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I Prefer Twitch Format Over YouTube

I’ve concluded that I will be posting very little to YouTube from now on and adding this disclaimer below to every playlist. Engaging with the Twitch and Discord community in real time is far more valuable than dealing with these kind of comments in YouTube where you can’t even engage in any meaningful way.

Here’s a comment on YouTube videos (exported from Twitch) that conveys the frustration YouTube viewers have with the Twitch format:

Annoying twitch chatters, i feel like you get really distracted by them.

I had to add the following warning:

[WARNING: THESE ARE NOT YOUTUBE VIDEOS! They are co-learning sessions with friends on Twitch that happen to be saved to YouTube. They are distracted, long, and annoying to most YouTube viewers. You have been warned. Watch something else if that bothers you.]

I’ve learned a lot from streaming over the last two years and perhaps the biggest conclusion is that Twitch is NOT YouTube. Even the YouTube vloggers edit their videos. I don’t and never will. People on Twitch expect that. They are used to watching gamers and IRL streamers meander about all sorts of different things on their streams. YouTube viewers expect hyper-polished beautiful, consumable lessons with a script, or summations. Hell, even the adventure cycling videos are radically edited compared to just watching someone bike around from their shoulder and talking to them in real time about it.

In other words, the “distracting chatters” are the whole fucking point of Twitch and many on Twitch could do well to remember that — especially if the goal is co-learning and education.

Tags:

#streaming #youtube #twitch #culture