Someone Tried to Stream Morbius for 24 Hours on Twitch

Someone Tried to Stream Morbius for 24 Hours on Twitch

In the early hours of the morning, Twitch shut down the channel streaming Morbius for 24 hours, seven days a week.

On May 25, 2022, a Twitch account named Morbius247 attempted to stream Marvel’s 2022 vampiric feature flop Morbius in a DMCA-defying feat, and got away with it for almost 12 hours. Twitch staff were spotted watching along in chat, and waited for the film to finish credits before permanently suspending the channel. Morbius247 peaked at just over 9,000 concurrent views before vanishing, but in its wake spawned multiple other Twitch channels emulating the eternal Morbius vision.

The reason why Morbius247 wasn’t immediately shut down by Sony through DMCA is because Twitch doesn’t do live, active DMCA checks on streams. The streaming service only runs streams through DMCA checks once they’re uploaded as VODs. Morbius247 streamed the movie under the “Artifact” Twitch tag, which was originally meant for Valve’s digital card game Artifact, but quickly became the hub for streaming random movies, anime, visual gags, and in some cases porn.

Even though Morbius did poorly with critics, it rose from its coffin like a vampire in the form of an almost un-ironic meme praising its corny writing, performances, and special effects. Self proclaimed “Morb-heads” are known for saying “It’s Morbin’ Time” which is a fictional quote that Jared Leto doesn’t actually say in the movie. The full run of Morbius has also been making its rounds on the chatting service Discord in the form of compressed gifs and WEBM files, so it seems like the Morb virus is inescapable.

Morbius hilariously released on April 1, 2022, and stars previous Suicide Squad Joker Jared Leto, Doctor Who‘s Matt Smith, and Fast and The Furious‘ Tyrese Gibbons. With all of its faults, Morbius is still an incredibly special movie, and even though Twitch shut it down it will forever live on in our hearts.

Author: Deann Hawkins