[HN Gopher] Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
___________________________________________________________________
Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
Author : breckenedge
Score : 88 points
Date : 2021-12-10 19:40 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| Permit wrote:
| Streaming aside, tyler1 has an almost inhuman dedication and
| focus when it comes to League of Legends. On Hacker News it's
| common to hear that programmers can't work (on classic
| programming tasks) for more than ~4 hours a day. I also feel
| exhausted after working for ~4 hours and have always wondered if
| this was some sort of mental trap I'd fallen into or a genuine
| limit.
|
| Games like League of Legends require complete focus and attention
| yet he somehow manages to regularly stream for 10 hours and
| sometimes reaches peaks of over 30 hours(!!!)[1]. Can you imagine
| solving leetcode problems (even easy ones) for 30 hours?
|
| In 2020 he paused streaming so he could focus solely on going
| from Diamond (mid-to-high tier) to Challenger (highest tier). If
| I recall correctly, he said he would sleep on the couch by his
| computer, wake up, play and go back to sleep on the couch after
| ~17 hours.
|
| I don't follow League of Legends (I prefer Dota) but tyler1 has
| always stood out to me as a person with an incomparable focus and
| dedication. I haven't seen anything similar in the Dota community
| and the only programmers that jump to mind would be geohotz or
| maybe Nick Winter[2].
|
| [1] https://dotesports.com/news/tyler1-marathon-stream-top-
| lane-...
|
| [2] https://blog.nickwinter.net/posts/the-120-hour-workweek-
| epic...
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| Some heroin users are also incredibly dedicated to finding
| their next score. They show intense focus when it comes to
| seeking out their next hit.
|
| Why do you think demonstrating focus on an addictive video game
| is the same as solving open-ended computer science problems?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There's huge amounts of space between "open-ended computer
| science problems" (your words) and "classic programming
| tasks" (gp's words)
| Permit wrote:
| > Why do you think demonstrating focus on an addictive video
| game is the same as solving open-ended computer science
| problems?
|
| Firstly, I probably wouldn't classify the work most of us do
| as "solving open-ended computer science problems" so I'm not
| trying to make a comparison to that work.
|
| Secondly, I guess it stands out to me because I watch other
| people play the same addictive game and are unable to play at
| a high level for the same lengths of time. If it were just an
| addictive property of the game, we should expect to see
| thousands of tyler1's as we see thousands of heroin addicts.
| Since we do not, it makes me think that there's something
| special with him.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| My dad worked for startups on-and-off and he definitely was
| productive for a lot more than 8 hours per day. He does agree
| that for truly novel work there's a limit, but for every novel
| problem to solve, there's dozens[1] of reported bugs to
| investigate, so there's plenty of work to fit between work on
| new things.
|
| 1: That number seems small today, but I got the sense that bug-
| discovery by customers at least was limited by the low number
| of customers that a b2b startup had in the 80s.
| handrous wrote:
| I think the impressive thing is doing it day after day. I can
| do _lots_ of things, including programming, for 12+ hours. The
| trouble is, after a day or two of that, I _desperately_ don 't
| want to do whatever-it-is for several days or weeks. I want to
| go do other stuff.
|
| It's the doing it day after day on a regular schedule that
| makes me feel like I never really recover from programming, and
| just want to zone out and stare at the wall until bed time,
| having very little energy left for anything either fun or
| productive, after 4-5 hours, most days.
|
| I'll even do that with video games. Get the family out of the
| house and give me a weekend, I'll play vidja games for like 16
| hours. Then wake up the second day and not want to touch a game
| for at least a week, and instead start doing home improvement
| projects or whatever. Or sit outside and read a book all day.
| Not because I feel like I should, but because it's the thing I
| most want to be doing, and I have zero desire to look at a
| screen for a good long while.
|
| The regularity of work is what makes it so damn draining, for
| me. I'm sure it'd ruin gaming for me in short order, too,
| though I'd have fared a lot better at it back when I was in my
| teens or early 20s than I would now, for sure. I _can 't_ do 30
| waking hours of _anything_ now. 24 just about ruins me. I could
| get to about 36-38 before hitting a wall and passing out for
| like 12 hours, back then. 30 wasn 't that big a deal, and I hit
| that mark pretty often (usually, yeah, playing video games for
| a good chunk of it).
