MatureDJ
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2006
- Messages
- 11,298
- Reaction score
- 4,668
At 26, Tyler is a millionaire and one of the Internet’s most popular streamers. For 50 hours a week, he broadcasts himself playing video games from his cramped living room in his 900-person Missouri hometown to 4.6 million followers, watching from around the world.
He earns more than $200,000 a month in Twitch ads and viewer subscriptions. Sponsorships with Nike and Doritos, contracts with giant esports teams, fan donations and merchandise sales have earned him millions more.
When he dropped out of college to stream, Tyler cast himself as an alpha among dweebs, known for crude banter and wild gameplay. To a generation raised by the Internet, he became bigger than a rock star: Fans pay him every month for access and intimacy, which he provides in great amounts, allowing nearly every day of his life — from his virtual battles to his most personal real-world moments — to be dissected and criticized.
Tyler specialized in “League,” a dazzlingly intricate game notorious for its split-second strategy. Through day-long grinds, he became one of the game’s most tactical and irritating entertainers; upset by his partners, he often killed himself to boost the enemy. When the game’s leaders banned him as a “genuine jerk” in 2016, it only boosted his bad-boy image. His numbers soared.
His fans, Tyler said, were typically guys from the United States and Western Europe looking for somewhere they could belong, a place they could share their excitement, make inside jokes and be around friends 10 hours a day.
His streams were free, but thousands of fans paid $5 to $25 a month to subscribe, removing ads and granting them some in-chat status symbols, like the ability to post images of Tyler’s face. Many also donated a few bucks to emblazon a message across the stream — typically some jab Tyler couldn’t ignore.
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