Twitch’s Bob Ross marathon is the most beautiful thing the Internet has ever created

I'm a Londoner, and as such, I didn't grow up with Bob Ross. Through the power of the Internet, I had some vague low-level awareness of him. I'd seen meme pictures of the man with the ridiculous hair and funny little tree-filled paintings, so I knew that he had some kind of a TV show. Beyond that, I had no appreciation of the man nor of his TV show, The Joy of Painting.

I'm sure I could have tracked down his shows on YouTube—his official channel has many episodes available—but I never had any particular interest in doing so; why would I even care? I'm not all that interested in oil painting—or at least I didn't think I was. My interest was piqued, however, by Twitch's Joy of Painting marathon that kicked off the launch of Twitch's new "Creative" streaming. I'm an avid Twitch viewer, watching many hours of professional Dota 2 tournaments and casual Dota 2 streaming. I was curious to see how the Twitch community would react to something that wasn't normal Twitch fare.

Twitch, or at least the parts of Twitch that I watch, has its own peculiar subculture. Twitch chat is meme-filled and thrives on repetition. Twitch has its own library of emoticons that are used to spam chat. The Kappa face , denoting sarcasm, is its iconic image. The weeping BibleThump  is my favorite. The whole ecosystem is chock full of repeated phrases (copy pasta) and shared jokes. It is occasionally amusing, often thoroughly inane, and frequently descends into crass sexism.

Twitch streams also tend to follow a pattern: commentary on pro games is loud and bombastic (think WWE), every soundtrack is dubstep, and noisy, garish on-screen notifications typically appear every time a streamer gets a new subscriber or receives a donation.

This environment seemed so hostile to creativity of any kind that I needed to tune in to the marathon, regardless of what it was, just to see how Twitch would react.

Now? I'm so glad I did.

Bob Ross is a beautiful person, and his premature death is a cosmic injustice. The Joy of Painting is truly a delightful show, and Twitch, remarkably, has helped me enjoy it even more. There are only a couple of days left, but I would implore you all to tune in and watch.

I didn't immediately appreciate the title of the show; I figured it was just another art show. I'd seen art shows before, of course. The one of my childhood was BBC's Hartbeat, presented by Tony Hart with its frankly totally bitching theme tune, but his was very much a youth show. While Tony Hart's manner had, I think, more than a little in common with Bob Ross'—the same softly spoken delivery and ASMRish intonation—the show as a whole was brighter, louder, and pacier than what I've been watching on Twitch. Just listen to that kick-ass theme tune to get a sense of the tone and style of the show.

But Bob's show isn't an art show, not really. It's about the sheer joy that Bob Ross gets from painting, and the pleasure he gets from sharing that joy with others. It has a generosity of spirit that you simply don't come across very often, certainly not on TV or the Internet. He wants us to pick up some brushes and paint of our own and experience his elation. As he says more than once, "If painting does nothing else, it should make you happy." Painting makes Bob Ross happy, and he wants us to be happy, too. As the show goes on, that attitude even spreads beyond painting, as Bob shows us little birds and squirrels and other animals that he's helped care for.

If there is joy in painting, then there is even more in empowering others to dare to be creative themselves: Bob Ross' joy is at its most palpable when he's showing the paintings that other people have photographed and sent him, or when he's meeting painters who have been inspired by his technique.

Bob's style of presentation is itself endlessly endearing and so un-Twitch-like. The contrast is stark; although the stream is essentially uninterrupted, tuning in for the first time shows an ad. Twitch's ad inventory is limited, and the main ones in the rotation right now are a loud and explosive Halo 5 ad, a tremendously annoying Pandora ad, and a broadly stupid GEICO ad. After these bold, brash intrusions, we're met with Bob's calm, quiet, soothing tones, and immediately we start to relax.

In spite of this, the Joy of Painting marathon has found itself a steady Twitch audience. The stream rolls along with 40,000 to 50,000 viewers, peaking somewhere north of 60,000. And through the power of Twitch chat, it has become more than a few tens of thousands of people watching a charming TV series in their own homes; it has become a few tens of thousands of people watching it together in a shared experience.

Bob Ross Twitch has developed its own memes. When you watch a marathon, especially of a show with as many episodes as The Joy of Painting, the little patterns and habits become much more apparent. Ross is of course well known for his happy little trees, happy little clouds, and mantra that there are no mistakes, only happy little accidents. These themes are all present, but there's more being adopted in the Twitch chat, with aspects of gaming culture and traditional Twitch culture being adapted and updated. Mixing Alizarin Crimson and Phthalo Blue to make purples and lavenders, we're always warned to use much more crimson than blue, because the blue is more powerful. So naturally, every time this happens, chat is filled with complaints saying "BLUE OP, PLS NERF." When the basic structure of the painting is altered in some way, such as using paper cut-outs to frame pictures, cries of "New meta!" flood by.

At the end of each episode, everyone signs off with a "ggwp;" not the usual "good game, well played" but, of course, "good game, well painted."

Even Bob Ross-specific responses have been developed. Cleaning his brushes, he bangs them on his easel to knock the paint out—"that's the fun part"—saying most times that he's beating the devil out of them. The audience reaction: hundreds of lines of "RIP DEVIL." Even when he doesn't say he's beating out the devil, that's still the response. We know how to react. "RIP DEVIL."

Whenever he overlays a bold, thick Van Dyke Brown line over one of his mountains or trees, chat immediately fills with cries of "RUINED." And yet, as the lines become transformed into new trees, as their foliage, branches, and trunks are developed and they become integral, essential parts of the picture, there are immediate calls for him to be VAC banned (Valve's anti-cheat system used for its games). Bob's clutch saves must surely be evidence of hacking.

And every now and then, there's a more heartfelt moment. Bob talks about how thankful he is that people are watching and have let him into their lives, or he goes on about the annual events in Central Park in New York where he meets his viewers, or he talks of the animals he's feeding. These moments of genuine emotion are met with a flood of BibleThumps. Bob's reflections on his own life and how he's glad to be alive have an added poignancy.

The Twitch chat is not all good, mind you. Occasionally Bob would have guests in the studio to film an episode, and the women among these received some particularly unpleasant comments. This is a peculiar mix of tasteless, offensive, and, given the 20-30 year delay between the recording of their shows and their streaming, tremendously pointless. The time delay does also yield a certain amount of harmless humor; people asking why Bob isn't responding to chat, for example, or isn't reading out the names of subscribers.

But overwhelmingly, I think it is a positive experience. As cynical as the Internet so often is, I think the affection for Bob Ross, and the emotional reaction to the marathon, is genuine. Even if you start watching out of pure curiosity or for retro-cool ironic mockery, it's impossible to not be drawn in by Bob Ross's captivating sincerity. We are living, at least for another couple of days, in Bob's world, and it is a beautiful, happy, uplifting world. Bob has brought us together, and together we are enjoying this wonderful man's gift to the world, basking in his serenity, sharing in his joy, touched by his teaching. Many of these temporary inhabitants of Bob's world are already concerned about what they will do when the stream is over. How will they fill the void in their lives that Bob's departure will leave? For them, and for me, it will be a period of mourning.

Happy painting, and god bless.