There’s a lot of discussion about how our attention spans are dwindling, with the popularity of quick-hit video platforms like TikTok, Reels, and Shorts serving as a testament to this trend. This shift has left those in the realm of traditional, longer-form media, such as movies and television, pondering their future.

Yet, despite this trend, Twitch—a platform known for its live streaming—proves that long-form content can still thrive. According to Mary Kish, Twitch’s Head of Community, users on the platform typically engage with streams for over three hours on average, showcasing a stark contrast to the short-form craze.

This year, during TwitchCon, the platform’s annual celebration of the streaming community, I took the opportunity to speak with some of the top streamers. My goal was to uncover the secrets behind their ability to captivate audiences and explore what lessons traditional media can learn from them.

“Streaming and content creation are very raw and unpolished, and that’s where their charm lies,” shared Youna Kang.

Known on Twitch as CodeMiko, Kang is a VTuber who uses an animated character named Miko to interact with her audience. While we don’t see Kang directly, she skillfully brings Miko to life with real-time animation and voice work, drawing from her extensive animation background. Despite the costly and intricate setup required, Kang emphasizes the genuine and spontaneous nature of streams that aren’t heavily pre-produced. It’s this authenticity, she and other streamers argue, that makes Twitch content so captivating—providing an experience that traditional media often lacks, as echoed by Twitch executive Mary Kish.

Kang (also known as CodeMiko) is a VTuber on Twitch, which means in most of her streams we don’t see her directly, but instead spend time with a fully animated character named Miko that Kang puppets and voices behind the scenes in real time.

Kang concedes that her set up to accomplish this is both expensive and complex (leaning into her years of experience in animation), but she points nonetheless to the raw authenticity and unpredictability of watching a stream that isn’t heavily pre-produced. This lack of formality, she and many streamers point out, is what makes Twitch so very watchable. And, as Twitch executive Mary Kish adds, this is precisely the kind of content that viewers aren’t finding in traditional media.

Youna Kang is the animator and performer behind the viral VTuber CodeMiko (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

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“We’re just a bit tired of these manufactured, over-processed pieces of content being fed to us,” Kish said.

She brings up an example to emphasize this, asking what is better: Watching Mariah Carey in an official sit down interview, or catching her son’s Twitch stream when she happens to pop in and say hello? The point being that the latter actually happened and became a major viral moment.

Another reason live streams can be so engaging is, in contrast to most other forms of media, there is a trifecta of interaction in play. Because not only is there the creator and their topic of choice, but there is also a live chat through which you can directly influence what’s happening on screen.

“You are a part of that experience. When you laugh, when you say you like something or you don’t like something, the content creator can actually call your name out. They can agree with you. They can disagree with you. You can tell them what to do. And so that interactivity is a wild experience,” Kish said.

Twitch streamer and comedian Will Neff agrees with the power of this interactivity, and believes that traditional media would benefit immensely from it as well.

“Can you imagine Fox News with a fu—-g live chat? They would sell so much gold they would drive up the world value!” Neff said.

As a former Buzzfeed video producer, Neff knows how to make viral content and pull in viewers. However, he calls optimizing for virality alone a loss leader. Because chasing the numbers can get people into the door, yes. But it’s fostering interaction from his viewers and building community that makes this kind of media thrive.

“Everybody is going to be treated like someone I want to have a beer with, and you’re going to get the same amount of sh-t or joy that anybody else gets. And we’re all going to respect each other equally. I think that is one of my proudest things about my community, is it’s such a pure collision of so many different people,” Neff said.

Mary Kish (R) serves as Head of Community on Twitch (Milan Goldbach).

MILAN GOLDBACH

Now, this all isn’t to say more traditional approaches to media cannot work, as many successful streamers do take queues from mainstream entertainment. However, crucially, they also do the creative work to push these approaches to the next level.

Youna Kang describes the movies Ready Player One and The Matrix, as well as the video game franchise The Sims, as all informing the visual style and lore behind her virtual character. And Will Neff has somewhat of a more traditional media background, having interned at both Chicago’s Second City and Los Angeles’ Laugh Factory, both stepping stones for the classic route into comedy. But this background in traditional manifests uniquely now via his online content.

On his content resume Neff can boast co-hosting the live-streamed game show Name Your Price, donning a wig and eccentric voice for the show Hey, Donna! and announcing his arrival into OTK Network with a bizarre experimental short film. Much of this did stream on Twitch, but the style of these entries takes the best of traditional media and live streaming to render something new and unique. And, as Neff tells me, his fans have taken notice.

