Thanks to the heads up from a friend last night, I stumbled upon one of the most genuine moments I’ve ever seen in a Twitch TV stream. It’s hard to believe in random acts of kindness in today’s very harsh and impersonal society, but what happened last night makes you truly see the good in people.
During his stream of Arma III, TimTheTatMan received a donation of an astounding $1800, right in front of his 3000+ viewers. What followed next was a very emotional response where he was so overwhelmed that he didn’t know what to say. The donation came from the username ‘UKNWN01’, which sounds suspicious or fake at first glance, but was confirmed by the person who had donated, messaging Tim on Steam.
Tim then finds out that UKNWN01 is a big fan of his streams and he shares a touching story about how the streams helped him cope after his wife passed away. As a result, he donated this large sum to allow Tim to keep up his quality streams, to which Tim was very moved. He later tweeted his appreciated directly to UKNWN01 in this tweet below:
Unreal to have a community like the tatmanarmy; @UnKnWn01 thank you for sharing your story brother. Much love from me to you.
— timthetatman (@timthetatman) October 21, 2014
Experiencing this exchange happen in real time was phenomenal. Twitch streamers often get handsome donations from fans, but can sometimes be subject to troll donations which never go through. TimTheTatMan actually once got a fake donation of $5000, which he mentions on the stream. So as you can imagine, receiving a real and large donation like this, alongside the very touching message, was enough to bring him to tears. It was also heartwarming to see the stream chat give praise and shout-outs to UNKWN01 for his amazing gesture.
On a personal level, this event really resonated with me. Twitch streamers have done a lot for me too and I sometimes wish I had the money to donate to them. When I’ve been feeling down or when I feel like nothing’s gone right, tuning into streamers such as FinestKO and Nycfurby has provided countless hours of entertainment and unforgettable moments. I’ve written about the amazing social experience in Twitch TV for another website in a post entitled: Gaming Streams and Shared Experiences. Twitch TV has been host to many similar eye-opening moments beyond the one I witnessed, so you’re sure to find more if you tune in.
[show_avatar email=PToworfe@live.co.uk align=center show_name=true show_biography=true]