| kubb wrote:
| Do you really imply that playing the same game over and over
| again (with some variables but still) is the same as solving
| programming problems?
|
| The game is literally designed to hook you in and make you play
| one more and one more. You absolutely can autopilot through a
| game and still win.
|
| Don't get me wrong, the guy has a lot of dedication for sure.
| But playing League all day is really not like coding all day, I
| don't want anyone to get that impression.
| Permit wrote:
| Have you played League of Legends or Dota 2 before? It will
| be hard to convey the mental/emotional exhaustion that most
| people feel from playing MOBAs at even a semi-competitive
| level. In my experience it's a lot different than playing FPS
| or other games.
|
| I have a distinct memory of finishing a game of Dota 2 and
| realizing that it felt as though I'd just finished a 3 hour
| exam. I didn't feel happy that we'd won, just relieved. I
| don't think this will convince you, but perhaps consider
| being open to the possibility that it genuinely is as
| difficult as solving most programming problems that we face
| in our day-to-day work. In my mind, it's at least as
| difficult as "easy" leetcode problems.
| kubb wrote:
| Yeah I've played League for a bit. It really does get
| easier the more you play.
|
| By the way, I've just read in the article that Tyler's been
| on Adderall since first grade, I guess that will help him
| stay focused.
| shanehoban wrote:
| Nah, he's right. I play league. Coding all day is much less
| draining.
| kubb wrote:
| Except when you're drained you won't have the creativity to
| solve another programming task. But you will be able to
| queue up again. It also gets easier the more you play,
| because you're relying on the same skills that you build up
| with every match.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I haven't ever played a MOBA, but fixing bugs (which
| takes up a significant amount of developer time), seems
| to be about as rote as playing an RTS (which I have
| played, albeit almost 20 years ago).
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| You skipped over the year and a half when he was banned from
| LoL for being such a raging asshole.
| https://www.polygon.com/2017/1/10/14179366/league-of-legends...
| vertak wrote:
| I find it hard to sympathize for the poor plight of the
| $200,000/month healthcare-less twitch streamer working 2 more
| hours a day than the average person. Was this article written
| entirely to provoke outrage or is there some oppression I'm
| missing?
| kingcharles wrote:
| https://archive.md/Dpr7S
| mrtksn wrote:
| 3 to 8 hours long streams seems to be the norm on Twitch. What
| kind of lifestyle there's that allows the consumption of full day
| long content?
| elaus wrote:
| I think for most streams there's no real need to watch them
| from start til end. You can just tune in and out at will
| without missing much. For many it probably just runs in the
| background while they do other things, like some people do with
| soap operas on TV.
| Operyl wrote:
| It's good background noise for me, albeit I watch relaxing
| background content here, things like Pokemon or Animal
| Crossing.
| anthonycr wrote:
| Personally, as a programmer I usually have a Twitch stream
| (often Tyler1's) running on a second monitor as background
| noise if I'm not listening to music. However, the most active
| chatters are mainly college students in my experience.
| cardosof wrote:
| The streamer is 8 hours in, not the audience. Also, if you
| think how much free time children, teenagers and NEET adults
| have, yeah, 5+h per day watching games is completely doable
| during a pandemic.
| handrous wrote:
| > What kind of lifestyle there's that allows the consumption of
| full day long content?
|
| Kids.
|
| Adults without kids.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Or just keep it on in a background tab with headphones on?
| I've always got some kind of podcast running or twitch if I'm
| not doing deep work (I do frontend, so I'll listen to stuff
| when writing boilerplate vs problem solving).
| hogFeast wrote:
| You have it on in the background. Some streams have a very
| engaged community, everyone is there flooding the chat all the
| time. But in most streams the viewers aren't engaging, they
| have it on the background, it is on their second monitor while
| they play games or work or whatever. Viewership went way up
| during the pandemic too.
