What: An unexpected guest helped propel video game-viewing streamer Twitch to record-breaking new heights.
Who: Drake and the superstar gamer Ninja.
Why we care: Drake is not like other hip-hop stars. He’s hella emo, although that’s sort of in right now, but he’s been that way from the start. He’s also kind of a dork, a reputation he cemented forever with his endearingly goofy dancing in the “Hotline Bling” video. On Wednesday night, Drake put his dorky side on full display by demonstrating his intense obsession with video games–and he ended up breaking the internet, just a little. All it took was a tweet.
playing fort nite with @ninja https://t.co/OSFbgcfzaZ
— Drizzy (@Drake) March 15, 2018
Drake had recently taken to watching the gamer Ninja wreak havoc on the video game streaming service, Twitch. But after a while, watching was not enough. Drake followed Ninja on Instagram and last night, the two coordinated to play the hot “sandbox survival” game, Fortnite, on Twitch. According to Kotaku, “after some initial communications issues, and some adorable fan freakout from Ninja’s wife, viewers were able to tune in to see Ninja playing while Drake was on voice comms via Discord (the pair were separated by platforms, with Ninja on PC and Drake on PS4).”
This team-up raised the viewer count from 200,000 at the outset to 400,000 a half-hour later. And after Drake tweeted a link to his 36.7 million followers, the numbers soared further. But it was Drake’s tweet above that pushed viewership to over 600,000, handily setting a new record for the most concurrents on a single stream for Twitch. So if you, like many over-35s, woke up this morning and saw a bunch of words trending at the top of Twitter that you didn’t quite understand, now you know.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
