How "Just Chatting" Became One of the Most Popular Categories on Twitch
While Twitch is currently known as the current top platform for gaming streamers, it's continually trying to improve itself and diversify its content in order to reach more brands and streamers that offer other content besides gaming.
Twitch's approach to these kinds of content creators is the 'Just Chatting' category, which is aimed for streamers who want to host talk shows, ASMR, or even intermissions in-between gaming sessions. Overall, this category was implemented for any kind of content that is not necessarily gaming-related.
The 'Just Chatting' category made Twitch more than a gaming platform, enabling other people to stream anything they wanted and earning money from it. However, this category reached a surprising peak in 2019, becoming the most-watched category in Twitch in December, surpassing League of Legends and Fortnite.
The Sudden Success of the 'Just Chatting' Category
While it makes sense that this category recently gained fame, many people wonder how it could surpass the most popular categories in the whole platform. This is a clear indicator that Twitch is evolving as a platform in a positive way.
Some people believe that the reason for this success is that a lot of Twitch users go on a stream because of the broadcaster, rather than the game that they're playing. This shows interest in knowing the broadcaster in a more personal way.
However, this doesn't mean that 'Just Chatting' took over gaming streams entirely; gaming is still the main focus on Twitch. This simply means that the platform is expanding to reach other types of content.
What the Statistics Say
2019 was an excellent year for Twitch, especially for the 'Just Chatting' category. Statistics say that this category reached a total of 80.9 million hours of watch-time in December, followed by League of Legends, at 74.1 million hours, and Fortnite, at 58.3 million hours (According to StreamElements).
The ex-pro player Felix' xQc' Lengyel was the most famous streamer in the 'Just Chatting' category for 2019, earning more than 5.4 million hours of watch-time in the fourth quarter of that year. The content that this streamer posted was mostly reaction videos.
While these numbers are surprising for a newly-implemented category, some people are having second thoughts on the category's success. Many streamers use that channel to stream copyrighted content such as sports, or for view-botting, which means that the streamer uses a bot to increase the number of viewers.
Conclusion
While 'Just Chatting' is very far from surpassing the overall gaming streams, its continuous growth over the months show that people are getting interested in getting to know certain broadcasters on a more personal level.
Implementing this kind of category into Twitch had a lot of mixed opinions at the start. Still, it's an excellent way for Twitch to expand and to reach new streamers and users that crave non-gaming content.
Some sponsors don't look at 'Just Chatting' as a profitable category yet, so most streamers in that category may live off subscriptions and donations. However, with the constant growth of this kind of content, streamers are likely going to be able to get good sponsorship deals if they have good engagement with their audience.
