November 9, 2022 • 39 mins
As long as women have been streaming on Twitch, they have been the target of harassment, judgment and worse. At the same time, many have built strong, supportive communities. We look at the good and bad of Twitch's record when it comes to marginalized communities, current issues and why it all matters.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Andy and Samantha, and welcome to Stephane.
Never told your protection of iHeart Radio. And today we
are continuing are just real slew of technology. So I
(00:25):
guess we're having a technology mini series and I think
that's what we just call it. We really are, and
we have a lot more planned um which I've had.
I've had a good time researching. I mean, there's a
lot of not great things we're talking about, but I
don't know. A lot of this is sort of new
to me, and I'm fascinated with the technology behind it.
And today we're talking about Twitch, which I have a
(00:48):
very little experience with. What about you, Samantha, I have
zero I have zero zero zero, at least with the
Reddit episode, I knew I've read it and it's like
I've read post from it, so I can click things,
people will show me things from it. Would I know
of Twitch? Can I give you my definite, my my
understanding of Twitch and then see how badly I mucked
(01:12):
this up. Essentially is a live streaming service for gamers
who get to cut like have a community, and in
that community can build a large following that can make
money and if you're big enough you may be a
star and you have these things. Apparently they were I
think featured on the Ryan Reynolds movie Free City a
(01:36):
few of the larger streamers. Larger streamers, um if you
look at some of the the cameo, so I'm assuming
they're from twitch, I understand it's any game, but typically
more from streaming like PCs. Yeah, well, I'll give you
a solid on that one, but I really passing. I
(02:01):
don't give you a C plus. How about okay, thank you,
and maybe it's higher. We'll see, but we'll go through
together and you can fight me at the end if
you want. I'm taking my sea and running. That's also
a legitimate reaction. I think you've mostly got it though.
I think you've got the very basic understanding of what
(02:23):
it is. And all, by the way, apparently my nephew
is somewhat has a large large ish following, not huge,
but hasn't been en to fall in that. I'm not
really okay. I thought about doing it, and you've heard
my my I keep wanting to say scheme. It's not
a scheme, but I was gonna like play the last
(02:44):
of Us and just do that. It maybe makes some
money off of it because I'm just so good at it. Now,
that's the funny part. I think I've had like five
for Quiz and I know that's like not a lot,
but it is for on specific game that's like constantly
less of what endeavor, if not more. And I but
(03:08):
that's the other thing is I can customize it. I
always ask like do you want like just the storyline
or do you want me to take time and read
the notes? Like how much do you want? So I
could really do it now, I could offer like a
lot of experiences. I don't know that that's exactly how
Twitch verks either, to be honest, but that what you
said was my basic understanding of it as well. Hilariously enough,
(03:31):
I have another fan fiction connection with this one because,
as I said in the Reddit one and it is
a popular trope to feature technology from our modern day
and these fan fictions. And there is one about Twitch
that I very very much enjoy. It's super cute. Um,
they're like too very popular Twitch streamers and then they
fall in love. What Okay, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did
(03:53):
want to put the date on this one just because
we are talking about an ongoing story and I had
to check the date um it is November three. Uh,
just because yeah, some of these things we're going to
talk about might have changed by the time this comes out. Um.
And also, uh, this has kind of become a two
parter because as much as Samantha and I don't know
(04:14):
about Twitch, we do have a listener in front of
the show, Jamie Summers, who does know a lot about Twitch,
and uh it is streaming a lot. And uh we
we reached out to Jamie asked if she'd be willing
to talk to us about it, and she was awesome.
She she did and that became a much larger conversation.
(04:36):
So it's going to be its own episode. Oh yeah,
of course we had a great time. Um. But yeah,
look out for that look out. I'm always I'm always hesitant.
Is it lookout or listen out? It's both. It's coming
Uh an interview with Jamie Summers about what it's like
to be on Twitch that will be coming up next.
So yeah, I'm excited. M hm sta. That's my contribution. Yes,
(05:00):
and I hope Jamie, we don't want you down because
it's always interesting when you're talking about a topic where
mostly you're depending on the research that you find. Um.
To talk about it. So hopefully we have done it well,
but you can let us know if we did it all. Right.
So we're not going to get too in depth here
(05:20):
about the kind of history of twitch, but let's we're
gonna start with some basics. So Twitches a live video
streaming service based out of the US, created by Justin
kahn Um. It was launched in June eleven, and that
was not his first venture in the technology realm. He
had previously founded accompany him and a few others that
(05:41):
offered an online calendar similar to what Google Calendar is
now um, but it wasn't profitable, so con and the
other founders sold it on eBay for about two hundred
and sixty thousand dollars. Mmm uh. They used that money
to make Justin TV in two thousand five, with the
goal of streaming whatever was going on in their lives
(06:03):
like Big Brothers style, essentially just broadcasting your life. And
since this wasn't two thousand five, people were primed to
eat it up because this is when webcams were becoming
more affordable and they were all the rage, and the
cost of the Internet was coming down and it was
becoming more accessible in most places, not all the places,
(06:24):
but most places beginning of many horror movies, Tony, but
he didn't add that any So first the service guarded
a mixed response, which even just hearing it that way
basically huh, yeah, this is a good idea. Also naming
it after yourself, that's interesting. A lot of people were
annoyed by the reality TV I expect of it to them,
(06:48):
but they were curious if it could be used for
different applications, and the platform wasn't without issues then either,
and some users were the target of the precursors of swatting,
which I think we've talked about before, when the police
raided apartments after pranks implied a shooting or stabbing had
taken place. They are and eventually, yes, people got murdered.
