Politicians Playing Video Games – A Fun Outlet or Just Another Publicity Stunt?

Often times, the word “politician” is associated with a negative connotation. Politicians are in charge of representing a group of people, which, by default, means that they don’t represent others. Therefore, it is very rare that a politician makes a decision that everyone likes.

However, one such rare occurrence happened on the October 20, 2020 when member of the United States Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez logged onto popular video game streaming platform Twitch to play Among Us – the most popular game on the platform at the time.

To many, this would just seem like another political publicity stunt in order to capitalize on the new, hot trend amongst the younger generation. To the 439,000 concurrent viewers watching the live stream at its peak, however, this was much more than that. One could even argue that it was much less, actually, because Ocasio-Cortez seemed as if she were much “less” than a politician the entire stream. She seemed like a normal person, just streaming video games with her friends and having a good time laughing, shouting, and being herself. 

Despite it not being her original intention, this event has garnered much fame for Ocasio-Cortez, earning her lots of respect and admiration from hundreds of thousands around the world, including those at AISG.

“I watch a lot of streams on Twitch, and it was intriguing to see a random woman streaming Among Us with 400,000+ viewers,” said senior Jason P., “so of course, I clicked on it and ended up watching it for the rest of the stream.”

In fact, Ocasio-Cortez has earned so much attention that even those who neither play the game nor watch Twitch streams have heard of it.

“I just saw it pop up in my YouTube feed and clicked on it, and her personality is definitely magnetic. I feel like she’d be the type of person I’d be friends with in real life,” added senior Paoping Y.

Overall, many new eyes are now on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for better or for worse, which just goes to show that professionalism doesn’t always get you the farthest in life.