Nathaniel “NateBosa” Barbosa streamed on Twitch in front of 9 viewers. Then he invited his mother to join him on the stream. The interaction between the two went viral and provided feel-good moments at the end of the year.
What streamer is this? American Nathaniel “NateBosa” Barbosa has been streaming on and off on Twitch since July 2021. He plays all sorts of things. From single player titles to party games to shooters like Fortnite or Valorant. Or he talks to his viewers in “Just Chatting”.
On average, up to 12 people watched NateBosa’s streams. The streamer celebrated its first successes on a completely different platform: the video app TikTok. There, a clip of a conversation with his mother went viral and gave NateBosa thousands of followers almost overnight.
It’s difficult to say in advance which clips will go viral.
Twitch: This is the quirky story behind the most popular clip of all time
Cool streamer mom celebrates with her son
What was that clip? In a December 15 video, NateBosa can be seen inviting his mom onto the stream. In fact, she walks in the door shortly after, and the ensuing interaction between the two is a single feel-good moment.
It starts with the greeting – the mother greets the chat, ruffles her son’s hair and gives him a kiss. Then she introduces herself as “Nate’s Mum”, even if she actually looks much too young and too cool for it.
The streamer then explains that 9 real people are watching him and gets credit from his mother: “No bots? That’s great! […] It’s like hanging out with 9 people and you don’t even have to leave the house.”
When the mother is asked to guess where people are watching her son from, she shouts “Korea!” to the amusement of the viewers. NateBosa explains that she would always do it this way, in her imagination he had 7,000 viewers. She just has big dreams for her son, replies the mother.
You can watch the whole clip in English here:
Millions see touching mother-son moment
How did the clip spread? After the clip garnered some attention on TikTok, other outlets picked it up. The US magazine Dexerto shared the recordings on December 28 on Twitter and published an article about the story the next day (via Twitter).
The video received more than 13 million views on Dexerto. And at least some of these people headed straight to NateBosa’s Twitch channel. Almost overnight he got over 32,000 new followers. Up to 1,300 people watched the streams after the clip was distributed (via sullygnome).
Why is the clip so popular? In the excerpt, mother and son just seem like friendly, nice people. The way they interact with each other is also pleasant: the two seem to have a good relationship with each other, the son is happy to tell his mother about his successes and although she teases him a bit, she still celebrates with him.
That hits a nerve with the viewers: Many think it’s nice how “supportive” the mother is or write that they would have liked to have had a mother like that.
The positive perspective of the duo is also well received. So they compare the 9 viewers that NateBosa has at the time to a room with the same number of people in it and realize that that’s quite a lot. It’s a great way to think about it, writes a TikTok user (via TikTok).
There’s now a new clip of NateBosa and his mom reacting to 1,000 viewers. It has already received 42,000 views in 2 days (via Twitch).
The power of TikTok
Why is this exciting? In addition to a touching moment, the clip also impressively shows the influence of social media.
The story has since been picked up by journalist Jake Lucky. He posted several times on Twitter about NateBosa and his mother and watched as the streamer’s follower and viewer numbers skyrocketed. That’s the power of the internet, says Jake Lucky.
In fact, there are always such stories in which people achieve untold fame overnight. Some people seem to aim for crazy stunts to go viral, others just do it that way.
What ultimately manages to go viral is always a bit unpredictable. TikTok in particular, which has long been viewed with skepticism by many millennials, seems to be developing into a suitable medium for such successes:
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