The "Fortnite Mom" Live Streaming Sensation

Fortnite is an online video game that started out as a zombie-style PVE (player versus environment) title, released in July of 2017. In September of the same year, Fortnite Battle Royale was released as a player versus player (PVP) version of the original game.

This conceptual revamp ended up attracting hundreds of millions of players from all over the world. Today, Fortnite is arguably the most popular game around with well over 350 million active players.

Professional players have gained fame by winning prestigious tournaments, building social media followings, and signing with pro organizations. In some cases, pro players will have huge success creating live streaming channels that attract high view counts, and impressive potential earnings.

Benjy Fish

One such player is Benjy Fish, a 16-year-old Fortnite pro from the United Kingdom who made a name for himself by placing 25th in the Fortnite World Cup in 2019.

Since then Benjy’s Twitch channel has exploded, racking up over 3 million followers and more than 24 million hours watched. He even managed to attract a career peak viewership of 117K while playing in the FNCS (Fortnite Championship Series).

Anne Fish

Anne Fish, now also known as “mamabenjyfishy” on Twitch, is Benjy’s soft-spoken, extra supportive mother. She is exactly what you would call an “esport mom”, a term coined for the mothers of professional esports players.

Anne is clearly an incredible mom and has been helping guide Benjy through everything involved with becoming a professional gamer. She did her research, learned about the industry, and also learned a lot about the game while watching Benjy play in tournaments and live on stream.

Until recently, Anne had tried playing Fortnite a few times on a mouse and keyboard setup and reported that she didn’t care for it.

Benjy recently gave her one of his handheld console controllers to try out instead of the mouse and keyboard. It must have been a lot more enjoyable because at the beginning of March this year, Anne went live on Twitch with her first-ever Fortnite broadcast.

Anne’s debut went incredibly well in terms of statistics and support. In a stream that lasted only 1 hour and 12, she managed to rack up over 7 thousand followers, 14 thousand individual views, and over 2.5 thousand average concurrent viewers.

Incredible numbers for a brand new channel and creator!

With that being said, her first stream didn’t go quite as smoothly as she may have hoped for one simple reason. The mistake that many rookie streamers make — having no chat moderators present in their channel.

Moderators (also known as mods) are active users who are present during streams and ensure that the viewers participating in chat meet the behavior standards set by the broadcaster. The “chat” is where viewers can interact with both the broadcaster and other channel viewers as well. This is a crucial aspect of the platform but you can bet there are people who abuse such a privilege. Mods are necessary for blocking and removing offensive posts, spam, and any other messages that are harmful and hinder positive interactions. Moderators can be easily identified in the channel’s chat by the green sword badge that appears next to their name.

So what happened when Anne went live with ZERO moderation? Well, the second that she so innocently and obliviously announced that she had no moderators present, it rang the internet troll dinner bell.

I won't go into detail, but let's just say there was some incredibly uncalled-for profanity and R-rated spam popping up in her chat. In all honesty, this highlights an ongoing argument that the Fortnite community is filled with immature and disrespectful young players.

Although I do love the game, I can definitely agree with this to a certain degree. The Fortnite community has its flaws, no question.

Despite a rough start to her debut broadcast, Anne had learned her lesson. She ended the stream and re-started, this time with several active moderators ready to swing the ban hammer on any wrongdoers in chat.

The second run-through went smoothly, and mamabenjy’s stream statistics ended up being nothing short of incredible.

The numbers speak for themselves! 13,178 at peak viewership, 6,400 average viewers, and over 52 thousand unique accounts showed up to check out her stream. Show me one other streamer who generated numbers like these on their DEBUT broadcast. Good luck!

Now obviously, a large part of these impressive numbers can be credited to Benjy’s following and support extending to his mother.

With that being said, it takes a good broadcaster to hold those viewers, make them feel welcome, and create a good vibe for their visit.

I tuned in for mamabenjy’s second stream and ended up staying for the entire duration. She gives off a soft-spoken, motherly, and ever approachable feeling when you tune in.

She isn’t the greatest Fortnite player in the world by any means, but I don’t stop by for high-level gameplay. I’m there to enjoy the peacefulness, cheer her on and get the occasional laugh out of her failures.

She knows she isn’t a great player, but she clearly has fun playing. And that is what truly matters when it all comes down it!

Anne quickly climbed the twitch ladder, reaching affiliate in a matter of days. (Affiliate status enables subscriptions, donations, ad revenue, etc..).

A few days after that, she was officially made a Twitch partner, which opens up a variety of other earning opportunities and benefits.

For context, I have seen people work tirelessly to hit the numbers required to apply for Twitch partner and get turned down multiple times.

Again, although she had a significant boost to start her Twitch career, in my opinion, she deserves every bit of success!

Anne now streams almost every day, feel free to check her out if you feel inclined - twitch.tv/mamabenjyfishy1

Regardless of age, if you feel inspired to take a stab at a live streaming channel, this is your sign to go for it!!