Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, has announced that alongside new, regular streams on Facebook and YouTube, he's going to be tapping into the gaming world with his own Twitch channel. It's not clear yet if he plans to play some games or merely focus on gaming-related chat, like unionizing game developers, but he's coming to Twitch nonetheless, with a channel called Bernie_Sanders.
Although Twitch is primarily a platform for game streaming, since the Amazon takeover in 2014, it has also hosted a growing collection of IRL, or in real life streams, as well as general commentary, podcasts, and VLOG-style videos. With the upcoming 2020 presidential campaign, however, and the growing importance of an online presence in political campaigning, Bernie Sanders is unlikely to be the only candidate to use it to further their political aims.
Sanders' staffers claim that this move by their candidate is to help encourage the "not me, us," mantra of his campaign. That stands in stark contrast to not only the standing republican president, Donald Trump, but also his democratic predecessor, Hilary Clinton, who's "I'm with her," stance during the 2015 election cycle failed to generate the same kind of momentum as Sanders has seen in recent years.
The approach Sanders team is taking to digital campaigning is comprehensive. Alongside Twitch he's releasing live streamed videos on Facebook and YouTube and conducting AMAs on sites like Reddit and Twitter. He's also released a Bern App for desktop, which helps supporters communicate with one another to help organize get togethers and events to encourage his support in the run up to the democratic primaries in 2020.
Will you tune in to Bernie TV?
