Ludwig Ahgren has spoken out against Twitch streamers reacting to each other’s clips every broadcast, warning the ever-popular streaming platform may “slowly die” if stars continue to simply rely on others’ content rather than creating their own.
Streaming metas come and go: even just recently, we’ve seen the rise and fall of the controversial Twitch hot tub streams, and a sharp re-spike in GTA RP popularity, as well more subathons.
There’s one that only seems to be building, however — “reacting.”
The idea is simple; popular Twitch stars go live, load up Reddit, Twitter, or YouTube, and dish out their opinions on each and every slice of news and action. Dedicated fan bases help the meta, as do aggregation forums like /r/LivestreamFail and regular YouTube clip compilations that use the ‘reacts’ for videos.
It’s a worrying trend for Twitch content, Ludwig Ahgren claims, and one that may eventually lead to a slow death for one of the world’s biggest streaming sites.
“There are just too many ‘React Andys’ now,” he said.
“They’ve gone too far. I feel like people go live and all they do is watch other people’s content. I mean, it’s fine, I do it, but it’s really becoming too much.”
The Twitch star warned, if left unchecked, the meta of streamers “feeding” off each other’s content could have major repercussions for the platform: “That content is fun, yeah, I like it. But if everyone does it, all the time, then the whole Twitch ecosystem dies. Someone has to be creating content for people to keep stealing.
“What we need is fresh content, instead of all the reactions.
“I don’t like doing it that much, when I can,” Ludwig admitted,” unless I think it will be good for my YouTube uploads. I really do think it’s making Twitch a bit stale.”
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
The latest trend in Twitch reactions meta has been weighing in on the cryptocurrency wave.
A host of internet celebrities, from high-ranking FaZe Clan members to maverick star Logan Paul, have been accused of “scamming” fans via investment suggestions. Every Twitch streamer, it seems, has weighed in with their views, whether fans asked or not.
That “rush to react” is getting old, Ludwig claimed.
“I feel like everyone gave their take on the Save the Kids sh*t, all the crypto sh*t,” Ludwig said. “I swear every day there was someone else sharing their takes.”
The popular Twitch streamer conceded he can’t complain unless he has his own fresh content on the horizon, so he laid out the few plans he’d been spitballing.
The main one that may pique loyal Ludwig fans’ interests is his idea of doing a “Dark Souls-athon” stream. That idea would involve him staying live on Twitch until he conquered FromSoftware’s notoriously hard Dark Souls trilogy. The only problem, he admits, is he has no idea how long it would take.
“That could be fun,” he said. “I don’t know how much time that would be though. If QT goes home for a few weeks I might do that… I wanna do it right.”
