The streamer Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo (25) had a quirky idea on Twitch. Instead of playing games like WoW, he laid down for 5 hours and let fans try to wake him up. He was even surprised by how much money the experiment brought in.
That was the idea: In a Twitch stream on March 3, the US streamer Mizkif came up with the idea during discussions with the chat to offer his viewers something different.
He set up the camera, dimmed the lights, pulled a bed in front of the lens, and then lay down to sleep with a headset on. He even said, “I am literally going to do nothing now.”
For just over 5 hours, the Twitch streamer lay in bed resting while people watched him. Through “Media Shares,” viewers tried to wake the streamer up. They donated money and shared loud clips to catch the attention of the streamer.
One user donated money for an extremely loud video that announced the wrestler John Cena: Beware, extremely loud.
This is how much money came out of it: When Mizkif got up after a few hours and sat down at his desk, the Twitch interface showed him that he had earned $5594, about €5000. This seemed to surprise him as well.
I literally slept and earned $5600 … just did nothing. Next time you think about how much money a streamer makes who constantly gets “text-to-speech messages,” think about this.
Mizkif
To give something back to the chat, he later raffled off a Nintendo Switch. He should be able to easily afford the expenses with the earnings.
An average of 5600 people watched him during the 7-hour stream.
“Just Chatting” – the different Twitch
What’s behind it: It is a “business model” for streamers to interact with the chat by having viewers donate money for a computer voice to read messages aloud via a “text-to-chat” program or for them to donate money to play certain video clips.
Sometimes fans of games use such opportunities to promote their favorite game: such as for Escape from Tarkov.
Someone like Felix “xQc” Lengyel constantly gets such chat messages read aloud and makes a lot of money from it. The chat becomes an important part of the stream.
It is true for all streamers that the chat plays a big role: Even for gaming streamers like DrDisrespect or Summit1g, it is important to respond to the chat to build a connection with the viewers. But some streamers like xQc or Forsen have elevated communicating with the chat to an art form, filling their streams with it.
Mizkif is not a typical gaming streamer who lives off making games particularly entertaining, but the appeal of his channel comes from constantly interacting with the chat. Such streamers are increasingly successful in the “Just Chatting” category on Twitch. Sometimes strange experiments result from this.
That someone can make money while sleeping is a whole new dimension.
- The German Twitch streamer MontanaBlack is now often in “Just Chatting” – an average of 32,058 people watch him talk about his stuff: such as women and their similarity to dogs
- Streamer Seanstream, who barely slept, was on air for 595 hours in November – a Twitch record.
