It is always live, there have been doubts, but a common joke/trope is a streamer calling out a specific chatter by name saying "is this prerecorded? no _name_, this is not prerecorded".
Queuing videos is okay and when streamers have to take a break to fix equipment or use the restroom they keep it up. As long as chat is actively moderated, you can do anything for the most part. I don't know if there's an unwritten rule about having to show yourself on screen at least once though. I imagine a lot less people would show up or stay if they couldn't see hear or see the streamer.
There's things like study with me streamers where they just read a book or study in front of the camera. There's even sleeping streams where some people sleep on camera. Sometimes they are doing a 24/48 hours stream challenge.
Ludwig, a very well respected creator, did a subathon where each new sub extended the time he continuously streamed by a little. He ended up streaming for 30 days.
I think prerecorded is the only real taboo culturally. There's streams where a creator will say, chat send me things to watch, and they just watch with chat for hours and react. There was a time during which streamers were pushing the limits of DMCA striking and some streams watched seasons of master chef and other popular shows on stream.
This article does a poor job exploring the nuance of the situation or even the diversity of content people make.
>did a subathon where each new sub extended the time he continuously streamed by a little. He ended up streaming for 30 days.
This isn't really an achievement on its own when many big names stream every day anyway, and they draw huge amounts of money playing into psychological factors to do it. Subathons are predominantly just ways to prey on people's weaknesses and use hype to get more money and exposure. The quality of the streamer also suffers massively.
And that really shows the heart of it all: dark patterns, softcore sexual pandering and 'metas' have a strong hold on the market, leaving very little for what streaming used to be 10-15 years ago. Twitch being the biggest and having strong reinforcing mechanics doesn't help, either.
Queuing videos is okay and when streamers have to take a break to fix equipment or use the restroom they keep it up. As long as chat is actively moderated, you can do anything for the most part. I don't know if there's an unwritten rule about having to show yourself on screen at least once though. I imagine a lot less people would show up or stay if they couldn't see hear or see the streamer.
There's things like study with me streamers where they just read a book or study in front of the camera. There's even sleeping streams where some people sleep on camera. Sometimes they are doing a 24/48 hours stream challenge.
Ludwig, a very well respected creator, did a subathon where each new sub extended the time he continuously streamed by a little. He ended up streaming for 30 days.
I think prerecorded is the only real taboo culturally. There's streams where a creator will say, chat send me things to watch, and they just watch with chat for hours and react. There was a time during which streamers were pushing the limits of DMCA striking and some streams watched seasons of master chef and other popular shows on stream.
This article does a poor job exploring the nuance of the situation or even the diversity of content people make.