A Labor of (Queer) Love: Maintaining "Cozy Wholesomeness" on Twitch During COVID-19 and Beyond. (July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Youngblood, Jordan
• Other Names: Ruberg Bo guest-editor.; Brewer Johanna guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Television & new media. Volume 23:Number 5(2022)
• Page Start: 531
• Page End: 541
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Subjects: Twitch -- streaming -- LGBTQ+ -- wholesomeness -- cozy -- critical media studies -- video games -- new media; Télévision -- Aspect social -- Périodiques; Télévision -- Aspect économique -- Périodiques; Médias -- Publics -- Périodiques; Civilisation -- Histoire -- Périodiques; Television broadcasting -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Digital media -- Periodicals; 302.234505
• DOI: 10.1177/15274764221080966
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1527-4764

Abstract

This article explores the idea of "cozy wholesomeness" in streaming on the Twitch platform through the example of an LGBTQ+ content creator, her partner, and her development of an ongoing domestic space which welcomed queer audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on a span of streams from November 2020 to January 2021, the article first seeks to define cozy wholesomeness as a streaming process that combines choice of game, style of streaming, and audience interest to form an experience driven by intimacy, sincerity, and active resistance to alt-right mentalities even as the concept itself potentially becomes a product or marketing hook. For this particular streamer, producing a supportive, active chat community driven by cozy wholesomeness inevitably collides with sustaining streaming as a profitable venture—a process compounded by Twitch's own interest in commoditizing queer content as a way of displaying its own apparent diversity.