Surviving Crewmates try to find the Imposters in a round of Among Us, broadcast live on AOC’s Twitch channel. (Twitch screenshot)

U.S. Rep. Alexandria “AOC” Ocasio-Cortez returned to Twitch on Friday night for a 5-and-a-half-hour broadcast, where she played the interactive mystery game Among Us with Jagmeet Singh, a member of the Canadian Parliament and the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, among other guests.

It was another moment in an unusual political spotlight for Among Us, which is made in Redmond, Wash., by indie studio InnerSloth. While Among Us is already one of the more popular games on Twitch this year, Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to continue using it as the backdrop for a sort of informal unscripted talk show has few if any precedents in modern politics. It’s like a fireside chat with a lot of special guests, and every so often they try to frame one another for murder.

While not as popular as her previous stream in late October, Ocasio-Cortez’s Friday-night stream hit an audience peak of just under 100,000 viewers.

It’s the latest chapter in a weird story for Among Us, which was released in 2018 for mobile devices to little notice, but abruptly went viral last summer. Among Us is a game of “social deduction,” where players take the role of Crewmates, hapless astronauts in spacesuits who are trying to conduct basic repairs on their environment.

Up to two players are randomly selected as alien Impostors, whose goal is to quietly kill off the Crewmates before being exposed and thrown out the closest airlock. It’s proven to be a popular game for streamers and other content creators, as it’s great for creating hilarious arguments, and is a perfect social game for quarantine life.

The tone of Ocasio-Cortez’s broadcast was more akin to a typical Twitch “hangout” stream than a political event, complete with an appearance by Ocasio-Cortez’s French bulldog Deco. This was the first meeting between AOC and Singh, albeit a virtual one, and the two bonded over their mutual progressive views. At one point, both Singh and Ocasio-Cortez were selected randomly to play the game as alien Impostors, out to eliminate every other player without getting caught, and managed to pull off the win.

The stated goal of the stream was to raise funds for charity through ActBlue for several food pantries, community support organizations, and legal aid networks in New York. By the end of the night, viewers had contributed nearly $200,000.

Ocasio-Cortez cited a lack of bandwidth as the reason why this was only her second stream on Twitch, but it’s not likely to be her last. “I’ve been thinking about doing a little Twitch show in a way,” she said during the stream, “where I go on and play a game, or learn a game… with a new person every week.” (I’d like to suggest Streets of Rage 4.)

AOC’s other guests on the stream besides Singh were a who’s-who of popular Internet people, largely streamers and content creators. Her fellow Crewmates included Natalie Wynn, who runs a popular philosophy-themed YouTube channel under the handle “ContraPoints”; Felix “xQc” Lengyel, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch; Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker of the Young Turks;  Irish gaming YouTuber Seán “JackSepticEye” McLoughlin; Alanah Pearce, former Rooster Teeth personality and current writer at Sony Santa Monica; Ryan “NorthernLion” Letorneau, a Vancouver-based gaming YouTuber; Jeremy “DisguisedToast” Wang; and Victoria Tran, the recently hired community director for Among Us.

Acasio-Cortez’s previous Among Us stream, made as part of a get-out-the-vote drive on October 20, reached a peak of 439,000 viewers and became one of the top 10 most-watched broadcasts of all time on Amazon’s Twitch.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pictured with HasanAbi, xQc, and others, in the lobby before a game of Among Us. (Twitch screenshot)

Among Us is having a good month. Despite technically being a two-year-old game, it picked up two surprise nominations last week for this year’s Game Awards, for Best Mobile Game and Best Multiplayer, and won a Breakthrough Award at the Golden Joysticks earlier this week.

InnerSloth has been dealing with the fallout from Among Us‘s meteoric rise for the last month. This includes hiring Tran as the game’s designated community director. Her duties include running the verified Among Us Twitter account, which has already been embraced by the game’s fanbase.

On the technical side, InnerSloth has also pushed several software patches for Among Us to fix bugs and shore up its security. The latter comes in the wake of an infamous incident from immediately after AOC’s last stream in October, where a Trump supporter was able to use a spambot to hijack Among Us players’ in-game text for several days.

In conjunction with the Seattle-based design firm Dual Wield Studio, InnerSloth has also launched a merchandise store as of this week. It sells a line of Among Us-themed bags, clothing, scarves, and journals, among many other things, with product designs by Seattle-based artist Hannako Lambert.

The company has teased that it will issue more announcements for Among Us during this year’s livestreamed Game Awards ceremony on Dec. 10, including a brand-new map.

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