Almost 700,000 People Congregation To Twitch To Watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Play Hit Video Game ‘Among Us’

President Trump has his airplane hangar rallies, Joe Biden his socially distant, drive-in events. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 31-year-old representative from NY, has her ... alien spaceship.

She climbed aboard that craft tonight to play Among Us, a surprise hit multi-player computer game that has become popular among Twitch celebrities over the past few months. (Players race around the cartoonish ship, completing tasks and trying to not be killed.) Almost 700,000 tuned in on Twitch to observe her play with several streamers and fellow Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. At the broadcast’s peak, some 440,000 people visited the Twitch stream found out by AOC, while another 200,000 approximately followed seperate broadcasts by gaming stars Pokimane, Jacksepticeye, HasanAbi and Moistcr1tikal.

The evening had a purpose beyond the sport. before beginning Among Us, AOC urged those watching her Twitch stream to choose the upcoming presidential election. “We are here to vote blue,” she says. “We have the power to vote trump of office, to vote for a Biden-Kamala ticket. Let’s confirm we modify this country.” She took a moment then to look at the game’s interface, sliding her cursor over to the sound controls, increasing the quantity. “Look at how spooky this music is,” she said, laughing. “Sorry, I’m just quite getting this together.”

AOC’s Twitch stream may be a striking new use of a broadcast platform that almost 40 million people within the U.S. watch monthly. Its popularity, however, has largely been restricted to those curious about games, and it's never the place elected officials usually attend convey a crucial political message. except for perspective on AOC’s draw, consider the number of individuals who showed up to observe Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ triumphant return to Twitch after his defection to a competing streaming service: Blevins, the foremost popular pro gamer, attracted a few fifths of the gang during that event in August.

The idea for AOC’s virtual campaign rally close in a few days. The congresswoman tweeted to her 9.1 million Twitter followers that she wanted to play Among Us and asking who’d want to require part. In May, she did something similar and played Animal Crossing: New Horizons with several people she met off Twitter, another stunt seen as remarkably forward-thinking since that game has also been successful among children, a demographic that politicians often struggle to attach with. Biden has his own presence on the sport, too, a campaign-branded location within Animal Crossing that players can visit and ask a digital avatar version of the Democratic nominee.

After her initial tweet yesterday, AOC spent several hours trying to accumulate the equipment needed for her Twitch broadcast—including webcams—and made a futile trip to a Best Buy BBY +0.1% where much of it had been sold out. Twitch’s corporate HQ spotted her tweet and reached out with technical support.

AOC began playing the sport around 9 p.m. on Tuesday. Several rounds of Among Us and 90 minutes later, she was still bent over her keyboard, keenly zooming her pink-spacesuited character round the board. Attendance had dropped off, slightly, to only 366,000 people following her Livestream.

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