We Are Definitely in the Political Weird Season

As a part of the get out the vote efforts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlined an Among Us gaming session on Twitch to almost ½ a million viewers.

I’m not sure if this is brilliant, or just silly:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) drew more than 430,000 concurrent viewers to her first-ever Twitch stream Tuesday night.

Ocasio-Cortez’s 3.5 hour Among Us session—which she used in part to encourage viewers to vote—included fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and popular streamers like Pokimane and Disguised Toast, who responded rapidly to an off-handed tweet invite on Monday. And just in case you were wondering, Omar tweeted out the specs of her (very nice) gaming rig.

The debut instantly made Ocasio-Cortez—who admitted to having little experience with Among Us beforehand—one of the most popular streamers on the Amazon-owned video streaming service. Her peak of 435,000 viewers put her in the top 20 most popular streams ever on the site, according to data gathered by TwitchTracker, an echelon that’s dominated by major gaming brands with massive marketing departments. As of this writing, the AOC Twitch account has over 571,000 followers, and her debut video clip has attracted over 4.73 million views.

In between gasp-filled games full of Among Us‘ usual accusations and back-biting, Ocasio-Cortez directed viewers to “make a voting plan” via IwillVote.com. She also found time to talk about universal health care with her fellow players and share some thoughts on the world-building of Among Us itself. “When it comes to video games, it’s the lore,” she said on the stream. “How did these people get here? What year are we in? Et cetera.”

My son watched some clips, and thought it was brilliant.

Me, I’m dubious, but maybe I’m just an old fart.

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