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Writer's pictureKelli Dunlap

Mental Health Live: An Ethnographic Study of the Mental Health of Twitch Streamers during COVID

It's hard to believe, but over 3 years ago I was working on a side project with colleagues Mxiety and Joce W. on the mental health of streamers at the height of COVID. Serendipity dropped a call for papers in my lap, a call for papers featuring games academic heavy-weights including Bo Ruberg and Johanna Brewer.




So this little side project turned into an official academic pursuit. My co-authors and I interviewed ~ 20 streamers about what it was like being a streamer during lockdown and we transcribed, coded, and wrote up their stories.

Streamers serve as frontline mental health responders

I published an overview of this work last year in In J.A. Rodriguez et al. Mental Health Atmospheres Video Games: New Directions in Game Research II. But the full analysis is finally here and published in Real Life in Real Time: Live Streaming Culture.



is available for free via open access PDF and the entire book is also for sale via MIT Press. Eternal thanks to Mxiety and Joce for their support and hard work throughout this epic project and endless appreciation to all the streamers who shared their time and their stories.

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