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7 best new Twitch streamers in 2016

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From a celebrity to a puppet, these broadcasters have defied the odds for a new channel and gained popularity.

Starting a successful Twitch stream these days isn’t easy. With 1.7 million unique broadcasters on the platform every month, getting noticed is often practically a feat of genius—or luck. But there are some streamers who’ve managed to capture the attention of viewers through sheer entertainment or educational value.

If you’re addicted to Twitch, you have to at least give each of these streamers a try. They’re too good to ignore. Some of them capitalized on a special occasion—like the release of Overwatch—while others won over well-established streamers, leading to a lot of attention on social media during their broadcasts.

These are seven of the most interesting new Twitch streamers for 2016.

BennyFits

With his deep, gravelly voice BennyFits could easily be mistaken for a tipsy Cookie Monster fromSesame Street. The little blue monster started streaming in February but rose to fame overnight in March, partially thanks to big streamers like Tucker “Jericho” Boner tweeting out the link to his stream while he was live. He was so entertaining that Twitch gave him partnership within days.

Benny plays mostly Blizzard games. He started with a lot of Diablo, dabbled in Heroes of the Storm, and eventually settled on Overwatch—with a bit of The Witcher, Uncharted, and Dark Souls thrown in as well.

Within no time Benny became one of the reigning meme and advice lords on Twitch. He speaks in the third person and is notorious for his one-liners and earnest philosophizing (“There are so many of you. Why are you so many, when Benny is only Benny?”) All that, combined with his unparalleled fashion sense (“I wear the coolest clothes I can, and I’m Benny, everything I wear is Benny”), and you can see why people get mesmerized by his stream.

But one of the best parts of Benny’s broadcasts is the name of his fan base, which he repeats whenever he gets a follower.

“If you want to be friends with BennyFits just hit the follow button, then we are friends… with BennyFits,” he said during one of his first streams with deadpan delivery—as his chat blew up with laughter. Even better, his subscribers are called BennyFactors.

A_Seagull

If you’re looking for an entertaining and educational Overwatch stream then Brandon “A_Seagull” Larned is your man. He plays competitively for Luminosity Gaming and his deep knowledge of the game will give you unparalleled insight—even if you’re watching with the volume off.

Seagull used to be one of the top Team Fortress 2 players, so he’s been in the first-person shooter arena genre for quite some time. He started streaming Overwatch last November during the closed beta, but his stream really blew up once the game moved into open beta on May 5 and was released on May 24. Now, he averages around 22,000 concurrent viewers during his broadcasts.

He usually streams for around four to five hours, most days a week. Seagull also utilizes the in-game voice chat feature, giving viewers a better sense what team comms should look like, with his commentary giving that extra understanding of exactly how to get better at Overwatch.

T-Pain

Yes, you read that right. Popular musical artist T-Pain (real name Faheem Rashad Najm), famous for songs like “Buy U a Drank” and “Bartender,” started streaming on Twitch last month.

The two-time Grammy winner went live for the first time on May 25 from his hotel room, playingDoom for thousands of viewers while his friends/entourage/support team hung out in the background. He enthralls viewers with his personality, often yelling or making funny comments about the game. Like, “That was unnecessary, you know how much code that took?” in response to getting killed and ripped apart in Doom.

He gets a fair bit of flack from the Twitch community, too. It seems like every third person in chat asks why his stream isn’t autotuned or informs him he’s irrelevant (most of his hits came out around 2007). But T-Pain takes it all in stride.

“It’s kind of weird that I’m the irrelevant one when you’re sitting there watching me play games,” he said during his first stream, in reply to someone in chat. “That’s f**king weird. I get it though, sometimes you’ve got to make yourself feel better.”

Since his channel’s launch, T-Pain has almost exclusively played Overwatch, gaining thousands more live viewers in the process. During his first stream he said he was always taught that being a gamer was a negative thing, but that now he just wants people to see him for who he is—which is also one of the main reasons he doesn’t wear his signature mirror shades on stream.

Bloodyfaster

Are you really into chill streams with good singing and an awesome accent? Then Bloodyfaster, aka Eleni, is the woman you’ve been looking for.

She’s only been broadcasting on Twitch since February, with her streams usually involving a mix of gaming—anything from Mass Effect to Overwatch and horror games—and singing.

Eleni refers to herself as the “World’s Okayest Gamer,” but OK at gaming or not, a number of hercover songs on YouTube have almost a million views. Some of her best acapella versions on stream have covered Disney songs—classics like The Lion King’s “Circle of Life,” and Aladdin’s “A Whole New World.”

Eleni recently moved from Greece to California, and besides broadcasting and singing she’s also a computer engineer.

Dr DisRespect

If you like mullets and mustaches, Dr DisRespect’s stream is perfect for you. The full time broadcaster started streaming on Twitch on March 21, a triumphant return after he stopped making YouTube videos about five years ago—hyping up his “return” on social media for months beforehand.

And he didn’t go half-assed either. “Doc,” as he affectionately calls himself, put together an all-new, epic gaming PC, talked about doing two different green screens because he only does “next level things,” and even upgraded his “legendary black sunglasses” (to be fair, the original pair broke so he kind of had to).

Doc streams a lot of H1Z1: King of the Kill, and if you’ve never caught the start of his stream before, it comes highly recommended—think epic music as he turns slowly to face the camera, often accompanied by manic laughter, odd grunts and exhalations, and very close-up whispers into the microphone.

Doc, like BennyFits, also has an amazing community name: SlickDaddyClub. The logo includes his signature mustache, because why not.

DaigothebeasTV

Arguably one of the best Street Fighter players of all time, Daigo Umehara started streaming in February, with Twitch announcing him as its first global ambassador last month.

If you want to improve your Street Fighter V game, his is the only stream you really need to watch—though it helps if you speak Japanese. Still, he often has a translator on hand to explain what he’s doing and give you his all-important insight into what is good, what isn’t, and which characters are totally OP.

Daigo has played various games competitively since 1995, when he was just 14, and won his first tournament in 1997. Since then, he’s placed first at international competitions dozens of times, and is known for coming up with unique strings of moves that help him defeat his opponents.

Aside from the educational side of his stream, he also has an entertaining side, with top Japanese players joining him live, sometimes dressed up in costumes like the Japanese webcomic character One Punch Man or Thomas the Tank Engine.

Phonecats

On its release on Jan. 4, Supercell’s Clash Royale gained instant notoriety in the gaming community. It seemed like everyone downloaded the game to play in their spare time—and then they all became obsessed. Chris, aka Phonecats, started streaming mobile games around September last year, and quickly jumped on Clash Royale when it was released, becoming just as obsessed as everyone else.

The best part of his stream is his upbeat personality. He interacts a lot with chat, even during games. That’s an impressive feat, considering they’re often faced-paced at around three to four minutes. He also has a stream-of-consciousness style of speaking, allowing him to explain his thought process and narrating the games at the same time.

If you’re not big on Clash Royale he also occasionally plays other mobile games like Hearthstone, Diepio, Slither.io, and Growtopia.