Being a popular Twitch streamer can sometimes make every day feel like it’s your birthday. But yesterday was an exceptional day for Sodapoppin as he opened gifts sent by his fans on stream for his birthday.
By the time all the gifts were opened, Soda had recorded his most-watched stream so far this year with an average of 63,875 viewers, which was markedly higher than his second highest average of the year, according to Stream Hatchet data.
Unlike your average P.O. box opening, Sodapoppin’s stream had a more celebratory flavor to it. Instead of opening packages, he was opening gift-wrapped presents. He wasn’t even allowed to be involved in the planning process. As a way to prepare for this gift opening stream, Soda’s housemates and fellow streamers, led by editor Malena Tudi, gathered and wrapped what was estimated to be $15,000 worth of gifts that were sent to Soda from his audience.
Prior to the gift-opening, Soda claimed that the presents were indeed surprises. Over the course of the past week, as gifts rolled in and needed to be wrapped, Soda wasn’t allowed access to some rooms in his house in order to keep the gifts a surprise.
“I have genuinely had to ask permission to go into most rooms of my house because there are random ass things in there that I’m not allowed to see,” Soda said. “So I only got like six hours of sleep. I was actually too excited.”
Over the course of a full five-hour stream, Soda opened countless gifts that ranged from goofy gags to genuinely thoughtful presents, and his audience ate it up.
With guest appearances from friends like Greekgodx, Malena, Nick Polom, and even his mother, Soda’s stream made viewers feel like they were actually at a friend’s birthday party watching them open tons of gifts, including tacky costumes and a motorized wheel chair.
Prior to yesterday, Soda’s top stream of 2020 was his return to Twitch after taking more than a month off to play World of Warcraft Classic competitively. That first stream back on Jan. 17 averaged 32,460 viewers with a total hours watched total of 275,910.
Yesterday, Soda bested that total with 351,312 total hours watched for the stream, peaking at 93,226 viewers, even though his stream was five-and-a-half hours long, compared to eight-and-a-half hours for his return from hiatus.
Soda’s viewership was enough to give him the highest average viewership of any influencer on Twitch Saturday, beating out Tyler1, who posted an average of 35,542 viewers. He even managed to post stronger averages than many esports events and leagues like BLAST Premier and the League of Legends European Championship.
