Time to invest in some phthalo blue
Bob Ross taking Twitch by storm was one of the weirdest things to happen in gaming this year. One of the calmest, gentlest presenters ever, having his entire thirty season art show shown in full on a site normally known for gaming and “YO KAPPA DARUDE LOL” nonsense in chat… and it worked.
The marathon lasted for over a week, and everybody seemed to be totally on board and positive about the entire thing. According to Twitch there were over 5.6 million unique viewers, as well as 183,000+ concurrent viewers at the high point of the marathon.
Either it was before my time, or Bob Ross never had as much success over here in the UK as he did in the States, but it’s been great to be introduced to what he did through these streams. It kind of made me, the least artistic person to have ever lived, want to give painting a go. The event had to have done some good to get people otherwise not interested involved with art, right?
Now that it’s all over, Twitch figured out that we all love Bob Ross. Not only will this marathon happen again next year on October 29, they’ve announced that every Monday will be a Bob Ross Monday. Each week, Twitch will show an entire season of The Joy of Painting on the Bob Ross channel.
Considering there are 32 seasons of the show, it’s going to take about seven months before we see any sort of repeats on the channel. Streamers will also be able to re-stream the episodes and stream themselves painting along too.
Finally, Twitch has announced where the money made from the Bob Ross channel will be going. Aside from the rights holders to Bob Ross’ work and Twitch itself, funds will be going to two charities:
- Root Division, an organisation aiming to support artists and teach children about art in the San Francisco Bay Area
- St. Jude, a cancer research organisation and children’s hospital.
So now you can settle down each week and paint happy little trees while doing good charity. Good job, Twitch. You did good.
