Olivia Williams and Solace Palisano got engaged in early April and began planning their wedding for the fall. On Sept. 9, their already-delayed plans took a major detour. Solace and Olivia were both sent home from work because they showed symptoms of COVID-19. โWe were 10 days away from our scheduled wedding,โ Solace says.
Then came a suggestion from a family member that was out of the ordinary but perhaps not for the times. Why not use Zoom, like Solace had used for classes at Missouri State University?
Amid the pandemic, Olivia and Solace Palisano officially got married via Zoom in September. They were joined by the Palisano's pastor and both their parents.ย
โI knew Zoom had a good reputation for good connections for groups,โ Solace says. He and Olivia decided to move up their wedding from Sept. 19 to Sept. 13, thinking if they were going to be quarantined together, they might as well be quarantined and married, โalmost like a little honeymoon that we hadnโt planned,โ Solace says.
Once the now-Palisanos decided on a Zoom ceremony, things moved quickly. The pastor was able to gather his materials, and the couple was joined online by both their parents and the pastor.
Not unlike a usual wedding, Solaceโs and Oliviaโs mothers cried during the ceremony. When it came time for the pastor to say โkiss the bride,โ the pastorโs screen completely froze showing the huge grin on his face. Oliviaโs mom chimed in and said, โjust kiss her,โ Solace recalls. โSo we went ahead and kissed. And then immediately after we kissed, his feed came back in, and so we had a second kiss.โ
But, one thing was missing for Olivia: โnot being able to hug my dad,โ she says. The couple plans to have an in-person ceremony in October, but in September, being able to get married was what mattered most. โIt was all about the marriage and not about the wedding,โ Solace says. โAnd so that was why we decided to just go for it.โ
Zoom is perhaps the most well-known virtual meeting space in the era of COVID-19. The app โ youโll know it on your tablet, phone, or laptop from its blue icon with the white video camera logo โ was created in 2011, and itโs one of the pandemicโs success stories. The company, adding more users in the first two months of 2020 than in all of 2019, has boomed during the past seven months. While the app had 10 million accounts at the end of 2019, Zoom now has around 300 million daily meeting participants. One of its chief competitors, Microsoft Teams, averages 75 million daily active users.
Zoom is most known for its functionality for work meetings, for its interface that allows a user to view multiple meeting participants on the screen in small squares,ย Brady Bunch-style, for features such as muting and unmuting (and forgetting to mute or unmute) and for screen sharing. But the pandemic has shown us its uses extend beyond meeting with colleagues, students and even extended family or long lost friends; it encompasses everything from college parties to funerals to baby showers and, of course, weddings.
While Zoom is seeing new uses and dramatic growth, gaming outlets such as Twitch and Discord have grown as well. Each of them are reaching more of their target audiences and finding new ones.
Twitch, owned by Amazon, started as a platform for people to stream footage of their everyday lives. In a 2014 interview, Twitch founder Justin Kan explained he hatched the idea for an online streaming service that “livecasted” your life, according to a Business Insider article. This had the concept of a reality show. The site’s initial name was justin.tv, and it launched in 2007. As video and audio recording became more accessible at home, the platform became more well-known for video game livestreaming.
Today, Twitchโs most well-known user is 29-year old, Tyler Blevins, known by his stream name Ninja, aย Fortniteย player with over 15.6 million followers. In August 2019, Ninja left the company for Mixer, Microsoftโs now defunct streaming service, but after nearly a year away, in a multiyear, multi-million dollar deal, he signed with Twitch again. His popularity makes Twitch money. Next in the line of Twitch stars is Turner โTfueโ Tenney, who livestreams hisย Fortniteย gameplay to over 8.6 million followers. His net worth, taking into account Twitch subscribers and donors, YouTube revenue, sponsors and tournament revenue, is between $4 and $6 million, according toย The Loadoutย website.
Twitch carved itself a niche in the gaming community because viewers can interact with and be entertained by the personalities behind the camera. Viewers communicate with the streamer through a chat system and even pay them via โbits,โ which they can convert to real money (Think of it as fan mail but with a monetary value behind it.). One โbitโ is worth 1 cent. Streamers can enable text-to-speech messages on their donations, further encouraging streamer-viewer interactions. Streamers also receive a portion of their viewersโ monthly subscription fees from Twitch.
In a 2019 study on Twitch streaming, Clemson University researcher Evan Lybrand says Twitch โstreams often mimicked the style of saloons in which patrons would gather to talk amongst themselves while some form of entertainment occurred separately and simultaneously.โ
To describe what the platform looks like to those who arenโt part of Twitchโs 15 million daily active users: on screen is a livefeed of the streamer playing a game and providing commentary on what he or she is doing. This could be the gamer playing an online match of a multiplayer video game, for example. The chat updates in real time on the side of the screen for the streamer and all watching to communicate.
Drake Porter, an assistant coach for Columbia College Esports helps Mara Akers, 12, download the video game โOverwatchโ on Sept. 30 during the Girls Who Game event at Columbia College. Akers was one of 11 girls who attended.
