#4 All for the brand - Politics and activism on Twitch

Column post from 30th of May, 2024

This text is an attempt. An offer. An invitation. It is not meant to attack anyone personally, nor do I have any specific person in mind as I write these words. Rather, I want to express a solidary critique of things I have been observing on Twitch for some time - especially since last year. I want to encourage discussion and, above all, provide concepts to enable reflection on current conditions. This text is a solidary critique of the German-speaking influencer and Twitch scene that sees itself as left-wing. Of which I am a part - albeit not a very relevant one. This means that everything I write about also affects me and that is actually a big factor in why I am writing this text in the first place.

Since my first stream in 2020, I had a specific idea in my head as to why I started streaming in the first place. It came about when I realized that there were streamers, especially in English-speaking contexts, who combined gaming content with politics. I thought it was great that there were communities that were informing each other about political topics, learning together and having a good time in that process. What's more, these were often people who were queer themselves and, for this reason, also important representation for me in a scene from which I had felt constantly excluded since I was a child. In my environment, which shrank more and more during the pandemic, there was little interest in politics, although it would have done it good. After I was unable to continue with local activism for several reasons, I thought I had found a place on that would allow me to continue activism: Twitch. Seeing that there was also a German-speaking scene in which left-wing activists were using their Channels to campaign for political issues gave me hope. But not all that glitters is gold.

Over the last year, as I've become more involved in the German-speaking, left-wing scene, I've noticed that the initial hopefulness faded more and more and instead turned into resignation and fatigue - which I think I've also observed in other people who move in this sphere. I began to wonder why and noticed more and more resistance in me to label what I found on Twitch in this scene as activism. But who am I to decide what activism is? The question is not so easy to answer offline either and I would never claim that only offline activism is the “real” activism. Why is it so important for me to name which activism is the “better” one? Where does this desire to deny that someone is an activist come from? And why has this idea never occurred to me in any other context than on Twitch? And what's the point of it all anyway?

This text is the result of this reflection process, and I wrote it in the hope that my findings will not only be useful to me. My hope is that they will help us as communities to identify what is currently happening and, in the best-case scenario, to understand our own potential for change. But I can't offer any definitive solutions either. We probably need more than just my mind for that.