The Streamer Awards are going to be amazing
Last week, QTCinderella and Maya Higa, top Twitch streamers that have created some of the biggest projects Twitch has ever seen, opened up…
Last week, QTCinderella and Maya Higa, top Twitch streamers that have created some of the biggest projects Twitch has ever seen, opened up voting for their recently unveiled The Streamer Awards. The event aims to have a massive audience of (COVID safe) streamers, receiving their awards on stage in LA, streamed live to hundreds of thousands of viewers. One of my earliest pieces was about December’s OTV IRL event, where I spoke to Amanda @Nepheloyd, from OfflineTV, about upcoming events like this, and the interest to host them from streamers across the spectrum.
QTCinderella is a “Just Chatting” and cooking streamer who, among many other accolades, was the primary organizer of the immensely successful “ShitCamp” event late last year — which featured massive names from xQc and Ludwig to Michael Reeves and Valkyrae. One of the major upcoming events I wrote about last year was her unique Christmas Carol event with several other streamers and a live audience, in an LA theater.
Maya Higa is a wildlife conservationist who has used some of the biggest fundraisers on the platform to raise upwards of a million dollars in the name of education about poaching and the pet trade. She founded Alveus Sanctuary, a multi-acre Texan educational center that rehabilitates and houses animals while using them as educational ambassadors with Twitch as the vector for spreading the word, per se.
Less than two weeks out, the question about the event really relies on what sets it apart from the rather crowded field of other streaming and gaming awards shows. The Esports Awards and the Streamys both offer Streamer of the Year awards, and the Streamys have significant categorical breakdown. However, the Streamys are a Youtube exclusive, and don’t break down gaming any further than the category as a whole, while the Esports awards focus mostly on professionals and the very biggest creators. Neither really cover the base of primarily gaming, Twitch, and LSF facing streamers
It also can’t be understated how important this is for the legitimizing trend that has begun to define the actions of forward looking streamers as they try to lock down the next big thing. The idea has been that while cable TV dies as a medium for highly produced content, those same frameworks can be ported onto platforms like Twitch, which is why The Streamer Awards are clearly designed in the same vein as the Oscars or Emmys.
This isn’t to say that the event is nearly as cross discipline as those other events — it’s still in its infancy, and since it was primarily pushed only by its hosts, a certain side of the streaming community is naturally going to be over-represented. For example, as much as I enjoy watching Atrioc, I struggle to imagine that a truly representative pool of the viewership population wouldn’t drown him out in the speedrunner category.
Regardless, though, I’m excited for an event that promises black tie, in person, high quality production as we come out of the pandemic. QT has a tenured history of putting on great collaborative events, and with a guest list already pages long, March 12th is looking incredibly promising.