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Aimee Davies, better known as Aimsey to their fans, is 24 years old but looks much younger. Sitting in an empty lounge upstairs at the annual TwitchCon event in Rotterdam, it’s a breeze in a beanie hat and T-shirt, smiles and lively chats. Aimsey (who uses pronouns) is a Twitch veteran, having started gathering eight years ago at the young age of 16. Millions of subscribers tune in every week to watch them chaotically play Minecraft and share videos of their lives. They have grown, from young to young, carrying a large audience to maturity. What is it like to experience it?
“When you turn 16 you want to tell everyone about yourself,” they say as the song plays below. “When I came out as a gay woman, I told the whole world. Every part of my personality, my mental health suffered… I thought if I could help one person feel like they weren’t alone, I wanted to.”
For several years Aimsey was in a relationship with another producer, Guqqie, and played in front of their fans with little filter – until it ended. It is a common situation for presenters – they are young and inexperienced, they build an audience by sharing personal information with limited boundaries, then the doors of endless interest are broken. “Honestly, for a long time, the lines were blurred,” says Aimsey. “Playing would get into my real friendships, where I thought the only way people would be friends was if I gave them something – because that’s how it is on the river.”
Lately, Aimsey has learned how to lay back and be a little more defensive. “I’ve been very open my whole life, but I was falling into these cracks where I was like, God, who am I? I felt like I couldn’t figure it out. I think that in the last few months something changed in my brain. I’m living a little more. I’m still alone when I’m streaming, but I’m trying to keep some things that I don’t remember. That is.”
Fellow Twitch Star Sweet Anita is older than 35 years, but she is also a veteran, she has been traveling since 2018. As a sufferer of Tourette syndrome, this platform has become a form of freedom. She said: “Watching porn has changed me a lot. “I was a fearful and apologetic person – obviously I learned to live with Tourettes for the rest of my life. I feel like modeling gives me a chance to be myself without constantly apologizing to people. I have more fun, I reach more people, I’m more social now. “
It worries him that many children are now making wish lists. He said: “When I was a child, I was a pilot or a fireman, but now he really wants to be in my position. “But it’s a bit of a trap because when you live here people don’t forget you, you can leave tomorrow and someone can continue to disturb you for the next 10 years. Once you’re in, you’re in. The difference is the amount of protection you can afford.”
For its part Twitch recognizes the vulnerability of streamers. It has established organizations to help small groups navigate the platform and report issues to management. It has developed an AI-powered AutoMod feature, which talks to streams to remove abusive messages. “We’ve invested heavily in regulatory tools so regulators can define what safety looks like to them,” said team director Mary Kish. “It’s going to be very important to know how to protect yourself. I’m worried about anyone who thinks randomly, I’m going to live. You have to be prepared – you have to have mods, or at least, turn on Auto Mod, you have to set up your community. We have a little work to do to make sure that everyone who makes the first stream understands what they understand.”
To be honest, neither Aimsey nor Sweet Anita have any plans to stop advertising anytime soon. “Honestly, my vision is that I’ll always be streaming,” says Aimsey. “It’s something that has been a constant in my life and I love it. This can change. But I have a lot of things I want to do with Minecraft – I want to do events, I want to create more stories and drama, and there are so many ideas in my head that there is no reason to think about giving up.”
Sweet Anita has plans to go beyond video games, sometimes. “I used to save animals before this happened and I never did enough for animals – that’s what I want to do next. I hope to go to zoos, I hope to show people in danger. I would like to restore, release wild birds, which was the basis of my life before all this.”
The maturity of both attackers and streamers is something that Twitch is thinking about. Most streams focus on playing and watching video games, but recently groups such as Just Chatting and In Real Life (IRL) have become more popular. Viewers are stepping out of their home studios and taking viewers on outings, to restaurants, outings, and more – the main developer of IShowSpeed has been streaming while streaming. Shayanelhawk sent his Twitch chat into the air.
“Right now our biggest demographic is the 25-34 age group because the older people are using it and they’re still using it,” says CEO Dan Clancy. “We’ve seen this in more and more products because as developers grow, they have new interests and their community keeps up with them.” So I think we’re going to see continued diversification. I often think that when the so-called Twitch generation reaches 60-70, we will see all these weaving and weaving streams. because the kids are out of the house, you want a community – and you have time as we have seen during Covid, Twitch is a platform that explodes when you have time.
One big game changer around is AI. There is already a successful AI avatar streamer, Neuro-sama, a cute anime girl with 1 million followers. Will Aimsey be the last generation of young people who have had the opportunity to live, and grow, as refreshments? They don’t think otherwise. “No matter what happens there will always be an audience for human-made things. No matter what we do, no matter how much AI develops, there will always be people who need human interaction to experience reality.”
