[zappo2938]

They mention the huge bump in traffic from Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit". However, it is worth seeing the Google Trend for searches for both the show and chess since they wrote the blog post. Initially there was correlation between interest in the show and the game, however, as interest in the show wained, interest in the game remains steadily high.

[ikonic89]

You are 100% correct. We expected to see a drop in activity after the interest in show reduced, but we're still hitting records day after day. Crazy.

[dilyevsky]

My theory is online streaming is more of a factor than the show

[ajkjk]

yep. From what I've seen: it's because a bunch of chess Twitch and Youtube people have been building up communities + meme-scapes around the game. QG added a bunch of new people who found the online community and got into it -- especially because with the pandemic people have been wandering the internet searching (unintentionally) for new hobbies to get invested in.

[zappo2938]

Oh, wow. I didn't think about how it is now also a spectator sport like esports.

[dilyevsky]

The bongcloud attack changed everything

[ajkjk]

sounds like a joke but it's really true.

edit: and all of r/anarchychess

[kzrdude]

Chess.com has deals with most of the prominent streamers, too