Twitch has announced that it will be removing the IRL and Creative categories from the streaming directory.

The popular streaming platform will be adding ten new categories in their place, which will provide a more specific description of the content being streamed.

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The decision to reform the IRL and Creative sections was announced by Twitch on August 9, and will be implemented sometime in mid-September.

In mid-September we will remove IRL and Creative as categories and add more than 10 new categories, which will let you better describe the content of your streams. These categories will be added to the Browse page, which will be updated to show gaming and non-gaming categories in a single view.

• Art – For all the artists creating paintings, illustrations, animation, comics, photography, and more, whether you’re using digital or traditional methods or techniques.
• Hobbies & Crafts – Use this category when you’re crafting real world objects or working on DIY projects. Includes making costumes, sewing, sculpture, LEGO, woodwork, metalwork, and more.
• Food & Drink – From cooking to eating and everything in between, this category is for anything related to the creation, culture, or consumption of food and drinks.
• Music & Performing Arts – Use this category when you’re dancing, singing, composing music, playing an instrument, and more.
• Beauty & Body Art – Use this category when you’re streaming makeup, skincare, bodypainting, tattooing, and more.
• Science & Technology – Use this category when you’re streaming activities like software development, game design, science experiments, engineering, or robotics.
• Just Chatting – This category is for conversations between streamers and viewers, like when you’re warming up at the start of your stream, doing Q&As, or live vlogging.
• Travel & Outdoors – Whether you’re exploring a new city or just hanging out in your hometown, this category covers all your walking-and-talking needs.
• Sports & Fitness – From team sports to training solo, this category includes everything you’d do in a gym and more.
• Tabletop RPGs – Finally a place to stream all the tabletop RPGs you love.
• Special Events – This is where you’ll find big events like TwitchCon, E3, and PAX, as well as special announcements from game developers and publishers.
• Talk Shows & Podcasts – This category name gets an update for all the podcasters out there.
• ASMR – A centralized place for ASMR content.

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As for why the the two major categories are being broken down into ten, Twitch has explained that they were too broad and did not do well in accurately describing the contents of the streams in those sections.

• Creative and IRL have become catch-all categories that don’t help describe the content of a stream
• New categories give you more accurate ways to describe your stream and help viewers find you

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In addition to his announcement, Twitch has also said that Communities will also be disabled and replaced with new Tags, which will more accurately describe streams in directory pages, on the homepage, in search and channel pages, and more.

How Do Tags Work?

• Tags will describe your stream everywhere viewers can find it: directory pages, the homepage, search, channel pages, etc.
• Tags will be shown alongside your video thumbnail, stream title, and the game or category you’re streaming
• Directory pages and the Browse page will be updated to let viewers filter by tags.
• Each time you go live, you can select tags on your live dashboard to describe that day’s stream
• Most tags will be manually selected by you, but some will be automatically applied by Twitch – For example: we’ll apply genres to games, and we may apply tags for certain in-game features we automatically detect.
• Tags will not be user-generated, but you will be able to suggest new tags.
• Tags are not tied to a specific game or category. You can select whichever tags describe your stream best, whether you’re playing a game or streaming non-gaming content.
• Tags are meant to be objective, but we realize not all self-identifications are objective. As a result, we will work with streamer communities, starting with our active LGBTQ+ community, to identify how self-identification should be integrated into tags. You will see an LGBTQ+ tag reflected in the list of tags available in September, and we look forward to hearing feedback from streamers on how we can incorporate self-identification into tags.

This feature is also scheduled to go live mid-September, and the initial list of tags that will be available can be found by clicking here.

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The full announcement for replacing the IRL and Creative sections can be viewed below:

Add new streaming categories that are more specific than IRL and Creative

What Is It?

With so many streamers on Twitch, we need to give you better ways to describe your stream when you go live.

In mid-September we will remove IRL and Creative as categories and add more than 10 new categories, which will let you better describe the content of your streams. These categories will be added to the Browse page, which will be updated to show gaming and non-gaming categories in a single view. You can see the list of categories below, and share your feedback or suggestions for additional categories here.

We are also saying goodbye to Communities and introducing Tags, which will let you describe your stream in even more detail beyond the category you’re streaming. Learn more about Tags and Communities here.

These are the new categories we plan to add:

• Art – For all the artists creating paintings, illustrations, animation, comics, photography, and more, whether you’re using digital or traditional methods or techniques.
• Hobbies & Crafts – Use this category when you’re crafting real world objects or working on DIY projects. Includes making costumes, sewing, sculpture, LEGO, woodwork, metalwork, and more.
• Food & Drink – From cooking to eating and everything in between, this category is for anything related to the creation, culture, or consumption of food and drinks.
• Music & Performing Arts – Use this category when you’re dancing, singing, composing music, playing an instrument, and more.
• Beauty & Body Art – Use this category when you’re streaming makeup, skincare, bodypainting, tattooing, and more.
• Science & Technology – Use this category when you’re streaming activities like software development, game design, science experiments, engineering, or robotics.
• Just Chatting – This category is for conversations between streamers and viewers, like when you’re warming up at the start of your stream, doing Q&As, or live vlogging.
• Travel & Outdoors – Whether you’re exploring a new city or just hanging out in your hometown, this category covers all your walking-and-talking needs.
• Sports & Fitness – From team sports to training solo, this category includes everything you’d do in a gym and more.
• Tabletop RPGs – Finally a place to stream all the tabletop RPGs you love.
• Special Events – This is where you’ll find big events like TwitchCon, E3, and PAX, as well as special announcements from game developers and publishers.
• Talk Shows & Podcasts – This category name gets an update for all the podcasters out there.
• ASMR – A centralized place for ASMR content.

Why?

Why combine games with non-gaming categories?

• We learned from Communities that having multiple directories made it harder for non-gaming streamers to build an audience and prevented streamers from exploring the full range of content they were interested in streaming.
• Combining games and non-gaming categories into one directory improves visibility for non-gaming streamers.
• Tags will let viewers filter for the categories and streams they’re interested in watching, which makes a mixed directory more manageable.

Why split up IRL and Creative?

• Creative and IRL have become catch-all categories that don’t help describe the content of a stream
• New categories give you more accurate ways to describe your stream and help viewers find you
• Tags will let you add even more detail beyond the category you’re streaming

Timing

We are targeting mid-September, but this timing is subject to change.

We will regularly update this card when we have more information to share.

More Info

We’re also introducing Tags. Learn More.

Tune in to our next Discovery Updates live stream at 2 pm Pacific Friday, August 24– right after Twitch Weekly. The team working on this project will be there to answer your questions and share the latest updates.

Have Questions about this project?

Send us your questions right here.

We’ll answer frequently asked questions on this card and our discovery updates live streams.