Vinesauce

Vinesauce is a streaming media website established on May 11th, 2010 by John Vinesauce in New York City, New York. The stream serves live footage of video game gameplay and the streamer's live commentary to hundreds or sometimes thousands of viewers at any given moment. The viewers can interact with the streamer through a chat room next to the video feed.

Vinesauce is also host to other permanently recurring streamers and guest streamers who have either been recruited by Vinny or applied for the opportunity. For the sake of variety and maintaining the core spirit of the experience, guest streamers are restricted to a single game within a single session of streaming due to an increasingly high volume of applications submitted by viewers.

On YouTube, Vinesauce maintains an alternative online presence with edited stream highlights uploaded through various channels including individual streamer-owned channels and an official channel.

History
Before Vinesauce, Vinny first started out with a YouTube channel which served small recordings of video game playthroughs and amateur videos. After noticing a deterioration in quality throughout the live streaming community as a fan of many of the existing streams, he felt that he could do the medium the justice it deserved.

"It all started in a basement a number of years ago. A group of friends were gathered around a television playing one of the Gamecube Mario Party games. The minigame in which vines grow out of the ground and into the sky appeared on screen. A random member of the bro committee was said to have uttered "Doesn't it look like those vines are growing out of an ass?" Many jokes and laughs later, Vinny became Vine. At least, that's how the rumor goes. Oh, and for the record, sauce is just a fun word."

- Vinesauce FAQ

On May 11th, 2010, Vinny launched Vinesauce. After the stream made substantial gains in viewership, Vinny was joined by several other streamers— many of whom remain recurring streamers to this day. Notable recurring streamers include "KY", Joel, Fred, "MentalJen", "Limes", Darren, "Studyguy", "Rev", "Hootey", "Imakuni" and "FearGingers".

"The varied origins of the streamers are partially what makes our history so erratic and interesting. Fear's story in particular is a favorite considering I wasn't sure how well he'd do. After the two guest streams he did, I thought he was intelligent and fun to watch (didn't hurt that he has that sexy english voice.) It's been fun to watch him grow as a streamer and get better and better. Same goes for most of these guys who never streamed before. Joel is a good example of someone really coming into his own in the spotlight.

For me, it's always about improvement. I think we're the best we've ever been at this point in time. We have a great team and we all get along like 99% of the time. That's incredibly important. You can be the very best streamer ever, but if you don't work well with other people or are prone to drama, it makes my life (and subsequently the entire team's lives) very difficult."

- Vinny (src lost)

Culture
"A community that gets its laughs from pretending to be idiots will eventually be overrun by idiots that feel they're in the right place."

- Vinny

Their humor can potentially strike a viewer as immature, but Vinesauce and its contributors try to maintain what could be considered a degree of exclusivity in their community (without actually denying anyone entry). Through encouraging thoughtful engagement with peers, both viewer and streamer alike, and discouraging lewd and distasteful behavior, they attempt to cultivate a civilized culture somewhat unique to an internet overflowing with debauchery and moral mayhem. Please note that this entire last paragraph was a pretentious pile of garbage and should be totally ignored.

Vinesauce has always had an angel on it's shoulder so-to-say; that's the kind of stuff you can't exactly plan. I've found that keeping an open mind and treating people with respect is the best way to help facilitate these happy accidents. That and fellatio. Lots of it.

Intentionally, there is no schedule for streaming on Vinesauce. This policy is implemented in order to draw natural performances from streamers and maintain their original enthusiasm. Rather than rigid, choreographed performances, Vinesauce streams are meant to feel familiar and organic.

The stream has become known in pockets of the internet for alternative, laid-back and off-putting humor with games that are forced into "corrupted" states or have naturally occurring dysfunctional art styles with the intent of appearing corrupted or glitched. On occasion, there have also been entire games developed by viewers solely for the purpose of being streamed by Vinesauce.

Additionally, thousands of pieces of fanart have been created by viewers that were inspired by particular stream-related occurrences or highlights of streams. These works are often made hastily and finished mere minutes after the catalytic events.

On YouTube
Established before their official streaming website in February of 2010, Vinesauce ' s presence on YouTube has been a great boon to their steadily flourishing success as a stream. With closer access to the internet media audience at-large, and features in video game related news outlet.