“A lot of them will come in and be like, ‘Donna, dude! When am I going to see Donna again?’ Name Your Price that, or the OTK announcement video. So I do think there’s this staying power to content that you really put your whole self into. And I’d love to make more of that eventually,” Neff said.

Will Neff brings a chaotic brand of humor to his audience of thousands (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Universal Pictures).

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Twitch streamer and conservationist Maya Higa has also been profoundly influenced by traditional media, pointing in particular to the names and voices behind the nature documentaries she’d always watched.

“I think everybody in the conservation space, or in the biology space, has been inspired by Steve Irwin, Jane Goodall, David Attenborough, people that have been platformed by BBC and National Geographic. And we watch those things and we want to be like them,” Higa said.

But at the same time, Higa emphasizes how the innovations behind new media are allowing her to drive the same mission of those nature documentaries at an incredible new scale and efficiency.

Higa describes recently sitting on a panel with a number of nature documentary filmmakers and being astonished to learn how much time, money and effort is required to produce these projects, only for them to often earn limited views. In contrast, she pointed out how her most successful series took a fraction of that investment.

“I had this tiny microphone from Amazon, and I would interview these animals at the zoo I was working at. And I told this room of filmmakers, I was like—that series accumulated over 50 million views on YouTube, and it cost me $13 to make, because that microphone was a $13 microphone and it was just me filming it,” Higa said.

Conservationist and Twitch streamer Maya Higa brings education and entertainment to the platform (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)

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Upon seeing the educational impact she could provide viewers via more informal approaches, Higa ultimately founded Alveus, an animal sanctuary based in Austin which not only cares for animals, but live streams content to educate viewers at a global scale. Because, she tells me, unfortunately 18-25 year olds are not often sitting to watch two hour long nature documentaries. However, they are watching streamers for hours, and they are very willing to learn there.

“It’s the difference between reading something on a billboard, or in a textbook that says something that you’re learning about, versus hearing your friend talk about something that they’re really passionate about, that they really love. One is much more engaging. One is much more—you want to get involved in that,” Higa said.

Meaningful impact, going beyond mere entertainment, is also key to Will Neff’s output. While he maintains his chaotic brand of comedy across his content, he also seeks to bring substance to the media diet of his viewers. In fact, Neff has, for seven years now, led a kind of film class with his viewers to guide them through some of the strongest films in traditional media in an effort to help them engage with more meaningful art.

“Really the focus is like, go dig in crates for these amazing projects. Because the ones that your algorithms are feeding you are not the ones that will increase your brain, or make you a better person. You have to go find those,” Neff said.

When I asked Twitch executives what kinds of content they wish to feature on their platform next, a standard question for most media companies, Chief Product Officer Mike Minton pushed back on this idea. Because, he told me, at Twitch they aren’t in the business of dictating content. Instead, they follow the creators, and that’s what allows them to stay innovative and relevant.

“We’ll go where our creators take us, basically, in terms of what the content is. We don’t have a mandate or some type of direction we’re trying to force them into. It’s their creativity that really is driving the direction,” Minton said.

The San Diego weather welcomed TwitchCon’s speakers and attendees (Milan Goldbach).

MILAN GOLDBACH

Content from Twitch’s top creators remains incredibly watchable, then, via a combination of authenticity, interactivity and innovation on tried and true media approaches. But even as these streamers and others have mastered this craft, they plan to continue perfecting what they do in the years ahead.

Youna Kang tells me that she’s currently building out a motion capture studio in her living room. Her aim with this is to bring higher fidelity to her avatar’s animation, allowing Miko to more believably interact with the surfaces around her.

Maya Higa tells me how she’s had many viewers reach out and say that, because of her content, they’ve changed their majors to biology or begun studying conservation. She hopes to continue making this kind of impact in the years ahead, and that these same viewers go on to become the policy and decision makers protecting the planet.

And Will Neff hopes to keep on streaming and building out his community for now. But, one day, years ahead, he also imagines a future where he’ll be able to stop, look back at all he’s done, and be proud of what he’s accomplished for his viewers.

“So in 10 years, I hope that I am no longer streaming. And I hope that people look back and say, ‘Will made some really cool sh-t,’” said Neff.

For more on the creator economy, movies and TV, follow my page on Forbes. You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Threads.