Arabella McEntire, who previously played on the varsity Mizzou Esportsย Overwatchย team, says she picked up a lot of her gaming skills by watching others play on Twitch. โI started actually studying how to be better โ as much as you can study a game โ watching videos, watching Twitch streamers play the game that were really good.โ From there, she continued to improve her technical skills until she grabbed the attention of Esports General Manager Kevin Reape. She became the first signed member of the Mizzou Esports team in its inaugural year.
Esports is a multibillion-dollar industry. Newzoo, a company that provides game market insight and analytics to its customers, forecasts the global gamersโ market will generate $159.3 billion in revenue in 2020. With more people staying home, interest in gaming has increased. More than 6 million streamers join Twitch each month. This year has given the platform a huge boost, with viewers consuming 11 billion hours of content, a 50% increase from 2019. On average, there are over 80,000 channels streaming at any given moment.
And the coverage has widened as well. Twitch creators have expanded from video game content to titles such as โTrying a Halo/Spotlight Eye Makeup Look!!โ and โTwice Baked: Vegan Mozzarella Sticksโ and sharing live streams of Black Lives Matter protests. (On the reverse side of this same coin, platforms such as Twitch and Discord have also hosted their fair share of hate speech comments and channels.) These streams of everyday life, known as โIRLโ streams, have taken off as popular ways for streamers to interact with audiences. Streamers engage in โreal talkโ with their viewers, discussing subjects that arise in the chat.
Locally, the platform now features movie streaming and board game gatherings. Earlier this year, Ragtag Cinema turned to Twitch to connect with customers while its doors were closed. The movie house hosted two-screen virtual events, with a pre-show party hosted on the Twitch channel, RAGTAGfilm. Viewers would acquire the movie on their own through Netflix or elsewhere while having Twitch pulled up on a different device for a pre-show party. Ragtag then used a countdown, so all viewers pressed โplayโ at the same time.
The streaming service also enabled Ragtag to feature special guests, providing commentary for the film as everyone virtually joined in for a night at the movies. There was a live Q&A after the show.
Ragtag also hosted Twitch screenings forย Nettle Pointe Soap Opera, which was written and produced in Columbia. Viewers could head to Twitch to watch the film and participate in a virtual Q&A with the filmmaker, Sasha Goodnow. While Ragtag has resumed limited in-person operations since early June, Twitch allowed Ragtag to host events for its customers. Grady Harrington, Ragtagโs box office manager, says he doesnโt know if Ragtag will continue to use Twitch. โI imagine it could be used for maybe virtual Q&As,โ he says.
Nat Graham, owner of local gaming store Magelings Games, turned to Twitch to connect with customers while socially distanced.
โIt does help us move product. Our sales have been very hurt by the pandemic. But it also fosters community,โ Graham says. He hosts live unboxings of booster packs for theย Magic the Gatheringย card game.
โThe best part of it is the gathering,โ Graham says. He makes sure to leave time for casual conversation before and after the auction to let all the viewers connect with one another.
That same goal of connectivity led to Graham creating a Discord server in March.
Discord is a video and messaging app and website similar to an organized messaging system like Slack. It started in 2015 with its primary focus on gaming. It has expanded with a 2020 rebranding that itโs โyour place to talk,โ regardless of interest. Discord reports it has about 100 million active monthly users, comparable to Slack. What sets Discord apart is its ability to create custom โservers,โ available only to users with an invite link. Once users join a server, they can talk to others with messages or video chat. Discord has over 750 verified servers, the biggest beingย Fortniteย with over 180,000 members.
Graham originally learned about Discord from his students at the Columbia Area Career Center and Hickman High School, where he teaches computer science. He used the messaging app during school closures, so his students could ask him questions after hours and also talk to one another. Now that school is back in session, itโs still an option for his students. โThe district views it as a game software,โ he says.
Graham says he thought if it worked for his students, then it could work for his Magelings customers too. Thus, the Magelingsโ Discord server was born. He says he likes that Discord allows the creation of several channels, which he made based on his customersโ interests. โI created it with the intent of having this remote area for the different communities to go to and interact in a more centralized location,โ he says. Thereโs a place for fans ofย Magic, as well as one for people who enjoyย Dungeons and Dragons.
The video and mic features allow for distanced gaming, which has even enabled Magelingsโ local community to grow internationally. The gaming store has more than 165 members on its Discord server, including those in Columbia as well as Texas and even England. โI think weโve reached more of our extended family this way,โ Graham says.
Because Columbia is a college town, a lot of his regulars have moved away over the years. Discord has helped him reconnect with some of them. One of Grahamโs regulars who moved to Texas recently participated in a six-weekย Magicย tournament entirely online. โThey wouldnโt have been able to do that before,โ Graham says.
Even if you donโt currently play any board games or card games and just have an interest, Graham says youโre still welcome to join their Discord. โYou can start building those relationships now for when you can get back together and play those games,โ he says.
Until then, โour doors are always open virtually,โ Graham says. โWeโre here for the community. Thatโs really our big thing. If we can do that and keep the lights on, weโre winning.โ
People often use the phrase social distancing, Graham says, but we should really be saying physical distancing. Itโs still important to connect with one another in any way, shape or form.
Services like Zoom, Twitch and Discord allow us to do just that. ๏ฟผ
