurs at each other was a common occurrence. Even your average lib of the era wouldn't hesitate to throw in a slur from time to time.
Yeah, I was around for the Quake 1 deathmatch experience, and it was so full of (CW: sexual violence, gamers having heated moments)
spoiler
"suck it down" references that it was like a community wide Daikatana commercial.
Hah, I remember that notorious Daikatana ad. Surprisingly enough, John Romero has turned out to be alright, and is even an outspoken ally of the LGBTQ+ community now. Unlike many other '90s 'rockstar' game developers, he seems like a decent person. The same can't be said for his former colleague John Carmack, who calls himself a libertarian (lol), and hangs out with typical chuds. That seems to be a common thing among many old school developers.
I used to say that Romero was shittier than Carmack but I was mistaken for sure. :failure:
why do people spend time watching someone play a video game and occasionally talk into the air
I enjoy watching people play Dark Souls, Outer Wilds, etc for the first time because it's the closest I can get to playing a game for the first time again.
What the hell is a hololive
What if, instead of being themselves, the streamer played a character? Now, what if we went further, and made that character an anime girl? It turns out that there are quite a few weebs who will donate thousands of dollars to those anime girls! And so hololive was born.
It's a simulacrum of sitting on your friend's couch watching them play a game except they're not your friend, they're constantly shilling gamer gruel, and you can't interact with them aside from chat that they'll never read. But they're "quirky" and better at video games than your friend, so that's cool.
and you can’t interact with them aside from chat that they’ll never read.
I'm moving on to another streamer if thats the case usually. I almost exclusively watch streamers that interact with chat heavily. Preferably ones so small that my messages almost never get missed. But larger ones that simply make an effort to read as much as they can are cool too. I've literally had private DM conversations with my #1 favorite streamer, but he streams to like 30 people on a good day lol.
Back when I was a kid other kids always thought it was strange that I was perfectly willing to go over a friends house and just watch them play a single player game, and in fact usually preferred it to things like Goldeneye multiplayer (which I kind of hated lol).
I feel so vindicated now that Twitch is a thing. Like, I was right all along. Watching people play video games is fun. Hell yeah.
do you mean big streamers or small streamers? I like the sense of community that small streamers provide, although I haven't really watched even smaller streamers for a few years now
