The Future's Biggest Stars Are Born on Twitch

In today’s era of confinement and confusion, it’s fitting that one of the most memorable performances of the year was given by a pair of sitting U.S. congresswomen attempting to destroy each other on board an alien spaceship. No other quarantine moment so effortlessly bridged generations and perspectives as when representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, joined the streaming platform Twitch in October to play Among Us, the low-fi space-themed multiplayer game that has soared to popularity during the pandemic.Conceived by Ocasio-Cortez as an impromptu Generation Z voter initiative, the online event ended up being an only-in-2020 slice of high-camp theater. Watching Ocasio-Cortez’s pink AOC astronaut avatar engage in two-dimensional intergalactic carnage while a live video showed the headphone-clad congresswoman dispensing wisecracks (“What kind of futuristic spaceship still runs a combustion engine?”) between musings on health care and the presidential race was a remarkable reminder that livestreaming sites such as Twitch are now some of the most exciting stages on which to witness the zeitgeist unfold. There was even a rare moment of bipartisanship: At one point, Ocasio-Cortez broadcast that Justin Amash, the former Republican representative from Michigan, had just texted her to…
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