Twitch Steamers That Blew Up In 2021
The way in which mainstream audiences view gaming culture has changed in recent years. Whereas gamers used to be seen as a small niche, now gamers come from all parts of the globe and every walk of life. As such, people who stream gaming and variety content have found new ways to appeal to just about every audience. Livestreaming, now, is again changing the ways in which fans consume media. As the world becomes increasingly digital, so are the ways in which people form relationships.
Not only is gaming culture expanding, but so are the ways in which parasocial relationships are forming between viewers and their favorite streamers. Gaming culture is not slowing down at all, and Twitch streamers are leading the charge in the new digital frontier. 2021 has seen the growth of diverse communities on Twitch, with more and more viewers finding the streamer that checks all the boxes for them. Because of that, a few streamers have seen a noticeable uptick in success within the last year. Here are some of the Twitch streamers who have grown the most over 2021.
Sykkuno
One of Twitch's biggest success stories of 2021, Sykkuno stands out on the Twitch platform for his calm demeanor and friendliness. Sykkuno used to be software developer, but he had ambitions of becoming a content creator.
Sykkuno began regularly uploading content in the early part of 2019, and his meteoric rise in 2021 can be traced to "Among Us". Taking the gaming scene by storm during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, "Among Us" became extremely popular very quickly. The game also allowed creators to combine their audiences all into one collaborative match, pitting creators against one another with social deception. Alongside other big names related to the Offline TV crew, Sykkuno's personality meshed well and his following has grown ever since.
Reaching into mainstream culture in April of 2021, Sykkuno participated in an hour-long charity stream hosted by "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon". With friends like Valkyrae and Corpse Husband by his side, Sykkuno enjoyed playing with members of The Roots and cast members of "Stranger Things."
Fans have continued to support Sykkuno throughout 2021 as he has branched out past "Among Us" and now enjoys variety streaming to his ever-growing audience. Sykkuno's Twitch follower count has grown from 2.2 million followers to 3.8 million followers in 2021.
Ludwig
Prior to Ludwig's foray into streaming, Ludwig had tried a variety of careers. After graduating from Arizona State University, he donned titles such as comedian and web developer.
Ludwig Ahgren's gaming career started in the "Super Smash Bros." community, both as a player and a commentator. Maining Jigglypuff and holding his own in competitive play, Ludwig proved his gaming acumen, and furthered his reach in the world of "Smash" community by hosting his own tournaments.
This industriousness in the Smash community has translated into Ludwig becoming one of the most innovative streamers on Twitch. Some of Ludwig's standout events include releasing a Christmas album in late 2020, hosting gameshows like Hivemind and Mogul Money, and of course, his record-breaking "subathon."
In March of 2021, Ludwig hosted a subathon that would add minutes to his overall stream clock whenever a new subscription was added to his channel (per New York Times). Lasting much longer than anticipated, he went over a month of not turning the camera off even for sleep. He ended the subathon with the most subscribers ever at one point on Twitch with over 280,000 subs. Ludwig's continued success in 2021 is no surprise after this stunt, and his Twitch follower count has grown from 1.2 million to 3 million followers in 2021.
Corpse Husband
Another streamer who gained greater popularity in 2021 is Corpse Husband. Known primarily for his deep voice and refusal to appear on camera, the truth is that Corpse Husband has become one of the biggest enigmas on Twitch. But before Corpse Husband's rapid rise to Twitch fame, he started on YouTube in 2015 as a narrator of creepypastas.
In late 2020, during the "Among Us" craze that swept up mainstream and gaming audiences, Corpse found heaps of success streaming alongside friends like Sykkuno and Valkyrae, as well as joining into OTV-related lobbies. Not only was Corpse the most extraordinary-sounding participant, he was very good at the game as well, snagging fans of his own while often only a participant on other peoples' streams.
Even though Corpse already had a solid following prior to his gaming escapades, nobody would have expected him to brush shoulders with the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ilhan Omar when they joined some "Among Us" action, or to have Twitter interactions with Halsey. Beyond his new gaming fame, Corpse has ventured out into making music.
In Summer 2021, he realized he suddenly had 900,000 curious followers on Twitch, which prompted him to finally log in and use the platform. Naturally, Corpse's first Twitch stream was a huge success. Corpse Husband's Twitch follower count has grown from nearly 0 followers to 1.1 million followers throughout 2021.
