The age of the internet saw an evolution of digital communities of 1980s chat rooms and 1990s online message boards gave way in the 2000s to online blogs that, in recent years, have been transformed by designers and users into Discord servers and Twitch channels. Digital communities have grown expeditiously during the COVID-19 pandemic, which while shutting down face-to-face contact has motivated people to stay connected with one another virtually, creating a “family of invisible friends”. In this article, The Emerge Magazine FLUX project has sought out and interviewed three Twitch streamers about what it’s been like to create a digital community and the impact this has had on each of them.

Brian/Tactician: The Freestyler
FLUX: What’s your name and what type of content do you like to stream?
My name on Twitch is Tactician, however my real name is Brian Moy and I stream League of Legends which is a 5V5 online arena game.
FLUX: How long have you been a Twitch Streamer?
I have been a streamer for over two years now and have been streaming on and off between school and working a full-time job and all of quarantine.
FLUX: Why did you begin your streaming career?
I got a taste of what it was like to work a real job full time and I hated every second of it. So that really pushed me to do something I’m passionate about which was playing video games. I figured so many people make a career out of playing video games on Twitch, why can’t that be me?
FLUX: What has been your experience as a Twitch streamer?
It’s been pretty great. I created a dedicated community and then within the League of Legends community, I would say I probably made a name for myself, but I’m continuing to grow every single day on my socials. It is nice to see growth and progress because in the start of your streaming career you don’t really see your number go up. So to see my numbers go up every single day is a pretty good feeling.
FLUX: How would you describe your digital community?
They are nice people who are very supportive, kind and understanding. I never had really any bad interactions. There’s a whole bunch of different people that choose to support me for no reason, which is really kind.
FLUX: How do you feel about creating a digital community that is focused on you through streaming?
I never really I really started thinking about that until recently because I got partnered on Twitch so it was a moment of realization that so many people are willing to support me since all I do is play games online so that’s pretty cool. Overall it’s just a good feeling and it’s nice to know if thing’s aren’t going well in real life then I have a group of people online that are willing to be there for me.
FLUX: What has been an obstacle you had to face with creating a digital community. What are the precautions?
The hardest part for me at least was starting out because I would stream for eight to nine hours and have one person come into my stream and say hi to me and that was really discouraging because it made me feel like I was streaming for nobody. Probably after the first two-three months it slowly started to pick up the pace.
FLUX: What has been the best part of creating a digital community?
My experience is unique because I’m playing a fairly competitive game. So it’s one thing to be known as a player, but then it’s one thing to be respected, which are two different things. I feel like with my community and accomplishments that I achieved in League of Legends and on Twitch I’m starting to earn that respect because of getting partnered on Twitch which is a different status than being alienated. So earning that respect from everyone is the best feeling for sure.
FLUX: How has streaming and creating a community during COVID-19 impacted you and your following?
It’s good to know that if I ever decide to pick up a full-time job again or take a break from streaming, I always have my community that will hopefully be willing to continue to support me because they follow my stream or keep up with me on Discord and are just willing to just tune in to have a good time to have some laughs.
FLUX: Why should someone take the route of streaming and create a digital community?
A lot of people think about streaming and think about the money, but if you’re in it for the money I don’t think you’re going to make much out of streaming because the money doesn’t compare to having a minimum wage job full-time.
It’s more about building the relationships with the community and then everything will follow for sure if you’re just consistent, just like anything else in life. It’s definitely a fun aspect having people comment “you’re insane” or “how did you do that” or having funny things happen on stream and the community is laughing. I think that’s really the best part about streaming.

Rachel/Rwenc: The Cosplayer
FLUX: What’s your name and what type of content do you like to stream?
My name is Rachel Wen but I’m known as Rwenc online. I would say that I’m a streaming variety which consists of a lot of Just Chatting streams, but I also like to play games such as Valorant.
FLUX: How long have you been a Twitch Streamer?
I’m actually just coming up on the one-year mark. I started when COVID kind of really hit in April of 2020.
FLUX: Why did you begin your streaming career?
I was really inspired by my one friend named Mark who is also a streamer. We began talking and he noticed that I played video games a lot on my own and he asked if I ever considered streaming on Twitch because you can meet people and also make a passive income on Twitch. I was a full-time student and working a part-time job at Starbucks and didn’t know I had the opportunity to get paid while playing video games, of course this wasn’t my only reason but it gave me motivation. I started to meet new friends and play video games.
FLUX: What has been your experience as a Twitch Streamer?
I would say 80 per cent it’s been really positive but there’s obviously the really dark side of being online. It doesn’t matter if you are a Twitch streamer or not. I’m still really small on Twitch so I can’t imagine what people go through, but I think it’s been really positive. Meeting so many people across the world would never happen unless you’re on social media or Twitch or anything.
NEW graf? There? are keyboard warriors who just like to troll, but other than that it’s been positive. I do have to be prepared to handle mean comments and negative people. I’ve made really good friendships and it’s weird because my opinion has changed because I consider them equal or consider them better friends than I have in my real life.
FLUX: How would you describe your digital community?
We all want to see each other grow but at the same time I think we can all roast each other and kind of be toxic to each other–but never crossing a line. If someone does cross it, unfortunately it would involve warnings or a ban if they repeat their actions multiple times. I want to create a safe community that involves all genders or sexualities.
FLUX: How do you feel about creating a digital community that is focused on you through streaming?
Sometimes I never want to be it all about me but it is kind of difficult to do that because at the end of the day when you’re streaming it’s literally about you. It’s still kind of uncomfortable for me honestly but I’m definitely learning and growing.
FLUX: What has been an obstacle you had to face with creating a digital community. What are the precautions?
Definitely the biggest one I guess is being a female playing video games such as FPS and dealing with the negative comments. The precautions are having a strong backbone. I started posting on Tik Tok but it can be really damaging and sometimes it makes me wonderif I wanna continue streaming.
But most of the people who are commenting negatively don’t have anything better to do than write mean things and I don’t want to give these people like the time of day so I’ll just respond with nice comments.
FLUX: What has been the best part of creating a digital community?
Definitely making friends especially during COVID-19. If I didn’t have this online community my mental health would be really low. Just enjoying so many different people like honestly learning about different cultures and it feels like I’m travelling and meeting new people.
FLUX: How has streaming and creating a community during COVID-19 impacted you and your following?
Having the opportunity to work from home is such a privilege because I used to work at Starbucks but had to take a step back because my parents are at high risk. For my community, there were a lot of people who joined because they were feeling really lonely and I’ve made it work to have online games together and have virtual parties. It’s a really good way to have those friends ship during these difficult times.
FLUX: Why should someone take the route of streaming and create a digital community?
When you start streaming you need to genuinely enjoy talking to people and focusing on your social skills. A lot of people go into Twitch thinking they can achieve the same success as Pokimane (the Canadian-Moroccan YouTuber/Streamer with 7.5 million followers). If you want to start because you genuinely enjoy playing games and you just want to meet friends I think it’s a good opportunity . If your only goal is to make money, I think you’re going to have a really hard time.

