“You’re making the Truman Show. Just no one else is part of it.” These words from Welsh streamer Connor Colquhoun, better known as CDawgVA, left me with a string of thoughts about IRL (In Real Life) streaming at TwitchCon, the bi-annual gathering hosted by streaming platform Twitch.
At TwitchCon you find yourself amid thousands of Trumans, each broadcasting their lives, with some of their feeds intersecting in corridors, on streets, and in bars. Navigating a web of concurrent live videos, you’re constantly aware of walking into someone’s stream at any given time.
These are some of the most active and enthusiastic of Twitch’s 30 million daily users, leaving their bedrooms and travelling across the world to play games, attend talks, or cosplay. They not only have a chance to meet their favourite streamers but also their longtime online friends in person for the first time. I sat next to a young streamer on the Eurostar to Rotterdam, nervous about their first solo trip abroad, and later spotted them comfortably settled with their new IRL friends at the convention. The pilgrimage seems worth it…