The internet got into quite a tizzy last night when Drake popped onto a Twitch stream to hang out and play some games with the website’s current most popular personality, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Ninja and the pop superstar were blasting their way through Fortnite: Battle Royale, the free-to-play multiplayer shooter that’s come from out of nowhere to become the hottest game in the world. (Even Roseanne Barr is tweeting about how great she is at it.)
Their squad eventually got even more star power when they were joined by rapper Travis Scott and game-streamer/NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster. With the memes flying and Drake even making a controversial defense of pineapple on pizza, the broadcast reached a concurrent viewer count of approximately 635,000, decimating the former Twitch record for non-tournament streams of 388,000.
Now, no one is saying dropping in on Twitch streams is going to replace late-night TV appearances or anything like that. But this is a fascinating case study of how livestreaming on sites like Twitch can be an alternative to traditional public appearances. Instead of appearing for 10 minutes and telling some hackneyed anecdote, Drake just hangs out with the guy and plays some video games like a real human, speculating about how Fornite’s developers could improve the game and just being a genuinely solid, sassy teammate.
[via The Verge]