South Africa’s biggest Twitch streamers
There are several South African Twitch streamers with tens of thousands of followers who tune in to watch them play games.
Amazon’s Twitch video streaming service has been around since 2011 when it launched as a spin-off of Justin.tv. Since then, it has amassed 140 million monthly active users across roughly 200 countries.
The platform offers an opportunity for entertaining game streamers to combine their presenting talent and gaming skills, gather a following, and make money from it.
Because Twitch’s biggest markets are the US and Germany, South African streamers can also benefit from dollar and euro-based subscriptions and donations.
Successful streamers often expand into merchandise like shirts, mugs, and PC gaming accessories to further monetise their brand.
Fortnite pro Richard “Ninja” Blevins is the world’s biggest streamer by followers, with 18.5 million subscribers.
Blevins’ estimated net worth is between $15 million and $40 million (R280 million and R745 million).
While no South African streamers have hit the 1-million mark yet, at least one is more than halfway to reaching that milestone, and several more have respectable followings.
To collect information on the top Twitch streamers in South Africa, we used the TCNO ZA Twitch Directory.
The website sends Python queries to the Twitch API and YouTube API to gather and regularly refresh all its data.
For our comparison, we only consider streamers who spend most of their time broadcasting gameplay (i.e. excluding the “Just Chatting” category) and who had streamed in the past month.
Below are the top 10 South African gaming Twitch streamers by followers.
10. ScarletVA
- Followers: 22,780
- Favourite games: Fortnite and Team Fortress 2
Another South African-born streamer who moved to the UK, 26-year-old Kylie-Lee Rutzen previously worked as a sales manager and model.
In addition to streaming, Rutzen has leveraged her BA in Dramatic Arts from Stellenbosh University to do professional voice work in Afrikaans and English.
9. The Lemons
- Followers: 26,107
- Favourite games: Apex Legends
24-year-old Dante has been streaming full-time for over four years, with the ambition to become one of the world’s best Apex Legends players.
In addition to his following on Twitch, he also has over 200,000 followers on TikTok and 25,000 on YouTube.
8. EagleAye
- Followers: 26,920
- Favourite games: Grand Theft Auto V
While she holds a BSc Honours in Zoology and a postgraduate diploma in Education, Lianndrí also spends her time role-playing as Eve Summers on the NoPixel server in GTA V.
She started streaming towards the end of 2018 but took two extended breaks before gaining thousands of followers from her regular streams in 2021 and 2022.
7. TheaBeasty
- Followers: 27,276
- Favourite games: Card-based video games
25-year-old Thea “TheaBeasty” Booysen shot to global fame after it emerged that she was in a relationship with YouTube star James Stephen Donaldson, better known as MrBeast.
She has been streaming on Twitch for several years and has written and published a sci-fi novel for young adults — The Marked Children.
She holds an honours degree in Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in Law and will start her Masters degree in neuropsychology in Scotland in September.
Booysen primarily streams card-based video games like The Witcher’s Gwent.
6. VirtualGemma
- Followers: 31,300
- Favourite games: Apex Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty
24-year-old Gemma is a South African based in the UK. She has been streaming since January 2020 and became a Twitch partner in April 2021.
She has also been signed on as an EA partner.
Gemma primarily plays first-person shooters but also likes story-driven games, with 6-7 streaming sessions every week.
5. AliasV
- Followers: 35,497
- Favourite games: Magic: The Gathering
A Twitch streamer from 2017, Eilidh Lonie was born and raised in South Africa and later moved to Canada.
She holds a degree in film and production but has been streaming full-time since February 2020.
4. Spyro_ZA
- Followers: 45,902
- Favourite games: Marvel Snap
Spyro Orfanos is a competitive card game player for TeamLeviathanGaming.
He holds a BCom Honours degree from Varsity College and is based in Cape Town.
3. JowyBear
- Followers: 55,776
- Favourite games: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, No Man’s Sky, Sea of Thieves
Capetonian Jowyn du Plessis has been streaming since 2017 but started gaming around 2008, when she was in high school.
While she started out with Battlefield and Counter-Strike, she currently spends most days streaming PUBG or a recently-discovered hobby — watercolour art.
Du Plessis has built up a strong subscriber base and partnered with Asus, RØDE, PUBG, and Red Bull.
2. RachelKay
- Followers: 94,775
- Favourite games: Diablo IV
Rachel Kay was born in Miami in the US to South African parents. However, she was only nine when her family moved back to South Africa, which means she has spent most of her life here.
She exploded in popularity when she hosted a “hot tub” stream on April Fool’s, but instead of featuring herself, she used Star Wars legos.
Kay primarily streams single-player story-based games, her favourite of all time being The Witcher 3, and likes to cosplay to immerse her viewers in the experience.
1. DropsByPonk
- Followers: 689,244
- Favourite games: Minecraft
South Africa’s biggest game streamer by followers is just 23 years old and is quickly growing to 1 million.
Born to parents of African and Korean descent and raised in Durban, the Minecraft Dream SMP streamer later moved to the UK.
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