“The next time I’m asked what it takes to be successful on Twitch, I finally have an answer!” You just need to be a member of the US Congress. “ The videographer and former French journalist specializing in video games ExServ reacts with humor on Twitter at the communication blow of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, elected to the House of Representatives and member of the young guard of the Democratic Party.
On the night of Tuesday 20 to Wednesday 21 October, the young woman held a live on Twitch for more than three hours, a platform widely used to broadcast games of video games. That which is nicknamed “AOC” gathered up to 435,000 simultaneous spectators, one of the highest scores in the history of the platform – the record amounting to more than 600,000 spectators, according to the specialized site The Verge.
The elected New Yorker has, for several hours, played Among Us, a video game that has exploded in popularity since July – similar to the board game Les Loups-Garous de Thiercelieux, in which an impostor must eliminate other players without being spotted. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was accompanied by the elected Democrat Ilhan Omar, but also famous streamers like Pokimane, one of the most followed figures of Twitch.
Of course, the Democratic official was not just there to have fun on the popular game of the day. Between two collaborative investigations and countless laughs, she used this platform to touch and mobilize a young electorate, two weeks before the US presidential election of November 3, which pits Democrat Joe Biden against the outgoing Republican Donald Trump.
A call to vote
“If you can vote, then make sure you organize to go and vote. If you can’t vote, try talking to someone who can. That’s all that matters tonight ”, she told hundreds of thousands of viewers as she launched the stream Tuesday night. Wink ? Among Us is, precisely, a title in which the players must debate and vote at each turn to determine who is the intruder among them.
The message is not insignificant in the United States, where the participation rate in the election is a crucial variable and where the rules in force in certain States make voting a process that is sometimes much longer and more difficult than in France. And this, while Donald Trump is stepping up attacks against postal voting in a country very hard hit by the pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2. Further political discussions took place during Tuesday’s stream, with “AOC” asking a UK streamer about his country’s healthcare system, or asking others how they get together to vote.
Joe Biden on “Animal Crossing”
The choice of video games to reach a young electorate is not a first for the Democratic Party, nor for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Recently, Joe Biden’s campaign team created and inaugurated an “official” in-game island. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, great success of the containment, and invited Internet users to come and visit it. In May, “AOC” herself, who has repeatedly shown her love of video games, invited Internet users to show her their own islands in the game.
In January 2019, the representative also participated, on Twitch, in a charity event organized by left-wing British videographer HBomberguy. In this video game marathon intended to raise funds for an association for the defense of transgender people, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez invited herself, without warning, to talk politics and defense of the LGBT + community with the videographer.
As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic complicates traditional campaigning methods, like door-to-door and large gatherings, the Democratic Party campaign team is relying on social media and influencers to continue electoral communication. “We are forced to do virtually everything”, explained in September to the site Vox Adrienne Elrod, part of Joe Biden’s team.