|
| I don't think it is for everyone but I prefer it to
| TV/Netflix/whatever. I didn't even play games when I started
| watching (I do now, but only once or twice a week). Some people
| prefer amateur porn to Brazzers.
| jrockway wrote:
| What's the career progression for streamers and eSports players,
| anyway? I feel like everyone that does this now is going to be
| tired of it in 5 years, and then they're just 30 and without a
| college degree or job experience.
| jedberg wrote:
| The same career path as a professional athlete. Some go into
| commentating, some go into sports management, and most retire
| broke and have to pick up a whole new career in their late
| 20s/early 30s.
| diognesofsinope wrote:
| Bingo -- they struggle through their 20s until they realize
| they need to pick a practical career in their early 30s.
| munk-a wrote:
| Twitch streaming can be extremely practical if you're being
| sustainable about it. Assuming you're actually watching
| your income and expenses and being smart about when to hire
| on additional help you can make a pretty darn successful
| career. I'd point to T90[1] as an example of someone that
| isn't near the top 1% but has built an extremely
| sustainable business including paid moderators and content
| editors (for sending clips to YouTube).
|
| 1.
| https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/T90Official/Broadcasts
| claudiulodro wrote:
| The skills and experience they've picked up directly
| translates to a number of "practical" careers: affiliate
| marketing, social media marketing, PR, community building,
| video and audio editing, etc. not to mention game-related
| careers in eSports, game development, etc.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Same thing people in sports do:
|
| - Continue
|
| - Retire
|
| - Start coaching
|
| - Start casting
|
| - Management (Organizing/growing content creators/groups)
|
| - Switch careers entirely
|
| Any of the giants should hopefully have been saving there money
| and have quite a bunch tucked away. Any of the smaller ones
| should have been doing something on the side, or at least have
| a plan B ready.
|
| Also, not sure why we're assuming no college degree here.
| munk-a wrote:
| Or that running a successful business for a decade doesn't
| count as experience that most businesses would be happy to
| hire on. Being a successful twitch streamer involves
| extremely good time management and a lot of hands on
| advertising. They've got a lot more proof of successful
| marketing than most PR folks you might look at hiring.
| somerando7 wrote:
| If you're one of the top streamers, with decent financial
| literacy, you will easily make enough to retire by 30 if you
| started streaming at say 20.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Nowadays there are financial planers focusing on content
| creators/streaming talent who will know the specifics of tax
| structures and advantages, etc. as well.
| jrockway wrote:
| But what if you're not one of the top streamers, and you just
| get 250 viewers a few times a week? I watch a lot of people
| like that. It seems to pay for room and board, but I worry
| about their future.
| Aunche wrote:
| That works for the millionaire streamers, but I'm sure a lot
| of them make modest incomes as well.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I know a few ex-YouTubers, and they're all doing just fine.
| Working in PR, marketing, agents, etc. Sure, they don't have a
| degree... but they have a ton of connections and relevant
| experience.
| bluedino wrote:
| Hopefully they invest their money and don't blow it on Ferraris
| and avocado toast.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Their money goes into GME and crypto
| floren wrote:
| Jeez, at least avocados are tasty...
| authed wrote:
| better investment then a Ferrari
| bbreier wrote:
| depends on the Ferrari tbh
| munk-a wrote:
| I can't tell if you're being sarcastic but cars are the
| definition of an absolutely terrible investment - they
| might beat out randomly hoping you'll land big on
| r/wallstreetbets but both are extremely poor investment
| decisions.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| Ordinary cars are a strongly depreciating asset. However,
| above a certain level this stops being true. I had the
| fortune to buy, use and subsequently sell a number of
| higher end cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini) and I made little
| to no loss on any of them. In fact, the Ferrari 458,
| which to this day I consider the best supercar to drive,
| appreciated during the year or so I had it.
| munk-a wrote:
| It sounds like the cars might have slightly more than
| broken even on cost for you which sounds like a terrible
| investment option when you've got everything from real
| estate to mutual funds that will generally outperform
| cars - and, much like stock picking, most of the models
| you purchased didn't significantly appreciate - just one
| ended up gaining in value.