NickMercs
Known for his prowess in many different FPS titles, NickMercs is definitely one of Twitch's biggest success stories. Starting out in the early 2010s, NickMercs' bravado, sense of humor, and dedication to refining his craft has set him apart as one of the most popular FPS content creators in the game, and he just keeps gaining momentum.
NickMercs made a name for himself in the competitive esports side of FPS gaming, competing in tournaments for games like "Halo 3." Notably, NickMercs Halo career intersected with Ninja's Halo career, producing a rivalry between the two. Both Ninja and Nick enjoy a bit of trash talk while gaming, which nearly led to brawl between the two at a "Halo: Reach" circuit event.
NickMercs has also had his fair share of different teams to represent, leaving 100 Thieves back in 2019 to join with FaZe Clan. Leading his own team of followers, called the MFAM, NickMercs has succeeded in creating a tight-knit group of fans and colleagues across FPS games.
In August of 2021, NickMercs made the decision to stop streaming "Call of Duty: Warzone" as his primary game due to the prevalence of cheaters. NickMercs started playing "Apex Legends" and was seen as one of the streamers leading the exodus from "Warzone" to "Apex Legends" (via Gfinity Esports). It looks like the change in focus paid off: NickMercs' Twitch follower count grew from 4.8 million followers to 6.2 million followers in 2021.
Adin Ross
In the course of 2021, perhaps no other streamer has stirred the pot as much as Adin Ross. While Adin enjoys a varied streaming career now, he started off by growing a small community around the "NBA 2K" series.
Adin's following skyrocketed after befriending Lebron "Bronny" James Jr., who is also a prominent member of the "2K" scene. After playing and streaming together, Adin and Bronny formed a friendship that Adin characterized in an interview on the "No Jumper Podcast" as "brotherly." More famous friends and prestige would come along for Adin, especially after LeBron James spoke to him on stream.
Making a habit of befriending famous people and bringing them on-stream, Adin continued to grow his fanbase. Fan favorites in the hip-hop community such as Bluface, Lil Yachty, Lil Tecca, Polo G, Lil Pump, Sheck Wes, YBN Almighty Jay, Lil Tjay, Tee Grizzley, and more have all made appearances on Adin Ross' streams, boosting his recognition even more. Adin also made history as the first Twitch streamer to decide to donate 20% of his earnings to charity every month.
However, not all of Adin's interactions with e-famous people have been so positive. In 2021, Adin butted heads with fellow streamers such as Ludwig and Mizkif. Still, these short-lived beefs and a brief Twitch ban for streaming while driving weren't enough to slow Adin down, and his Twitch follower count grew from 500,000 followers to 5 million followers in 2021.
Hasan Piker
Hasan Piker has long been one of the more popular streamers on Twitch, known for his left-wing political commentary and variety game streaming. A Twitch chat sniper, Hasan can normally be found responding to his fans and trolls with either education or sarcasm in equal measure. But before Hasan found himself near the top of Twitch's leaderboards, he gained a following as a broadcast journalist for The Young Turks and a contributing writer for HuffPost.
Hasan gained a great deal of traction during the 2020 American Presidential election (via Dot Esports), with fans tuning in for his takes on the race. Carrying his success forward, Hasan was a constant source of up-to-date news surrounding various culture wars in America's recent times. If something big is going on around the world, in America, or online, Hasan is sure to have a take on it.
More recently, Hasan has been a bit of a controversial figure. In October 2021, a leak of internal Twitch documents revealed payouts for creators over a 2-year period from the platform. As noted by Sportskeeda, Hasan attracted the ire of fans for his earnings, but that wasn't the end of it. Hasan began to receive death threats after viewers learned he'd bought a house for $2.74 million, with some people feeling he was betraying his socialist political stance.
While Hasan has become a bit of a scapegoat in the short-term, his channel grew from 800,000 followers to 1.6 million followers in 2021, thanks to new content like podcast appearances with H3.
Will Neff
Coming from a well-rounded background across the entertainment industry, Will Neff has become an integral member of Twitch's "IRL" streaming community. Over the years, Will Neff has worked as a Television Host and Producer at CBS, a writer at The Young Turks, and even as a video producer at Buzzfeed (via LinkedIn).
Will's stint at The Young Turks coincided with fellow Twitch streamer Hasan Piker's, where they worked as a well-oiled team. According to an interview with The Minds of Media, this friendship ultimately resulted in Will Neff starting his own streaming career, when Hasan "literally forced" him to start streaming. As fans now know, Hasan was right in seeing Will's streaming potential, since personality and life experience translate well to streaming culture.
