On Wednesday night, I spent time on Twitch.tv watching people watch people play StarCraft II, Call of Duty and League of Legends.

When you cover media, you get used to meta activities, but staring at my computer watching an audience watch others play streaming video games was a new level of remove. There were funny, eccentric grown-ups, but also a lot of teenage boys talking profane smack on headsets, often with corrosive rap spinning in the background, as they maneuvered through seemingly impenetrable game environments.

After surfing around for 90 minutes, I couldn’t help asking, is this really a thing?

Actually, Amazon believes it’s a $1.1 billion thing. Last Monday, the company announced it would buy Twitch, which surprised most industry observers because they thought Google had wrapped up a purchase. It surprised me because I had no idea what Twitch was.

My demographic hem is showing. I’ve always taken pride and interest in staying with the wave, swimming in a sea of devices, apps and new business models. But even as video games threaten to become bigger than Hollywood in terms of gross revenue, I’ve never caught the bug. Maybe if I had had sons instead of daughters, or taken more of an interest in Madden NFL rather than the actual N.F.L., I’d be in the know. I’m not, but I knew what I needed to do. I called Clark.