|
| I suppose I was misinformed in that I thought that cars
| of all value ranges were pretty disastrous assets to hold
| - but it sounds like holding on to them for value
| appreciation still isn't a particularly good tactic.
| [deleted]
| verve_rat wrote:
| I'm assuming they were making a comment about the value
| of classic cars. Some of them could absolutely be a good
| investment, if, (big, giant, planet sized) if you know
| what you are doing.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| ask your colleagues :)
|
| i was pleasantly surprised one day to find I was working side-
| by-side with someone who was once a minor music celebrity
|
| they had pivoted in their 20-somethings after a decent payout,
| used it to finance their education, and are now just 'one of
| us' haha
| alistairSH wrote:
| He's on pace to earn more then $3 million before he turns 30.
| He doesn't much of a plan to live reasonably for many years.
| golemiprague wrote:
| What's the big deal starting at age 30? you still got another
| 30 years to work at least, if not more. You just study some
| profession and start working in the field.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you have the same questions for professional athletes in
| traditional sports?
| valleyer wrote:
| We have decades of examples of how this works out for pro
| athletes. The answer is that there's a range of outcomes:
| some have to find new careers after their playing days are
| over; others find ancillary work (coaching, scouting) in the
| sports industry; the very best make enough money that they
| don't need to work anymore. In many cases, the athletes have
| a college degree of at least some value.
|
| Professional video game streaming is relatively new. It's a
| valid question.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| It's a valid question, but the answer is simple: nearly the
| same thing that sports players do when they stop being the
| player. They either coach, manage, promote their brand, or
| switch careers.
| xwdv wrote:
| Yes. A lot of professional athletes don't really make much
| money. They get normal salaries and play for non major league
| teams or federations of some sort.
|
| Eventually though they will have to quit their sport due to
| wear and tear and no longer being at a peak level. And most
| will probably never really progress to a level where they can
| make some quick millions from a contract and then retire
| early.
|
| So what then?
| bsder wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I'm a proponent of the idea that your athletic scholarship at
| a Division I-A school should be for "sports degree" and that
| it should entitle you to _come back prepaid_ for an
| "academic" 4 year degree when that track runs out.
|
| That would stop a lot of the idiocy we see around "student
| athletes".
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Some of them make enough money to retire if streaming doesn't
| work out long-term.
| siruncledrew wrote:
| If someone is an esports player, it would be hard to stay a
| professional (in most action games at least) at age 30 simply
| due to natural wear on your hands and reaction times getting
| slower.
| mym1990 wrote:
| This doesn't really make sense. Athletes in many sports are
| playing way past their 'prime' these days and they are
| wearing out much more than just their hands. Consistently
| good reaction times are a result of consistent training.
| Plenty of older baseball/tennis players have superhuman
| reaction times. I would see mental fatigue and boredom as
| being the major hurdle to playing esports on a professional
| level at an older age. No matter how fun it started as, 10+
| years of looking at the same thing over and over has got to
| be soul sucking.
| blahblah123456 wrote:
| It's counterintuitive, but if you look at eSports players,
| the prime years are much lower (both the start and the
| end). You do see 16 year olds at the top but you never see
| 30 year olds. It feels like the prime is really 16-25.
| Reaction times in traditional sports are not as important,
| and hands are one of the worst things to wear out. More
| parts != more wear out. There's a reason why there are
| (general) physical therapists and physical therapists who
| specialize in hands. Hands are incredibly complex and soft
| tissue injuries heal very poorly due to lack of blood
| supply.
|
| I doubt the boredom thing is that different for sports vs
| eSports. At least with eSports the game is changing due to
| patches. With sports, the game itself hardly changes.
|
| For citation: see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article
| ?id=10.1371/journal... you can see reaction time starts to
| drop off rapidly starting at age 25
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| In physical sports the barrier to entry is very high. Even
| if you have good reaction time, high strength, etc. you
| will still need 1000s of hours of practice from a very
| young age to excel.
