"Anyone want to play Among Us with me on Twitch to get out the vote?" tweeted Representative Ocasio-Cortez.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC, colloquially), the Representative of New York's 14th congressional district, drew over 435,000 concurrent viewers to her first Twitch stream playing the season's hot multiplayer game, Among Us.
Who would you want to watch in a game together? ⬇️
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 19, 2020
Among Us has enjoyed an astronomical surge into mainstream popularity, doubtless in part because of the fascinating social deduction caused by its "whodunnit" gameplay. Between 4 and 10 players assume the role of crew members doing tasks on a space ship, while one or more of them are secretly assigned the role of Imposter and the goal of stealthily murdering all the crew without being found out.
It was into this cutthroat world of kill-or-be-Crew that AOC jumped, with the goal of promoting voter turnout. Filling out the game lobby were other famous streamers and fellow Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota's 5th congressional district.
The group played for 3.5 hours and was watched by more than 439,000 viewers at its peak, making it the third-highest viewership for an individual gamer (Drake played Fortnite in 2018 and got 600,000 viewers). Ocasio-Cortez directed viewers to I Will Vote, an online resource for making a plan to vote.
Betrayals, murders, and airlock executions were played out in the game's cartoony style, with the occasional political discussion.
Representative Omar was happy to share the details of her gaming computer:
Posting specs:
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 21, 2020
Intel Core i7-10700K
Zotac GeForce RTX 2060 Super
G.Skill TridentZ RGB 32GB
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 NVMe main
6TB SSD storage
Corsair iCUE H100i AIO
NZXT H510i case https://t.co/nSYcbJrgC2
What're your thoughts on political work being done on streaming platforms like Twitch? Can we expect more of this sort of thing in the future? Leave a comment!