BadBunny’s Subscriber Rant Nearly Doubled Her Income

Back on January 20th, 2020, BadBunny, a notorious Twitch streamer made waves for a rant she made against her non-subscribers. The rant was viewed at least 4.3M views on Twitter, millions of times on YouTube, and over 1M views on Twitch clips. It was also covered by esports news media including Daily Dot, ReclaimtheNet, Express, and ScreenRant.

Universally, the clip generated disappointment that someone on Twitch would respond to their viewers with such contempt. As the story grew, so too did the outrage. There were insults hurled at her Twitter account, in her offline Twitch chat, and calls for her to be banned (calls that have no merit mind you – she broke no rules). But as the dust settled, it became apparent that this was intentional. Shaming her non-subs is something she does regularly within her community – a kind of parasocial findom relationship she’s cultivated over the years. And these clips act to generate awareness of her and her community. It builds name recognition and hopefully drives more income to her channel.

But does it work?

This event gave us an excellent opportunity to collect data and see the impact that ‘outrage’ marketing has on Twitch. Using a variety of collection methods, we were able to piece together BadBunny’s subscriber history for the last three weeks. We were also able to gather her viewership, following and other stats as well. The results are clear: Outrage Marketing works.

Pre-Rant Statistics December 30th to January 19th (3 Weeks)

• Average Viewership: 236 Viewers/Stream
• Gained Followers: 115 Followers/Week
• Average Channel Views: 10,797 Views Weekly
• Income from Subs: $708 Weekly

Post-Rant Statistics January 20 to February 2nd (2 Weeks)

• Average Viewership: 394 Viewers/Stream, an increase of over 66%
• Gained Followers: 2131 Followers/Week, an increase of over 1853%*
• Average Channel Views: 47,734 Views Weekly, an increase of 442%
• Income from Subs: $1397 Weekly, a 57% increase over the previous 3-week average.

*Her follower count was actually 29,262 over the last two weeks, but 25,000 of those appear to be a follower bot attack, so we didn’t count them.

We also know how much she streamed during each of the weeks, which gives us a whole other thing to look at… How much she makes PER HOUR (from subs).

• December 30 – Jan 5 – $17.07/hour
• January 6 – 12 – $20.44/hour
• January 13 – 19 – $24.75/hour
• January 20 – 26 – $44.64/hour
• January 27 – Feb 2 – $33.03/hour

While the 2nd week (post-clip) shows a clear decline in performance in every category, BadBunny has benefitted from the clip being spread. Considering this is something that she has done in the past, we can reasonably expect it to continue into the future. That said, is it a good idea? Probably not. Traditionally, outrage marketing offers diminishing returns – the more you do it, the more people are aware that you do it. When people are aware it’s your aim, they are less inclined to feed the beast. But time will tell and we can revisit this the NEXT time BadBunny lambasts her non-subscribers.

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