|
| In e-sports there's millions of people practicing every day
| and the built in ranking system can filter that down to the
| current top 0.1%. At this point branching out into actual
| competitions is not nearly as difficult as getting noticed
| by a NBA, NFL, etc. recruiter.
|
| It does depend on the Game. CSGO players play a very
| limited number of maps so pure reaction time and hand-eye
| coordination is often the deciding factor. Strategy games
| like LoL and softer FPS games like Fortnite are less
| dependent on physical talent.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| 1. Most professional athletes have very short careers.
|
| 2. The athletes who do play "past their prime" are usually
| making up for reduced physical acuity with other skills
| (e.g. you don't see very many baseball players hit triples
| after 30).
|
| 3. Players with long careers invest a huge amount of time
| in conditioning, and to a hard-to-measure degree, PEDs.
|
| 4. I don't really follow eSports; If someone played
| Starcraft competitively 20 years ago, are they still
| playing SC, or do they switch to something else like LoL?
| What's the typical competitive "lifetime" of a game? If you
| picked up game-specific skills, it might be harder to apply
| #2 when the game du-jour changes.
|
| 5. As a slight nitpick to the whole conversation, my
| understanding is that "reaction time" is perhaps a
| misnomer; the drop in reaction time with age for performing
| a simple activity appears to be relatively minor, but more
| complex activities (including habitual ones like driving),
| which suggests that the performance decline is in selecting
| and/or executing the proper response to a stimuli rather
| than what we think of as pure "reaction time"
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| There are quite a few streamers who have been doing it for more
| than a decade at this point with no sign of slowing down.
|
| On the other hand, there are plenty of ways to sell the skill
| of building a large following to employers, and plenty of
| companies looking for people who are experts in social
| media/streaming platforms.
| RobRivera wrote:
| why does every endeavor require career progression? its
| [Current Year] can't people just enjoy something, take the
| money and invest it, then go to college, start a business, make
| a RE empire?
|
| Ask a few military vets, many legitimately just start at the
| bottom at the totem some place novel into their mid 30s.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Right? Can't you just enjoy being in a good place and stay
| there?
|
| Maybe I'm jaundiced because I just had to fill out my annual
| review self-assessment and skipped the "5-year plan" because
| I simply couldn't be bothered to lie about it.
| dejke wrote:
| I think a decent few of them find positions in related fields
| like talent management or esports. They do probably develop
| pretty decent relationships in those industries.
| o10449366 wrote:
| The comments section is truly depraved.
| alistairSH wrote:
| $2.5 million earned at 26 years old. Tiny little violin playing
| for him. So what if he hates it and stops, he's already earned
| more in a few years than most people do in a lifetime.
|
| Not much different than most pop stars or pro athletes.
| daenz wrote:
| >Streamers like Tyler form the backbone of tech giants' "creator
| economy,"
|
| Maybe this is pessimism, but calling streamers "creators" feels
| like a perverse label.
| gizmodo59 wrote:
| " But as a gig worker for a media empire, even a successful
| streamer like Tyler has a livelihood that's inherently unstable
| -- without insurance, unions, sick days, retirement funds or hope
| for a sustainable career."
|
| That's funny. He has earned more in a year than many in a decade.
| Million a year and it's unstable. What makes you think the job of
| a software engineer is stable! He is skilled in entertainment. He
| will find a way.
| npinsker wrote:
| This reads as very biased and judgmental. It treats streamers as
| kids who can't take care of themselves and don't understand the
| long-term impact of their lifestyle and career choice. It
| honestly makes me wonder if the author is jealous of the subject.
| It seems like the piece is really reaching to make Tyler's life
| appear as irresponsible as possible.
|
| Plenty of people in all careers don't know how to run their lives
| at 26, and plenty decide to completely change their lives at ages
| far older than that. Tyler seems like an admirable rags-to-riches
| success story -- he didn't get his foot in the door by being in
| the right location or knowing the right people, just hard work
| and a ton of talent. The company that runs the game he plays
| banned him for life, and he persevered anyway. In many ways, his
| success is more rare and more difficult than starting a startup.
| I'm not saying the lifestyle is necessarily worth celebrating,
| but it's deserving of a lot more respect than it gets here.
| obstacle1 wrote:
| > It treats streamers as kids who can't take care of themselves
| and don't understand the long-term impact of their lifestyle
| and career choice.
|
| Interesting. I did not read it like that at all. Do you have an
| example quotation of what makes you think that?
|
| The impression I got is both Tyler and Micayla are well aware
| of how negatively streaming affects their lives. They both
| explicitly said they don't want to be doing this forever and
| want to retire, didn't they?