2021 has been kind to Neff on the streaming front. Neff's been a great part of many IRL streams with the One True King (OTK) crew, and he also created a podcast with Hasan, boosting his recognition. Apart from his successful collaborative content this year, his daily streams continue to draw fans, and Will Neff's Twitch follower count has grown from 115,000 followers to 300,000 followers in 2021.
Tommyinnit
"Minecraft" has had its sways in popularity throughout the years, but late 2020 and early 2021 saw a massive revival. Twitch and YouTube were flooded with "Minecraft" content from all types of creators, and it ended up being YouTube's most-watched game of 2020. Nobody else seized on this moment like Tommyinnit.
Tommyinnit started his career playing "Minecraft" on Twitch in 2019, and he experienced a meteoric rise in popularity when he joined the Dream SMP roleplaying server in July 2020.
The impact of the Dream SMP server on the gaming and streaming communities as a whole is hard to understate. As noted by Insider, a tidal shift in the market occurred as the result of the Dream SMP's success, luring back content creators who had long since stopped playing "Minecraft." Tommyinnit became the Dream SMP's de facto protagonist, the lens through which most of the audience viewed the virtual world' events.
When Tommyinnit streamed the Dream SMP finale in 2021, his Twitch stream peaked at over 650,000+ concurrent viewers (per Dot Esports), making it the third-highest live viewer count ever registered on the platform. Tommyinnit's Twitch follower count has grown from 2.5 million followers to 6.6 million followers in 2021.
Tubbo
Known by many as Tommyinnit's right-hand man in the Dream SMP, Tubbo has also benefitted from the explosion of popularity "Minecraft" saw in 2021. In the Dream SMP, Tubbo participated in all of the main server arcs.
Dressed as Tweak from "South Park" in the server, Tubbo helped found L'Manberg, an independent faction on the Dream SMP server, which he would eventually lead as its 3rd president. Throughout the factional wars on the Dream SMP server, he played multiple sides as a spy and political confidant, but he never betrayed his initial loyalties, increasing his popularity among Dream SMP fans. He even won a Mr. Beast contest worth $100,000 hosted within the Dream SMP, raising his profile higher.
After blowing up through 2020 and at the start of 2021, Tubbo has made some interesting moves. In August 2021, he released a music video, "Life By The Sea", and is showing signs of branching out his content from "Minecraft" to do more IRL streaming, podcasting, and music creation. Tubbo's Twitch viewership has tripled in 2021, growing from 1.5 million to 4.5 million followers.
Ranboo
Perhaps no other faceless streamer besides Corpse Husband has blown up in 2021 while still remaining mysterious quite like Ranboo. Famous for his standout appearance — always wearing a black and white mask with matching gloves and dark eyeglasses — Ranboo earned the top spot for Twitch's total subscriber count in August 2021.
"Minecraft" has been Ranboo's bread and butter since he first started uploading content to his YouTube channel in August 2020. Ranboo's success came rapidly. In a testament to content-sharing across multiple social media platforms, his popularity exploded from a combination of Tik Tok, Twitter, and YouTube before he inevitably turned to Twitch. Similar to other members of the Dream SMP, Ranboo's popularity took off once he established himself as a core figure on the server.
Most streamers are already serious about their craft, but Ranboo takes his dedication to another level. A true comedian, Ranboo will take a joke or roleplaying moment beyond its logical conclusion and find a way to still keep it interesting. His anonymous appearance plays well into his willingness to roleplay and build lore for the Dream SMP.
Rainbow has also expanded his interests to podcasting and hosting charity events. In August 2021, he and his fans managed to raise $325,000 for Charity Water. RanbooLive's Twitch follower count has risen as well, going from 600,000 to 3.6 million followers in 2021.
Thebausffs
Dedication can be a double-edged sword — on one hand, it can lead to true mastery of a subject, and on the other hand, it can be a madness-inducing trap. Being a "one trick pony" in "League of Legends" treads this line, and Thebausffs carries that tradition through to this day.
Also known as Babus, Thebausffs is a well-known expert with Sion (and to a lesser degree, Gragas) in the top lane of high-challenger ranked "LoL" games on the EU West server. Babus pushes the meta of "League of Legends" to its limits and often plays Sion with a glass-cannon offensive build. Many players in "League of Legends" gauge their skill on a Kill/Deaths/Assists ratio (KDA), but Babus thinks that is nonsense. In many games he will have the most deaths, but he also probably had the biggest impact by drawing opponents to his lane and creating a point of pressure on the map.
