Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is one of the most successful streamers on Twitch. In one of his streams, he revealed that he has no desire to work. He does not consider streaming itself to be work.
What did shroud say? Shroud was watching a Valorant tournament live on stream and commenting on it when he was asked a question in the chat. A viewer wanted to know if shroud could imagine playing as an e-sports player again.
Shroud declined and explained: “You must understand, I don’t like to work. That’s why I stream. I don’t like work, work is crap. So if there’s something that requires work and effort, I probably won’t do it.”
The chat kept asking and wondered if streaming wasn’t work. He replied: “Is streaming work? No, it’s not work, it’s a damn joke. Look, I’m sitting here doing nothing, I’m literally doing nothing.”
In fact, shroud mostly sat in this livestream and commented on the work of others – the players in the Valorant tournament.
Almost anyone can earn money on Twitch, but very few can live off it
Is streaming really not work? Later in the stream, shroud explains that he previously worked in construction. That was real work for him and he could only stand it for about two weeks. From this perspective, streaming shouldn’t be physically demanding work at all.
However, streaming comes with some aspects that can definitely cause stress and work:
- There is a constant pressure to be relevant, which is why many streamers hardly take breaks or longer vacations. If you are not there, you lose viewers, subscribers, and thus money. Ninja, who was once number 1 on Twitch, said that he lived like a “slave to the stream” for a while.
- Viewers and the associated chat can sometimes be really toxic and ruin the fun for streamers. Summit1g threatened to stop streaming if his chat didn’t behave.
- Female streamers also face additional challenges with sexism, as seen in the case of negaoryx, who was asked live about the color of her thong and showed the perfect reaction to it.
Additionally, it is difficult because while almost all streamers can earn money on Twitch, hardly any can live off it.
How many streamers earn well on Twitch? A leak revealed the earnings of all streamers on Twitch. This leak shows: Although over 889 million dollars were distributed to streamers, only a very few can live off Twitch.
- 75% of all streamers earned less than 120 dollars by November 2021. Twitch also only pays out money starting at 100 dollars.
- Only 0.06% of Twitch streamers reach an income of more than 67,521 dollars, which corresponds to the average household income in America (via WSJ).
- The top 1% of streamers earned 529 million dollars. The remaining 99% of streamers received a total of 360 million.
On Twitch, he is one of the most successful streamers ever. With over 6.7 million watched hours, he ranks 8th in the last 30 days (via Sullygnome). He has over 10 million followers on Twitch.
Shroud is mainly known as a great shooter player but regularly showcases MMORPGs as well. Recently, he spent over 250 hours live on Twitch playing New World and had a lot of praise for the game despite the issues.
What applies to shroud does not have to apply to everyone
What else should be considered? One must be aware that shroud is in a completely different situation than most streamers who started on Twitch after him.
Shroud began his career on Twitch in November 2012, when there was little competition and he had a significant head start due to his CS:GO background. Furthermore, he is a gifted shooter player and made a name for himself early on.
It seemed relatively easy for him to be successful on Twitch “without putting in much work”.
If shroud were to start streaming on Twitch today, he might perceive the “hard climb up” to make a living from Twitch as more of a job than he does today, where he has had a loyal fan base for ages and resides on the Twitch throne.
What do you think about shroud’s statement that streaming is not work at all? Would you agree or disagree? Feel free to write it in the comments.
A beautiful story around Twitch occurred recently with streamer ThirdArtifact. After 2 years of absence, a viewer returned to her and brought her to tears:
MMO streamer on Twitch cries when she sees a viewer after years