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| What makes you think it's judgmental?
|
| If they had instead wrote the article about a drug dealer
| making $500k a year, explaining the downsides of that line of
| work, would you also think the journalist was just jealous?
|
| The point of the article is that this seems like a lifestyle
| destined to cause issues later in life.
| Drew_ wrote:
| People like to be bitter about others finding success in spaces
| they don't they don't like or don't take very seriously.
| jeffchien wrote:
| I think it's possible to both respect how they got there and
| their agency, but also feel some mixed feelings about their
| lifestyles. Especially if you see tyler1 and xqc do 8+/10+ hour
| streams every day respectively, while taking 1-2 vacations per
| year.
|
| "Pity" might be too judgemental, but I personally don't envy
| that lifestyle. It's just like respecting boxers' and NFL
| players' success, while not wanting to be in their shoes and
| risk getting killed in the ring or CTE.
| mjfl wrote:
| youtubers / streamers keep making the mistake of thinking
| reporters are there friend and letting them observe their lives.
| jthornquest wrote:
| Good work, capitalism. /s
| Kiro wrote:
| Yes, I honestly believe the donation model (which is the big
| share of their revenue) shows a glimmer of hope in capitalism.
| I wish for a future where the majority of the revenue coming
| from donations is the norm for companies as well.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think, for the majority of streamers, the way to set
| expenses is by looking at long term subscribers rather than
| day-to-day donations - those donos can fund fun things but
| you're going to want to try and keep your life expenses
| carried by the regular subscription income. A lot of the
| people who have gotten successful doing this have endured
| extremely lean times when they were trying to break into a
| decent sized audience - every streamer I've ever heard talk
| about the financial side of things plans things extremely
| conservatively.
| munificent wrote:
| This article is fascinating for the effects it has on readers.
|
| We likely all understand that one of the toxic forces in our
| culture today is the compulsive need to turn every story and news
| article into a clear moral narrative with a pure protagonist and
| a villainous antagonist. Reality isn't like that at all, and when
| journalists force reality into that framework, it distorts our
| perception of the world in unhealthy ways.
|
| But when an article comes out that _doesn 't_ do that, that just
| says "here are some people and what their experience is like", it
| seems many of us are unprepared to handle it. In the comments
| here, I see this rorschach-like phenomenon where each reader
| _imagines_ a morality play, superimposes it on the article, and
| then gets surprised when others saw something different.
|
| This isn't an acticle about good guys and bad guys, winning and
| losing, the good or evil of capitalism. It's just a window into
| one person's life. It's a _useful_ article because this is a kind
| of person whose life affects many of us--a lot of people here
| watch popular streamers--but where we have little insight into
| the whole picture of how that impacts their life.
|
| We should relish journalism like this. There is no need to jump
| to any moral conclusion. Just witness and understand a bit more
| about the variety of lives people live today.
| karaterobot wrote:
| This sounds like a bad way to live, and I'm sure it is. But, I
| wonder if a similarly anxious narrative could be written about
| the average PM at a startup, or Amazon delivery person, or Uber
| driver, or really anyone with a demanding job that consumes as
| much of your time as it can. It seems like being swatted and
| harassed online are the more unique perils of being a content
| creator, but the 10-hour stressful days are not, and many people
| would probably trade their 10-hour stressful days at $40k-$160k a
| year for 10-hour stressful days at $2 million a year if they
| could.
| fizx wrote:
| It's probably more stressful having a camera on you for with
| thousands of fans offering critical feedback every second.
|
| Maybe something like an engineering management role where all
| you do is share performance reviews?
