Twitch’s April Fools joke made thousands of viewers watch pure silence
Twitch Twitch may have had the last laugh on April Fool’s day as they tricked thousands of viewers into watching a stream of pure silence.
April Fool’s day is always an interesting time of year for the internet, with creators across all platforms hoping to prank their viewers in some way. Streaming giant Twitch is likely to have hosted a wealth of pranks, but viewers might not have expected that the platform would, themselves, get in on the act.
Armed with nothing but a good book and the sweet sound of silence, Twitch managed to reel in thousands of viewers, who stuck with them through a very mundane stream.
Twitch Twitch’s Mary Kish reads in silence to thousands of viewers
After just over 3 minutes of waiting, Twitch viewers were greeted by the platform’s own Mary Kish reading Junji Ito’s Lovesickness. With no backing music or vibrant on-screen graphics, Kish read in solitude while the chat was set in emoji-only mode.
The only visuals that popped up were brief alert notifications, but outside of these fleeting messages, Kish continued reading without any distractions.
Impressively, the stream swept up nearly 3,000 viewers upon its live debut but has since gone to pull in over 50,000 curious individuals through the VOD afterward.
The Silent Reading genre was added to Twitch along with several other unique additions, as part of a fun rollout for April Fool’s day. Aside from basking in the silence of Mary Kish’s reading, viewers could also check out Chores, Pizza Time, Character Creation, Odd Jobs, and Errands.
However, the runaway genre seemed to be Literally Just Chatting, as many streamers used it as a typical stream. Many streamers missed the point of Twitch’s playful jab here, as the genre was intended to turn the stream itself into an old-fashioned chatroom for the viewers.