Thebausffs became so well-known as an innovator in the solo queue that Riot Games featured him as a guest host for a weekend at the "League of Legends" European Championship. This stint in 2021 caused a minor controversy due to people claiming Thebausffs didn't have enough experience and that he was taking away opportunities from other deserving casters (via Esports.com). That controversy aside, Thebausffs was ultimately a solid addition to the cast and addressed his experience in a Twitlonger. Perhaps as a result of this risky endeavor, Thebausffs' Twitch follower count has grown from 200,000 followers to 420,000 followers in 2021.
Richwcampbell
Gamers can come from any sort of background, and Richwcampbell's origins are as unique as his personality and style. Back in 2015, Rich was studying game design at New York University and transitioned his connections from there to land a gig at Major League Gaming (per Dexerto). There, he was able to fill in for the production crew, making his way in front of the camera as a broadcaster for games like "World of Warcraft" and "Hearthstone".
Rich is known for his over-the-top personality and fashion sense. His streams teeter a balance between chill storytime and manic comedy, all of which is normally set to "World of Warcraft" or more recently, "Final Fantasy 14." Rich has expressed an undying love for the MMORPG genre and anything related to his favorite franchises.
A rise in popularity for Rich came with the launch of his podcast "Allcraft," as well as the hype for "World of Warcraft Classic." Some of Rich's best friends that he streams with, Asmongold and EsfandTV, helped fuel the excitement for the nostalgic trip back to Azeroth, consequently helping Rich's channel rise further in the rankings (per The Esports Observer). More recently, the formation of OTK as an organization has likewise boosted Rich's already fantastic year. Richwcampbell's Twitch follower count has grown from 200,000 followers to 400,000 followers in 2021.
Amouranth
The Just Chatting section on Twitch had never seen its popularity grow quite as much as when Amouranth became the face of the "hot tub meta" in early 2021. But before becoming the center of attention, Amouranth got her start on Twitch back in 2015 as a cosplay artist. Her content has evolved with her experiences on Twitch, ranging between IRL content, cooking streams, ASMR, and interacting with chat.
Streaming in a bathing suit was nothing new to the platform, writing down subscriber names was not new, and playing with chat was not new. But streamers like Amouranth and hot tub meta creator xoAriel took these common tropes and turned them into a new wave of content never before seen on the platform. In Amouranth's case, she would often write subscribers' names on herself while interacting with chat from the comfort of a hot tub, typically with some floating version of Pickle Rick somewhere nearby. As is common on the internet, these streams were turned into a controversy, eventually leading to Twitch having to step in and address the meta.
Not only did Amouranth inspire a bunch of copycats (human and otherwise) while gaining tons of attention for her channel, but her success resulted in Twitch making new hot tub rules and creating the "Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches" category. And shortly after Twitch created the new category of "Animals, Aquariums, and Zoos," Amouranth somehow managed to conquer that, too. Amouranth's Twitch follower count has grown from 1.9 million followers to 4.3 million followers in 2021.
nmplol
Nick "nmplol" Polom first garnered attention on on YouTube, where he uploaded gameplay footage of some of his favorite titles, including "Hearthstone" and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive". Most of Nick's serious success, though, can be tracked back to his time playing "World of Warcraft" with popular streamer and longtime friend Sodapoppin, which always drew a crowd. Through his time on the "World of Warcraft" servers, Nick made good friends with the other streamers who would eventually become his colleagues in OTK.
A large part of Nick's success leading to his partnership with OTK is from his partner, Malena. The couple have frequently found themselves on the front page of subreddits like LiveStreamFails for their verbal arguments. These arguments have caused some debate among fans, some of whom have tried to figure out if they're over-exaggerated for the sake of content creation. Whatever the case, these moments have kept many fans invested in the couple.
Nick and Malena are some of the biggest cooking streamers on the platform, often inviting big name streamers like xQc, Ludwig, and a host of other e-celebs to take part in their sardonic cooking comedy. Nick has also been a part of the OTK IRL streams that have been popular in 2021. As a result of his willingness to try different types of streaming, nmplol's Twitch follower count has grown from 500,000 followers to 900,000 followers in 2021.