| hogFeast wrote:
| T1 is a very extreme example. He seems to have no life, he
| plays the same game for 10-12 hours/day, he is pretty toxic, he
| seems to have few other interests and no social life...that is
| fine, he is an astute businessman but most other streamers
| aren't doing this. They play variety, they do IRL, they have
| social lives, they take breaks. Even xQc, another streamer who
| is notorious for 20+ hour streams every week, plays variety and
| goes outside...sometimes (he recently did an IRL stream at
| Universal).
|
| So I think it is like a lot of entertainment: the job can be
| intense, there is often little separation between personal and
| private but the pay is generally pretty good. Even on Twitch
| which really struggles with promoting smaller streamers, there
| are people far down the chain earning $50k/year with relatively
| small communities. Is that better than a startup? No. But not
| everyone can move to SF or go to college either.
|
| I don't think being swatted or harassed is that common either.
| If you are a big streamer and you leak where you live, then
| maybe...but it doesn't happen as much as it used to (xQc got
| swatted repeatedly this year, and someone broke into his
| house...it does still happen).
|
| Also, Twitch chat is toxic but most of the negative comments
| are not serious. I understand why normies wouldn't understand
| that but part of the fun for (some) streamers is battling with
| chat. It isn't a very serious place.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I keep reading these expose's about how difficult and damaging
| some career is. I rock climb and everyone is obsessed with
| shining light on eating disorders and how thin athletes need to
| be. No one is writing about plumbers having bad backs and
| knees, or construction workers having lung problems. It's just
| oh "Kim Kardashian is stressed because people say mean things
| on Instagram."
|
| It's dumb, yes life is hard and will grind you down. If your
| lucky you make enough money to step away while your still
| healthy and relatively young.
| dvt wrote:
| Imo we should be lauding this brand new sector and the folks that
| made it in it. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok literally created a new kind
| of millionaire. Are we just upset we're also not uber rich for
| playing video games all day? It's the same with crypto, OnlyFans,
| and so on. It was the same in '99 with the dot coms.
|
| Merely from an economic standpoint, it's interesting to see who
| these new industries are displacing (since this is a zero sum
| game). I'm sure having zillions of dollars doesn't make you
| happy, but there's so much unwarranted hate here on HN for new
| ventures and disruptive industries, it's kind of odd. It feels HN
| has become way more corporatist in the past few years -- everyone
| wants to work for FAANG, no one wants to do their own thing. "If
| it's popular, it must be bad" is a pretty myopic view.
| belval wrote:
| The article mentions that Tyler makes $300k per year in
| merchandise alone (so excluding any actual sponsored content).
| Frankly I don't get why this can't be seen as a legitimate very
| successful business. Where is the line? Is entertainment only
| valid on TV? YouTube?
|
| Some commenters here even said that it's all good now but that
| it won't work in his thirties or something as if there aren't a
| ton of jobs out there that feed on young blood that won't be
| able to keep up later in life.
|
| I completely agree with you, this kind of "this is not a real
| job" attitude really comes off as people upset that they can't
| be millionaires at their job.
|
| EDIT: A lot of the comments point out that most people on
| Twitch/YouTube/OnlyFans don't make money and would be better
| off getting a "real job". I am not trying to argue against that
| or say that Twitch is a good job prospect. My point is that if
| they do succeed in that niche, trying to segment money-making
| endeavour between "real jobs" and "just a kid playing video
| games" seems very vain to me. Tyler is making millions
| providing entertainment, to me that is very much a real job.
| varelse wrote:
| I knew G to PG-13 ratedc camgirls that were making six
| figures back in 1997 to 2000. They eventually got disrupted
| by the adult industry providing more explicit content for
| much less money upfront. OnlyFans seems to have reinvented
| this model at scale, but what's the average margin for an
| OnlyFans provider? $180/month.
|
| https://influencermarketinghub.com/glossary/onlyfans/
| kzrdude wrote:
| Not a real job is a quite good stance to take. Because there
| is an absurd power law at play here, the absolute top make a
| lot of money. In a "real job" you are paid a living wage, on
| twitch you are paid scraps if you don't make it to the top.
