On the evening of October 20, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) – also known as AOC – streamed on Twitch for the very first time. Her game of choice? Among Us.
AOC played the game with popular streamers like HasanAbi, DrLupo, Pokimane, and Valkyrae, along with fellow politician Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
As exciting as the stream itself was with all of these huge names popping in and out, the real kicker was the response to the stream which had a peak viewer count of over 400,000 people.
AOC’s Among Us Stream Drew in Over 400k Viewers
The best moments from @AOC‘s Among Us stream on @Twitch last night. pic.twitter.com/13dGGgeWTF
— The Recount (@therecount) October 21, 2020
Politicians have tried to use gaming to connect with young voters, but those attempts often come across as disingenuous. This was absolutely not the case with the Twitch stream from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
The 3.5 hour stream was enjoyable to watch from start to finish. You could tell that AOC was having fun, and that’s the most important thing honestly outside of her reason behind streaming.
For those who missed the stream, AOC’s main goal was to encourage people to go out and vote if they haven’t done so already. She encourages going out and voting in person if you’re able to, or voting by mail if you’re unable to vote in person.
Whether or not the effort to get people to vote was effective remains to be seen (we won’t know how many people voted this election until much, much later), but there’s no doubt that the message was heard on a massive scale given the number of viewers the stream had.
At its peak, AOC’s Among Us stream had over 400,000 people watching concurrently, and the VOD has almost 5 million views in total as of the time of this writing. The stream has been written about by just about every outlet out there and has been talked about extensively on social media, so we imagine her next stream will be equally successful if not more so.
AOC’s Twitch channel also has 600,000+ followers interested in seeing her stream again. If that were to happen, we have no doubt that other Twitch streamers would be eager to join her again for another round or two of Among Us, or for a different game entirely like Phasmophobia.
At least, that’s our personal request. It’s October which means that a co-op horror game isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Some of the people AOC streamed with have played that game before on their streams like Pokimane and Disguised Toast.
highlights from the @AOC among us stream – my love for this woman knows no bounds 💖 https://t.co/aZErKVAlVw pic.twitter.com/OCa06KMuob
— lindsay (@levlinds) October 21, 2020
To quickly recap, some of the people AOC streamed with include the aforementioned HasanAbi, DrLupo, Pokimane, Valkyrae, and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) – who has a mighty impressive PC setup we might add.
Others of note include Disguised Toast, Isra Hirsi, Jacksepticeye, MoistCr1TiKaL, Hbomberguy, Mxmtoon, Gus Johnson, and Corpse_Husband.
If you missed the stream and want to go back and watch it, you can by heading over to AOC’s Twitch channel. You can also follow her to catch her next stream, and follow her on Twitter where she’s been retweeting some great highlights shared by other people regarding her first stream.