The 2026 Streamer Awards are taking place on Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 6:00pm EST. The awards can be watched live on The Streamer Awards website, or via their official channels on Twitch and Youtube. 

This year’s awards, partnering with “Epic Games,” will kick off broadcasting live from Los Angeles, with the red carpet ceremony. They will be hosted by content creator, QTCinderella, and another individual who is currently to be determined. 

The Streamer Awards are meant to honor all individuals who have not only worked hard to create engaging content for their viewers, but who have also fostered whole communities of people that come from all around the world.

This year, there have been many policy and security updates to how the streamer awards are going to run. 

In-person streaming at the ceremony has been banned this year, due to security issues at the previous ceremony last year. Remote co-streaming for nominees who are virtually attending the ceremony has still been allowed, but going live in the venue is prohibited. 

Due to the security policy updates and the smaller venue, each nominee is allowed only one plus-one guest. A camera man if a creator chooses to bring one would count as the streamers plus-one.

For the first time, The Streamer Awards required a mandatory pre-application for potential nominees before they were selected. In previous years, creators were selected entirely through direct fan nominations. Kick-Streamers are also eligible for the first year to be nominated. 

Fans and panelists submitted picks for those who applied, and this year’s Streamer Awards received a record breaking 3.7 Million individual nominations. 

Voting for the nominated creators is live from October 16 – October 31, 2026. Ballots cast by fan voting make up 70% of the votes, with a 30% industry panel split. Votes can be cast on the official website of “The Streamer Awards.”

Several new categories have been added this year with “Best Cozy Game Streamer” making its debut, and the re-introduction of “Best Fortnite Streamer.” The category from previous years, “Best Streamed Collab,” has been split into two separate awards including “Best Streamer Collab,” and “Best Mainstream Collab.”

On the “About” page of the official Streamer Awards website, the page said, “We try to have a pulse on the community to showcase a diverse set of awards categories that include a variety of games, types of content, and communities.” (Website https://thestreamerawards.com/about) 

Four to five creators are nominated for each of the thirty-seven categories. The nominations vary between rising creators such as E11ysa, from widely recognized big creators such as IShowSpeed. (Homepage Links https://www.youtube.com/@ellysayagho https://www.youtube.com/c/ISHOWSPEED) 

Despite the mostly positive feedback from fans, there is controversy surrounding some of the nominations. IShowSpeed was nominated for the category “Streamer of the Year” for the fourth year in a row. After being nominated in 2023 and winning the award in both 2024, and 2025, fans of the streamer community feel he’s become too big of a creator to be nominated for the awards at all. 

Most viewers feel the same way about the creator Kai Cenat as they do about IShowSpeed, believing he has built too big of an image to be nominated for the awards. (Homepage Link https://www.youtube.com/c/KaiCenat) 

Though Kai has been noticeably left off the ballot for “Streamer Of The Year” for the first time since 2022, he is still nominated in four different categories. Fans are upset because there is a limit of two nominations for individual streamers, but Kai Cenat has made his way into four nominations through categories involving collaborations with other creators.

Several streamers such as Jynxzi, Joe Bartolozzi, and TheBurntPeanut have also been nominated past the two category limit. Unlike Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed, these creators are receiving little backlash because they are newer to the streamer awards, and have only in recent years gained such a huge fanbase. 

(Homepage Links https://www.youtube.com/@Jynxzi https://www.youtube.com/@JoeBartolozzi  https://www.youtube.com/@TheBurntPeanut) 

Viewers feel as if some nominations branching across many of the categories are unknown, or undeserving creators, including all of the nominees for “Best Content Group.” These individuals are being referred to online as no name creators, and are receiving lots of negative attention from all of the hate.

Despite being competitive, The Streamer Awards are meant to be a celebratory event of the whole community. The internet always finds a way to hate on something, but that’s what makes these streamers and creators worth celebrating. 

All of these creators work hard to make content their fans enjoy. Every day in the industry streamers work in, they face constant backlash on social media, but they ignore the hate and keep going. 

The Streamer Awards are about celebrating the creativity, passion, and dedication of all of these creators, rather than focusing fully on the competitive elements. Every streamer nominated is deserving, and all of the creators should be recognized for the effort put into their work.