| belval wrote:
| I am not saying this is a real job prospect. If a kid told
| me he wanted to be a Twitch streamer I'd say he can't be
| one, same as professional singer or musician in general.
|
| What I am saying that what Tyler has very much is a real
| job and successful business. You wouldn't say Taylor Swift
| is jobless because very few people make it in the pop music
| world.
| obstacle1 wrote:
| >If a kid told me he wanted to be a Twitch streamer I'd
| say he can't be one
|
| You'd be lying though, and your kid would probably grow
| up to resent it. There are ways to educate kids about the
| relative risks of careers in good faith.
| danny_codes wrote:
| I believe OP was being hyperbolic.
| belval wrote:
| It was a volunteer oversimplification to explain my
| reasoning, not parenting advice.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _Frankly I don 't get why this can't be seen as a
| legitimate very successful business._
|
| This is going to sound glib, but I honestly think it's
| because Pinterest hasn't been able to create a comparable (or
| even marginally similar) business model for its users to
| capitalize on. Seriously, why isn't Pinterest a big shopping
| destination? The answer to that will tell us a lot about
| attitudes toward influencers and e-stars.
| serverholic wrote:
| Society is finding ways to value a wider range of talents.
| Different people are good at different things and,
| unfortunately, only a subset of those things are valued in the
| economy.
|
| These technologies are allowing people to display their talents
| and allowing them to make money off of them. Back in the day
| being good at video games was a fun thing to do when you had
| free time. Now there is a small chance you can make a living
| off it.
|
| I can't remember the quote but Warren Buffett once said that
| the only reason he is a billionaire is that he was born at the
| right time, with the right gender (back when women weren't
| allowed to do much), and with the right talents.
|
| Valuing a wider range of talents allows more people to
| participate in the economy. Crypto for example allows
| developers to inject little bits of economy into apps. Perhaps
| in the future someone can make a living creating really good
| cat memes instead of a deadend job that is basically useless
| anyways.
|
| If that last sentence offended you I'd suggest you checkout the
| book "Bullshit Jobs".
| lhorie wrote:
| > Imo we should be lauding this brand new sector
|
| I disagree. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok didn't create a new kind of
| millionaire. They're simply celebrities. The only thing that
| arguably changed is that content production is so cheap and
| saturated now that consumers get a lot more choice in terms of
| who they want to watch, without being constrained by TV
| schedules and other distribution/logistics limitations.
|
| There is no "new industries", it all still falls under the
| entertainment industry umbrella, and even the monetization
| mechanisms are the same old ones (ads, sponsorships,
| merchandising). By "lauding celebrities", all we're
| accomplishing is consolidate consumer attention into fewer
| content production channels, solidifying the position of the
| platforms where these celebrities operate.
|
| Arguably the only noteworthy thing here is that technology
| changes and companies that embrace innovation will eat the
| lunches of those that fail to keep up (e.g. Blockbuster).
| "Everyone wants to work for FAANG" because a good chunk of the
| entertainment industry money is flowing there.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| > Imo we should be lauding this brand new sector and the folks
| that made it in it. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok literally created a
| new kind of millionaire.
|
| You provide no explanation as to why we should be lauding them.
| Or are you implying that because someone is a millionaire then
| we should automatically laud them? Is that what late stage
| capitalism looks like?
| ridaj wrote:
| The challenge is that many of them have unsustainable always-on
| relationships with their audience that seriously burn them out.
| Sure folks should be free to do what they want with their life
| but remember they're not the only ones getting the benefit,
| they're feeding a bunch of social and merchandising platforms
| that make big $ on their backs - so the question becomes, what
| responsibility does the platform have towards the health of its
| creators?
| fragmede wrote:
| Workaholics are nothing new and date back to _well_ before
| the Internet or some TV show about the phenomenon.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Do investment banks have a responsibility towards not burning
| out their employees?
| kubb wrote:
| Why is it laudable? Sure, we shouldn't be jealous of successful
| people, but why go to the other extreme? It surely won't help
| you have an unbiased stance on the phenomenon.
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