The recent Twitch stream of Among Us by US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has become one of the biggest in the service’s history.
On October 20, the congresswoman took to the platform in an effort to inspire viewers to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. Accompanying her on the stream was fellow US House Representative Ilman Omar, along with other big-name streamers such as HasanAbi and Pokimane.
The stream peaked at 439,000 concurrent viewers with an average of 355,000 people watching, according to the data metric site Twitch Tracker. The stream’s viewer peak places it as the 17th highest of all time – just ahead of Bungie’s official channel.
According to ESPN’s Tyler Erzberger, AOC’s stream is also reportedly in the third position for a peak concurrent viewer count, and is only behind a stream in 2018 featuring popular content creator Ninja and the artist Drake, as well as streamer Shroud’s recent return to the platform.
Revisit the stream in full below:
AOC’s follower count has also seen exponential growth. Despite having only been created earlier this week, the channel currently sits at 649,000 followers at the time of writing, far ahead of Donald Trump’s 143,000 and Bernie Sanders’ 159,000.
Since the stream’s airing, AOC has taken to Twitter to share multiple best moments from Among Us, which include failed imposter attempts, gameplay confusion and more. Check out a compilation of best moments as retweeted by the congresswoman below:
The best moments from @AOC's Among Us stream on @Twitch last night. pic.twitter.com/13dGGgeWTF
— The Recount (@therecount) October 21, 2020
This is not the first time in recent memory that video games have been used for politics. Democratic nominee Joe Biden teamed up with Kinda Funny Games to reveal Biden Island, a custom-made Animal Crossing: New Horizons island in support of the presidential candidate.
Popularity for Among Us has exploded in the past few weeks, resulting in the developers cancelling plans for a sequel and focus on expanding the original game.