Without a video game to serve as the figurative center of the stream, IRL streamers will often search for content in the real world.
For many, this means going to interesting places, talking to people, and bringing hundreds of viewers along for the ride. The problem is that a lot of the earliest IRL streamers found themselves mired in controversy, as their antics got them attention for all the wrong reasons.
For instance, Paul "Ice Poseidon" Denino, an early livestreaming superstar on Twitch, was once suspended from the platform for revealing a woman's phone number on his stream, which led to his followers calling her en masse. Denino was later banned from Twitch after one of his viewers called in a bomb threat to an Arizona airport, right as he was boarding a plane.
"IRL streamers have a bad reputation for the way that they get content," said Trevor Daneliuk, a professional live-streaming hitchhiker (or "Twitchhiker") who records his rides (with permission, he's careful to note) as he travels the country.
"People think it's a toxic community, and that people walk around seeking content in irresponsible ways, at other people's expense," says Daneliuk.