In February 2014, more than six and a half million people watched tens of thousands of strangers type commands into a chat box to steer a Pokemon Red character into walls. Twitch Plays Pokemon opens this biography of a platform. We trace Twitch from Justin.tv, launched in 2007 by Yale graduates Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, through the June 2011 gaming spinoff, 45 million unique viewers by October 2013, and 1.8 percent of peak US internet traffic by early 2014, behind only Netflix, Google, and Apple.

We explain why Google's rumored billion-dollar bid reportedly collapsed over antitrust concerns and why Amazon paid $970 million in cash in late 2014, from AWS infrastructure to the 18-to-34 demographic. Then we follow the expansion into Bob Ross marathons, music, IRL, Just Chatting, and sports rights, and the moderation nightmares, creator revo ...