Nick Polom calls for all new streamers to learn from the ‘OGs’ of Twitch

Twitch might be a relatively young platform, but many of its newer creators are unaware of the roots of Twitch and how it evolved into the platform it has become.

Hanging out with ExtraEmily today, Nick Polom told the young budding streamer she needs a history lesson. Emily admittedly didn’t know much about Twitch until around 2020, making her blind to many of the original great streamers that molded Twitch.

Running through a list of creators, Polom called for Twitch to create a video for newcomers that serves as a bit of required viewing before people are allowed to stream on the platform.

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“Out of respect for the OGs, every new streamer needs to watch a tutorial that talks about Reckful, Lirik, Summit, Chance, Forsen, all the OGs,” he said. “They need to watch this video and learn about them.”

Oftentimes, newer Twitch viewers don’t necessarily have the background information on the history of personalities and why certain things are the way they are. Detailing a recent visit she had to Forsen’s channel, Emily said she found it weird he mostly just sat around and didn’t say much.

But Polom let her know Forsen’s ability to rack up viewers despite not being especially charismatic all the time stems from him being such an established force on the platform. Polom went on to mention many of the historically well-known creators have become enigmatic in the ways they can be successful, seemingly without trying.

Meanwhile, Polom also noted there are some streamers have completely changed the marketplace for streaming, and no one better exemplifies that than Ninja.

“Imagine all the people today who have no idea what Ninja did for this platform,” he said. “Ninja brought us to the mainstream.”

To the indoctrinated Twitch viewer, it doesn’t feel like it was all that long ago Ninja flipped the platform on its head by shattering viewership records and attracting mainstream celebrities to his channel. But his breakout year of 2018 was more than three years ago.

Teenagers that are just getting introduced to internet culture may not even know what the platform Mixer was, much less know the impact Ninja’s Twitch exodus had on the streaming landscape in the following years.

It might be a stretch to make it required for streamers to learn about the greats of streaming, but it would certainly behoove up-and-comers to learn about the people that paved the way.