ABSTRACT
Leisure’s potential to shape human life in the 21st century takes on added significance when it intersects with the power of communities, particularly those open and contingent communities one finds in digital spaces. This chapter’s content focuses on one such space – Twitch.tv, a digital platform which allows users to live stream themselves playing video games for audiences of ten to audiences of tens of thousands. By examining focal moments related to three Twitch steamers, we consider the nature and status of Twitch.tv as a socio-technical community. Given the often-paranoid discourse surrounding the supposedly narrowing social worlds of gamers, we suggest that Twitch.tv represents a compelling counter-narrative: a vibrant, lively node in a networked community of loose affiliations that could very well signal a future for leisure communities in the 21st century.
