Last night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went live on Twitch to stream Among Us with a handful of superstar streamers. The purpose of the stream, which drew a massive crowd, was to get out the vote as we head into the general election.
At its peak, the stream drew a concurrent viewership of 435,000+ people, and that’s just on AOC’s Twitch. Other streamers that were in the game, such as Pokimane, HasanAbi and DrLupo, also had their own viewerships tuned in to the game.
For context, this puts AOC’s stream in the top five of most concurrent viewers on a Twitch stream. The record is still held by Ninja’s Fortnite stream with Drake which hit more than 600,000 concurrent viewers.
Among Us has been around for several years, but only enjoyed top-tier popularity over the past few months as streamers flock to the game. Among Us is a relatively simple game, but gives players the chance to truly show off their personality.
Here’s how it works:
Between four and ten players join a drop ship. The majority of those players are crewmates who have tasks to complete on the map — these tasks are simple, puzzle-based mini games. The remaining minority of players are impostors, who sabotage and kill crewmates. When a dead body is found and reported, the whole group gets into voice chat to discuss who might be the killer. It’s a bit like a murder mystery party combined with a video game.
There is some irony in the fact that politicians (Rep. Ilhan Omar joined AOC) jumped into a game where lying is a primary skill. In fact, AOC mentioned before gameplay ever started that she was very nervous because she’s terrible at lying.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time that AOC has come to younger voters where they are. The congresswoman played Animal Crossing in May and visited players’ islands.
