Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
On September 1, 2021, many a Twitch creator took part in a protest known as #ADayOffTwitch. With a recent growth in hate raids targeting and flooding BIPOC, LGBTQ, and further creators’ Twitch chat with racial, homophobic, and hate-filled comments, many felt Twitch’s response to the matter was inadequate to say the least. As a result, many creators took the day to not stream on Twitch in protest of the platform’s lack of a solution for the problem. How much can “a few creators” do by not streaming? Well, it actually made for one of the worst days of viewership in Twitch’s entire year so far.
This statistic comes from the TwitchTracker website, which charts Twitch’s peak viewership throughout the day, previous week, and year as well. Just looking at the week alone, September 1, 2021, the day #ADayOffTwitch took place, the peak concurrent viewership was far lower than any day in the week at 3.53 million viewers. It was nearly 500,000 viewers lower than the next lowest day this week and the first time in the previous week that Twitch had not broken 4 million in concurrent viewership.
On the larger scale, #ADayOffTwitch was also one of the worst days of Twitch viewership in 2021 so far. There are only two days on the entire calendar year where Twitch’s peak concurrent viewership came in lower, August 7 at 3.34 million and January 1 at 3.50 million.
This should represent an important data point for the streamers that took part in #ADayOffTwitch protests. The fact of the matter is that there was a lot of doubt that without the support of larger influencers and streamers, it wouldn’t make much of a dent in Twitch’s numbers. The platform still saw a lot of viewership, it’s true. However, the fact that this event created one of three of the worst viewership days in the platform's entire year so far is notable to say the least. Currently, third-party companies such as StreamLabs are trying to take matters in to their own hands and create solutions to the hate raid issue.
Nonetheless, hopefully #ADayOffTwitch is a notable data point for Twitch as well. Streamers are looking for a proper answer to the hate raid problem from the company, and there’s enough of them out there for an event like #ADayOffTwitch to actually make a difference. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story for further updates and information.