Most streamers dream of achieving thousands of concurrent viewers. However, achieving that feat out of nowhere is unimaginable, especially in the highly competitive streaming space. The unimaginable happened, however, as TheBurntPeanut achieved this feat by playing a decade-old game with established content creators.
TheBurntPeanut’s Rise to the Top of Escape from Tarkov
Escape from Tarkov has been an up-and-down game over the last decade, with plenty of established content creators like LVNDMARK, WillerZ, Pestily, Glorious_E, SheefGG, and more. Even streamers who play different games (variety streamers) like Shroud, Summit1g, and more play Escape from Tarkov at times whenever it wipes.
However, TheBurntPeanut made his way to the top of space with one massive change – turning himself into a virtual peanut. In switching to a virtual peanut, he also changed his persona. Since he started creating guides with a much more serious tone two years prior, he never got the exposure from being a guide maker/streamer. The space is littered with them, and players need something new and fresh, as players are mostly veterans of the game already.
He changed a few wipes ago and started producing humorous content by engaging with players through the game’s VOIP system. TheBurntPeanut explains what will happen before it happens, even placing himself at a significant disadvantage by using VOIP because other players can establish where the sound came from.
He instantly became a content machine, easily getting five or more “clippable” moments in an eight-hour stream. This was more than half a year ago, but he still needed more exposure as Escape from Tarkov suffered a massive setback with its Unheard edition fiasco.
Still, he managed to get some decent exposure, encountering top players like WillerZ and Stankrat live on stream, and it turned into one of his most viewed clips on YouTube. He started to get noticed, but what really put him on top was Escape from Tarkov’s 0.16 wipe.
TheBurntPeanut Going Full Blast on Content
Everyone in the community knows that Escape from Tarkov’s early wipe is the game’s most entertaining and active part. All players are on equal ground with the wipe, and no players have better gear just because they play more than you. Content skyrockets for the game, and TheBurntPeanut took advantage of it by pulling out all the stops and creating the best content.
He engages more with the audience by talking to them, even using not-so-pleasant words but in a humorous fashion. His self-deprecating humor also stands out, as everything doesn’t always go to plan.
Engagement goes through the roof, especially when his catchphrases like “Excellent raid, gentlemen” or “Hooray, Hooray” catch on and resonate with the viewers. He also creates customized loading screens, intros, and random clips for passive moments, as Escape from Tarkov has a lot of dead silence because the queue times can sometimes be long, and it also takes time to set up your character in the game.
At this point, it was only a matter of time before his viewership shot up to five thousand concurrent viewers, and it is still growing as of the writing. We are far from Escape from Tarkov’s peak regarding viewers and engagement as we are close to the 2nd month after the wipe. It’ll be interesting to see how big TheBurntPeanut can get, especially in the next wipe or the game’s full release.
You can follow TheBurntPeanut on Twitch or his YouTube channel.
Published: Feb 18, 2025 7:19 AM UTC