Twitch “costume play” queen Emily "Emiru" Schunk has been playing dress-up since she was young. Today, the hobby has made her one of the most followed women on Twitch, with 2 million fans on the platform (she has another 5 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X). Schunk started livestreaming the multiplayer battle game League of Legends in 2015, and went viral with her cosplay, where she sports countless colorful wigs and manga-style character outfits. Her popularity makes her an advertising powerhouse—video game makers pay her big bucks both to stream their titles and to wear elaborate costumes of their characters at conventions. In August, Marvel partnered with her to host her own cosplay contest with a $100,000 purse for the best-dressed fan. Forbes estimates she earned around $1.5 million over the last 12 months from her Twitch streams, a podcast, YouTube Adsense and a variety-show series sponsored by AT&T. “When you look at the top streamers, they’re just straight-up entertainers,” Schunk says. “On stream, it’s just you...You can’t fake a personality for 12 hours a day every single day for years.”
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