It’s hard not to view these shows as exercises in online branding. In a recent Rajjchelorette, Austin tells the handsome politics streamer Hasan Piker that the “woman of your dreams is in this room,” as the cast preens themselves in the corner, or leans casually on their beds. One by one, they get eliminated, and when they are, they must reveal whether they chose in the beginning to go on a date or have their stream hosted by the contestant, which would boost their notoriety. The final woman remaining would get her wish—“love or host.” After four hours, Piker chooses the streamer and ex-pornstar Mia Malkova, who herself chose “love.” He reacts euphorically, and weeks later, live on another Twitch stream, meets Malkova in person at Twitchcon.

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In the beginning of the over three-hour video, Austin, who is present for and livestreams the date, claims that the two had never met— “zero preparation,” “completely organic, unscripted.” Austin encounters them standing together on the show floor, looking a little stilted outside of the confines of their home streaming habitats.

Piker describes the date he’s about to take Malkova on—a walk through TwitchCon and then some games of cornhole. Austin keeps insisting he tell this to Malkova directly. Malkova then takes a selfie video of herself and Piker for her Instagram fanbase. Piker says, “Good plug.”

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In another Rajj Royale show, 11 streamers debate Twitch’s sexuality guidelines and whether a streamer might get banned for wearing an insufficiently thick bra and inadvertently showing her nipples. A few minutes in, the conversation moves to whether a streamer would get banned for showing their foot, specifically, as the streamer Gross Gore asks, “in a sexualized way.” It was lighthearted, but weirdly illuminating. In third, from earlier this year, Jon Zherka, a streamer fueled by memes and controversy, lifts up a McDonald’s soda and says of his political rival, a much higher-profile named streamer named Destiny, “This is Destiny’s meal plan right here!” Destiny quips, “How’d you convince your mom to stop buying you the kids’ meal?” Zherka blows what looks like either cigarette or weed smoke in the camera and yells, “I’m the Ashton Kutcher of Twitch, bitch!”

It’s fascinating to watch Twitch stars collide, and amusing to watch them troll each other. It’s fun to watch over-the-top flirting, embarrassing questions, catfights. And it’s surprisingly easy to deprogram yourself from the easy-watching of mainstream reality television, which is famously over-edited, and sink into chaos mode. The drama often trickles down into the Twitch controversy subreddit LivestreamFail, which Austin says he doesn’t enjoy: “Part of the conversation my team has is, ‘How can we avoid Livestreamfail?’ . . . Maybe you reap what you sow, it’s what you get from having a lot of creators on it, but nobody likes to hear bad things said about them.”

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Sometimes, though, too many strong brands together on these shows make them unwatchable, with two streamers yelling over a third until a fourth cuts in with their own high-octane take. Hours in, someone may be scrolling through Instagram on their phone or checking their Twitter mentions. But people don’t watch Twitch like they watch MTV’s Next. There aren’t engineered cliffhangers demanding your rapt attention; A lot of the time, Twitch is just “on in the background.” Maybe, for the streamers on the Rajj Show, we are sometimes in the background, too.

In another recent Rajjchelorette, eleven sexy women, dolled up or with push-up bras or bodycon dresses, compete for a date with the redheaded CallMeCarson, who, according to his Fandom.com entry, “is best known for his emotional breakdown playing Minecraft after falling for a trapped chest in [the ‘Drama YouTuber] Keemstar’s Minecraft Monday tournament.” (On Twitter, where he has 638,000 followers, he writes, “talking to women for the first time today. wish me luck.”)

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Austin prompts one woman, Sereda, an IRL streamer who is at risk of being eliminated, to sing a song. She sings about CallMeCarson and is eliminated anyway. It is revealed that she chose love, and as she explains, unconvincingly, “I wanted to believe that you could be something for me.” She shouts out her channel, and chat spams “PepeHands”—an emote of Pepe the Frog crying.

Austin says his show has resulted in some hook-ups, some dates, some short-term flings.

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“I wouldn’t say people are playing a character,” he says. “In fact, I will say that when it’s clear someone is playing a character the audience doesn’t respond well. Twitch is built on an organic relationship between broadcaster and audience, and when you’re playing a character—with the exception of Dr. Disrespect—it especially in my show because it’s reality TV, the audience doesn’t like it because it’s too fake.”

