In February 2014, more than six and a half million people watched tens of thousands of strangers type commands into a chat box to steer a Pokemon Red character into walls. Twitch Plays Pokemon opens this biography of a platform. We trace Twitch from Justin.tv, launched in 2007 by Yale graduates Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, through the June 2011 gaming spinoff, 45 million unique viewers by October 2013, and 1.8 percent of peak US internet traffic by early 2014, behind only Netflix, Google, and Apple.

We explain why Google’s rumored billion-dollar bid reportedly collapsed over antitrust concerns and why Amazon paid $970 million in cash in late 2014, from AWS infrastructure to the 18-to-34 demographic. Then we follow the expansion into Bob Ross marathons, music, IRL, Just Chatting, and sports rights, and the moderation nightmares, creator revolts, revenue-split fights, layoffs, and the South Korea exit that reveal how fragile live streaming remains even for the industry leader.

• How bits, subscriptions, and on-screen alerts turned the parasocial relationship into a financial feedback loop
• The 2019 Artifact category hijacking and why live video is uniquely hard to moderate without destroying real-time chat
• The 2021 hate raids, the A Day Off Twitch protest, and the lawsuits and verification tools that followed
• The hot tub meta, ASMR yoga, and the late 2024 policy on the term Zionist as case studies in defining gray areas
• The 2022 cap on the 70-30 split after $100,000, Dan Clancy’s defense, and 900 layoffs across 2023 and 2024