These are good points, but there's a social aspect that this misses: there are quite a few twitch streamer personalities who are high level chess players AND ca

These are good points, but there's a social aspect that this misses: there are quite a few twitch streamer personalities who are high level chess players AND can actually hold a conversation. So you've got a lot of kids and young adults who are being exposed to the game through entertainment and want to do it themselves. Hikaru, Magnus, the Botez sisters, etc... they're all highly popular and they all stream on twitch. Take a look at these chess viewership metrics: https://www.twitchmetrics.net/channels/popularity?game=Chess https://www.twitchmetrics.net/channels/popularity?game=Chess That's 21 different streamers averaging at least a thousand concurrent viewers. On average, it's 12,600 concurrent viewers. Chess ranks #28 on Twitch when ranking by stream type. This includes games, just chatting, ASMR, and Special Events. It ranks higher than Elden Ring, Rocket League, Destiny 2, and Genshin Impact.