Gen Z’s New Form Of Entertainment: Streaming
Photo courtesy of The Streamys.
The entertainment landscape has been revolutionized with the voracious consumption of streaming content, through platforms such as Youtube, Twitch and more. With the rise of streaming, comes a form of entertainment that is on demand and feels more personalized. Streaming services not only offer an endless array of choices but also foster a sense of community through social features and interactive elements, making entertainment a more immersive and participatory experience for Gen Z.
Streamers like Kai Cenat, xQc, IShowSpeed are just some notable names existing within the streaming ecosystem.
Kai Cenat has loads of accomplishments under his belt, from his breakout into being the most popular streamer for the last couple of years. Recognized for his efforts and passion, Cenat has been awarded ‘Streamer of the Year’ for two years in a row, in 2023 and 2024. The nature of Kai’s content falls under “Just Chatting” which is the most popular streaming genre to date. The conversational style allows for versatility when it comes to creating engaging, innovating content for viewers.
Streaming however, while immensely popular and holding the potential to catapult an average joe to stardom, has its own qualms as any entertainment industry does.
The live nature of these streams means content is often unfiltered and unpredictable, possibly exposing younger audiences to adult language, violence, or other mature content that may not be suitable for their age group. Viewers could also be exposed to toxic behavior, trolling, or harassment in chat rooms or comments which just perpetuates bad etiquette when interacting with others on the web.
IShowSpeed on his international tour; photo courtesy of IShowSpeed’s stream.
Adin Ross interviews former President Donald Trump leading up to the 2024 election. Photo courtesy of Adin Ross’s stream.
Controversial Kick streamer N3ON gets into a fight with Jack Doherty. Photo courtesty of NEON Stream.
Big fanbases of streamers, seem to hold a lot of blind loyalty to their favorite streamer, which in turn can leave a lot of room for error. Therefore, streamers who have amassed a large following should be careful in regards to their content and what ideas it promote unto their viewers as they carry a lot of weight in terms of influence.
Although there are some cons, streaming does provide a breath of fresh air in terms of the variety of content that can be produced.
It has allowed a new era of music promotion as well, as musicians will “tap in” with streamers to do their promos for whatever latest music they have coming out. Thus, making it easier in my opinion for somebody looking to make a big break, as all it takes is a moderately known streamer to react to said content and catapult the next one up.
Photo courtesy of show.gg.