Pamella/QueenPams: The Socializer
FLUX: What’s your name and what type of content do you like to stream?
My name is Pamella Joy, my twitch name is Queen Pams and I mostly stream League of Legends, Valorant and Genshin Impact.
FLUX: How long have you been a Twitch Streamer?
I started streaming January 20th 2020. So it’s been a little over a year.
FLUX: Why did you begin your streaming career?
I started around quarantine and I figured I’m not doing not doing anything else with my life so I just decided to turn on my camera, get a computer and stream the games that I usually play since I play on my own anyways.
FLUX: What has been your experience as a Twitch Streamer?
I started out playing a game called RuneScape and that community and that game is just really toxic, so I had a pretty bad experience the first two months. There’s a lot of sexism, especially being a girl on Twitch it’s a little hard. I moved on to streaming League of Legends and I found a lot of new people who are a lot nicer than the community that I had before.
Then I moved to Genshin Impact and the community was even nicer there and then from then on it’s just been an amazing roller coaster. We just kept growing and meeting so many people and it’s just been a really great experience.
FLUX: How would you describe your digital community?
My community really ranges. There’s a lot of guys who watch me because I’m a girl which is obviously going to happen on Twitch, but then there are also other people in there to just make friends and they feel like the community is open and welcoming. So there’s really goofy funny people that just want to be friends or date me.
FLUX: How do you feel about creating a digital community that is focused on you through streaming?
I mean I say this on my stream so many times, and always wondered why people would come to my stream all the time instead of the other people. I wouldn’t really say that I’m entertaining; I think, I don’t know it just feels good at the same time and always wonder why they keep coming back.
FLUX: What has been an obstacle you had to face with creating a digital community. What are the precautions?
So I actually had a really big problem in the beginning with rules and me being really lenient when it comes to what was said in my chat and how people act. A lot of people had different opinions and they will obviously tend to clash because of differences. In the past I pretty much just let anyone say whatever they wanted and there would be people that would feel uncomfortable and they would come to me privately about it so it was just having to put down rules and drawing the lines and trying to figure out what’s acceptable and was not acceptable.
Just being a girl on Twitch you really have to be careful what you doing and what you say because these guys out there are really creepy and it sucks. I have to think of it that way, but at the same time it’s really kind of scary because I’ve had weirdos who threatened to kill me on there so that was also another one of my problems, trying not to like making these guys think that they can speak to me in that way. You never know what they could do.
FLUX: What has been the best part of creating a digital community?
Just being able to create a community! Everyone starts out with their IRL friends and then all of a sudden all of these new people come in with all these personalities and you end up making friends with people you’ve net met before. It just amazes me because I never really thought of online friendships is actually anything. I used to make fun of my IRLs for having these types of friendships because they’re with people you never met before. Ever since I started streaming I realized you could actually make real bonds with people and make people feel welcome and have somewhere to go to whenever they feel lonely or even when they want something to do during the day because of boredom.
FLUX: How has streaming and creating a community during COVID-19 impacted you and your following?
Not working and not leaving my house to see my co-workers and everything or my friends was really hard on me. After creating the community and making friends I was able to actually speak to people and I wasn’t alone in my room all day by myself. It really helped me get through this quarantine that’s for sure.
When it comes to other people in my community I’ve actually got so many messages from people telling me how I’ve definitely helped so many people who actually just started out on Twitch because of quarantine and for some reason found my stream first. They said that I help them deal with depression, I help them find friends and meet new people. A lot of them started streaming because of me, so that was just–I don’t know, it was just such a good feeling to know that I had that kind of impact on these people.
FLUX: Why should someone take the route of streaming and create a digital community?
Streaming is always something fun to do especially if you play video games, do art, music or anything having to do with a computer that you’d want to showcase to the world. It’s just a fun way of expressing your arts and showing people that you’re good at games. On top of that it’s also a way to help you branch out and Network–especially for artists who have …managed to push through with their dreams and reach their goals –which is a really huge thing from people who have a passion for art and even just video games.
Also just to make friends. You never know how many people you can meet or the kinds of personalities you can meet online because there’s only so many people in your city and then there’s millions of people across the world that (unless you’re streaming) you’ll never ever be able to meet.