Twitch Plays Pokemon
A Pop Culture Case Study of Convergence Culture, Participatory Culture, and Collective Intelligence
Convergence Culture and Twitch Plays Pokemon
To begin with, the Pokemon franchise is successfully engaged in convergence culture. From trading cards, to movies, to tv shows, to toys, and more, practically every media outlet possible has been infiltrated by the Pokemon narrative.
In addition, the audience of Pokemon truly does go in search of the kinds of entertainment it wants, which can be witnessed by Twitch Plays Pokemon. Twitch Plays Pokemon was started by a fan and other fans of Pokemon quickly made the stream go viral.
Even Twitch Plays Pokemon alone is a part of convergence culture. The game started on Twitch, but soon spread to other media platforms by the fans who created memes, websites, youtube videos, fan art, fiction and more. The narrative of Twitch spread through transmedia storytelling, with each new media adding something new to the story.
Convergence culture is described by Henry Jenkins to mean "the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want" (Jenkins 2).