It’s hard to say whether having a brand is the same as playing a character in 2019, and on Twitch, branding is everything. After a couple of episodes of the Rajj Royale show, it’s not hard to guess who’s going to fight with whom about the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, why “flat Earth” isn’t a conspiracy theory, whether “lefties dryjack more.” Two guests might have American flags in the background, one might have pink kitty gaming headphones, another, a muscle shirt. Then, there’s the consistently hilarious, and unpredictable, presence of longtime Twitch streamer Kaceytron, who might appear in nun garb, as an aspiring restaurateur, or as a far-flung nobody streaming from a laundry room piled high with junk.

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Critics of the Rajj Show sometimes describe the show as “content overload” or “cringe.” People who like the show might just call it “content,” internet shorthand for “good content.” Many of viewers’ more negative reactions are charged comments about the women who appear on it. One Reddit commenter a year ago attempted to explain the show to someone else under a clip titled “Scuffed Ron Jeremy”: “Raj [sic] is a white guy that fakes an Indian accent and is almost never on stream but instead delegates 4 thots for content. I don’t get the allure. He doesn’t even fake the accent when appearing as a guest on talk shows.”

To find his guests, Austin sifts off the top of Twitch metrics charts and brands his streams as open forums. He says he doesn’t keep track of people’s personal lives and hasn’t always been scrupulous about who he platforms. He describes himself as “fairly liberal,” and over time, has shifted his moderation strategy from no-holds-barred to some-holds-barred-but-not-many. One regular, he says, has admitted that he’s just trying to come up with the most controversial thing to say. When I brought up that Kotaku has interviewed women who say that MethodJosh, also a regular who has appeared on the Rajjchelor, has aggressively flirted with or preyed on young, female fans, he was taken aback. (MethodJosh did not respond to Kotaku’s request for comment at the time.) “We don’t necessarily do background checks,” he said. “Surely, if we were aware of something like that we’d not platform them. I had no idea, if I’m being honest.”

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“Maybe we lean on Twitch a little too much,” he says. “Maybe we trust Twitch saying, ‘Hey, this person has a partnership so they must be okay.’”

It’s not unusual for top Twitch personalities to have baggage of various sizes. Austin himself has the accent issue. Others have records of extreme political views, casual use of racial slurs, bans for sexually explicit behavior. Amid all this, Austin casts his shows full of Twitch’s big names and therefore is constantly operating amid the debate of who should or shouldn’t get a platform. “If I bring on Republicans, the Democrats say, ‘You’re irresponsible for bringing on Republicans,” and vice versa, he says. “All these people feel righteous in their case and feel their cause is the right cause and, ‘Oh, I know they’re saying you’re irresponsible for platforming me, but I’m right!’”

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After Destiny defended his private use of the “N” word in October, Rajj Royale was the forum where his friend, the speedrunner Trihex, confronted him. “It’s really disingenuous for me to continue to conversate with you if you privately still use ‘hard “r,’” the most contextually offensive word in modern American English language,” said Trihex. Austin says he will continue hosting Destiny on the show.

Austin says he’s helped launch careers from his channel, tracing streamers’ brand narratives from one thing to another over each appearance. He acts embarrassed to say it, even though there’s a whole talent-wrangling ecosystem funneling him new characters from smaller, more unknown livestreams. (Recently, he announced a $25,000 reward for a talent show, but would not clarify where the money came from.) “There is no set path or way to achieve Twitch fame or Twitch success in my opinion,” he says.

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If anything, these shows are exhibitions of who’s on top and what it takes to claw your way up there. Beauty? Charisma? Jokes? Relatability? Gameplay isn’t a factor here. The common denominator is hyperactivity—at least, when they’re not spaced out and on their phones on hour two of the Rajj Royale.

Austin thinks the best way to keep your head above water on the highly competitive platform is “to expose yourself to an audience—not in a negative way, but show your personality off— and do so consistently and create a character for yourself”—meaning a caricature of your true self— “And over time, things will start to stick.” He adds, “Everyone has to create their own unique path and if one has been traveled, that’s not one you want to go on.”

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As word of the Rajj Show spreads through Twitch clips and Reddit, it’s commenters, not Austin, who do most of the work explaining what it is. Under a clip of a Rajj show guest, referred to as a “Twitch thot,” one Redditer asks what the show is. “This generation’s version of a VH1 reality show,” someone replied, adding, “except those hoes don’t hold a candle to the characters from ‘Flavor of Love.’”