This is probably the most important question a new streamer on SOOP Global will be asked. This writing is my complete answer to it.

It’s Not 2020 Anymore

It’s late 2024. Streaming on Twitch has become repetitive. The overall culture on it is breeding a boring sameness across the channels. The farther we get away from the pandemic, the more this becomes the case as a large portion of the streamers who made my early experience on the platform great get back to the normal grind of everyday life, many of them dropping streaming entirely. I’m feeling the need for something fresh.

It’s during this time that I discover Afreecatv has disappeared! At least, at first glance this seems the case. Afreecatv, a Korean platform that serves south east Asia, has rebranded to SOOP as part of its new goal of going global. This is exciting news! This means they’re going to lock horns with Twitch! This scenario is what first piqued my interest.

The Dark Horse

Twitch has had competitors, all of them with fatal flaws. Mixer was run by a company, Microsoft, that was too large to address the needs of the community quickly and directly, which is a must for a streaming platform. YouTube has a robotic soullessness to it that prevents it from gaining ground on Twitch’s core competency, community. Kick was born of controversy, making it a public relations minefield.

SOOP is a new streaming platform run by people who know how to run a streaming platform.

SOOP, on the other hand, is a new streaming platform run by people who know how to run a streaming platform. Mixer, YouTube, and Kick were underdogs. SOOP is a dark horse. Twitch needs competition. Imagine being part of the early days of a real threat to Twitch’s empire. I found that appealing.

If You Build It, They Will Stay

The off-air community experience is a valuable feature all streaming platforms I’ve used overlook. I found this particularly odd for Twitch, where streamers rely heavily on Discord. I never liked the dependency on Discord. Off-air community interaction should be possible without leaving the site.

Twitch is no stranger to building native support for community trends. Streamers often used bots that offered points viewers could accrue and cash in for rewards. Twitch saw this and implemented bits and channel points. Twitch baked native alerts into its dashboard and jumped on the short form video bandwagon. Curiously, thought, it still lets Discord handle all of the off-air discussion. When a platform’s greatest strength is its community, that’s a shocking oversight. I’ve always wanted to see another platform attack this weakness. With the possible demise of Discord around the corner, the time to do this is now!

Some of SOOP’s early features, though incomplete, show promise in that regard. I was delighted when I saw the Community tab, a classic message board, on the channel dashboard. The ability to leave YouTube style comments on my VODs, allowing us to further discuss content after the stream, is a feature my newer viewers have been leveraging. SOOP is already making small steps in the right direction.

We Are The Culture

On Twitch, you learn the culture and become part of it, and it’s a rich culture that is loaded with fun! I highly recommend it to anyone who is bored with traditional social media.

SOOP doesn’t have a culture, yet—or more correctly, we, the early adopters, are the culture. This makes now an especially exciting time to join SOOP if you’re a streamer! We are the faces of the platform. We get to shape its image. We are how new viewers experience it. That’s an incredible amount of power we wield, and it’s mutually beneficial. It’s power SOOP needs us to have. With my experience streaming on Twitch, I think I can handle that skillfully, and I want to help the other early adopters do the same.

Will You Join Me?

At the time of this writing, SOOP is a frontier. It’s a land of opportunity. Will you give it a try? Will you let me be your host?

I hope you remember me as a reason you stayed.

I was once asked what my streaming goals are, and I said I didn’t have any, but this isn’t quite true. My goal is to be the best host I can. My goal is to give new viewers the best impression of SOOP that I can. When you’re reminiscing with your friends about the good old days when you joined SOOP, I hope you remember me as a reason you stayed. That would make it all worth it.