Refinery29, an American multinational digital media and entertainment website that focuses on young women and the challenges they face, has launched a weekly show on Twitch that features stories about female creators on their platform.
Twitch has a long history of being harmful for branding the community sees as inauthentic. Since the platform consists mostly of gamers, what’s “inauthentic” is often subjectively determined by people who see Twitch as a predominantly gaming platform.
The weekly show premiered on September 29, garnering 13,000 viewers for the first livestream. The women-oriented show gave the viewers a glimpse into what Refinery29 has in store for them.
The show will focus on the viewing habits and behaviors of Twitch dwellers by following a series of magazine shows released under the category of ‘Just Chatting’ on Twitch.
Talking about the show, Melissah Yang, entertainment director at Refinery29, had this to say:
“What I’ve seen in terms of other media brands that are out there right now, they're really approaching it as a traditional cable news broadcast approach. They're treating it as a two-hour show.”
She went on to say that they’re positioning the latest Refinery29 show as a live talk show rather than a traditional cable TV show.
“There are opportunities for media brands to explore and have fun, and really tap into the IRL content that actually makes up so much of what Twitch does.”
She feels that a large portion of gamers are women, and that they’ve rarely been the target that the gaming segment markets to. Most see gaming as male-dominated, and while that might have been the case a decade ago, it certainly isn’t now.
Refinery29 is positioning itself to become a show that speaks to young women about their favorite pastime.
Livestreaming is certainly the means to do so, seeing as how its interactive nature lets it include and involve the viewers like few other content types can.
“If you look at the trend in the gaming industry in the last year, everybody’s really trying to change and expand the definition of who a gamer is and what gamer identity is,” Yang went on to say. “And that’s obviously something that we've tapped into with our coverage and with our stories.”
Gaming as an industry is certainly spacious enough to be a more welcoming community than it’s traditionally been.
Hopefully, Refinery29 manages to get that message across and creates an environment that invites young women to share their passion for gaming.
