Streaming by the Rest of Us Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch

An in-depth investigation of the Twitch streamers who make up the largest population on the platform: those streaming to small audiences or even no one.


The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us, Mia Consalvo, Marc Lajeunesse, and Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Microstreamers, as they are called, differ from the esports athletes and streaming superstars that receive the lion’s share of journalistic and academic attention: they are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this book, the authors gather interviews from dozens of Twitch streamers from 2017–2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals.

For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium’s history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors’ own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch’s platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon.

Mia Consalvo is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design at Concordia University. She is the coauthor of Real Games and Players and Their Pets, and the author of Atari to Zelda and Cheating.
Marc Lajeunesse holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University. He produces several academic podcasts including the Connecting to Game… podcast series and the Humour and Games Podcast.
Andrei Zanescu is Assistant Processor in Communication Studies at Concordia University. His research explores the intersection of Hollywood film and prestige television, as cultural institutions, and blockbuster game companies operating in the Euro-American context.