(07:10):
Khan himself was the victim of one in two thousand
seven and still goes on today. We're going to talk
about that. Another issue. While things were easier than they
had been on the technology side, live streaming still required
a technical know how. Not everyone had in this like
early these earlier days, and equipment like microphones, webcams, and
specific software like getting all those things to work. Because
(07:32):
of this, one of the first people hired for Justin
TV was a specialist in video games streaming, and from
what I gathered, he kind of just helped people set
up their video game streams. Was this whole po he
was part of the geek squad before the geek squatted.
Kind of sounds like okay, And that is what solidified
(07:54):
twitches future as a video game streaming platform specifically, perhaps
because they have this person going around who is a
video game streaming specialists helping people set up video game streams.
But even though that is a lot of what it
does and a lot of what people perceive it as,
that is not the only thing that it does at all. Um.
There have been streams of things like San Diego Comic Con,
(08:16):
an event around Bob Ross. I saw that huge Yes, yes, um,
all kinds of things. On top of that, there are
video games and certain content that are banned from streaming,
which is the source of a lot of arguing and contention.
This is also why I get confused by these platforms,
because't like, wait, this is one thing, but it's not
(08:37):
this one thing. Well, that's a lot of the issue
that Twitch has had, and we're going to get into
that specifically, But Yeah, the platform quickly rose in popularity
in part because it was fairly easy to use UH
and it had a lot of tools that were available
for free. People in general were becoming more comfortable around
using the internet and technology. Twitch was acquired by Amazon
(09:00):
or nine D seventy million dollars UH. These days, fifty
five million or more tune in to watch video game
streams on Twitch, and it is up there with Netflix, Google,
and Apple for Internet traffic. Again that numbers from Feen,
although I would bet it's gone up during the pandemic.
(09:21):
A Twitch was getting over one hundred million views per
month UH and over a fifth of Twitch users spend
around twenty hours a week watching video content on Twitch.
Newer numbers from indicate that the platform hosted three million
broadcasters and fifteen million daily users. So yeah, it did
see a serge during the pandemic. For some creators, it's
(09:44):
a it's a money maker too, with some making upwards
of one hundred thousand dollars or more a year. I've
seen it like way higher, right, And then they have
these whole things where people can contribute, like they give
options during the live streams to give money. That's a
interesting take. On it. Yes, so based on my fan fiction,
(10:05):
which I'm going to assume somewhat correct starting this way. Okay, Yes,
that sometimes you can pay, like depending on how big
the streamer is a certain amount of money and they'll
read your comments there. Yes, yes, that's true. I have
seen that, like if you do certain contributions, they'll do
(10:26):
certain things. Um. I know Jamie is going to talk
about it up in our interview, but I know people
do like specific fundraisers where they'll do a character, they'll
do a request that you want from This is perfect
for your last of us. Oh my gosh, I could
make it a fundraiser. Yeah, I'm just saying this is perfect.
What are you raising funds for? I have to think
(10:49):
about it. Yeah, okay, gosh, okay, okay, we're going to
talk about that in just a second. Um. So this
is also around the time that justin TV was rebranded
as which Interactive. A crowdsource attempt to play Pokemon red
went viral on the platform, and it was hailed as
an example of the transformative works of players around video
(11:10):
games and how video games could be not only entertainment
but also possibly a sport but also possibly like when
I say entertainment. They are entertainment, but entertainment for people
watching them and commenting on them and interacting around them,
Like this whole community is getting entertainment around this playing
of a game. Yeah, so force. Twitch has not been
(11:31):
without its problems, especially around streamers from marginalized communities. I
know we've spoken about this previously. As part of that,
Twitch introduced the Safety Advisory Council in May of which
is concerning that it took that long, but that's a
whole different conversation. A group of streamers, researchers, and people
from think tanks with the goal of coming up with
guidelines to protect marginalized folks from abuse on the platform.
(11:56):
They announced three fifty new tags, many of them around
things like gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability. To create
these tags, and they consulted with organizations and groups like
Trevor Projects, glad Able Gamers, and Special Effect. Yes, and
Jamie is going to talk about that in our interview.
These tags. Yeah, um, so, yeah, let's talk about Twitch
(12:18):
and women specifically, because Twitch is a space largely dominated
by men no surprise, according to Kataku quote, but the
highest ranking female streamers are far further down the list
starting with a valerie streamer Pokemon at thirty ninth place,
cosplayer amaranths at forty eight, and music streamer Santika at
seventy feet. Excluding streams that are run by multiple people,
(12:41):
such as Critical Role, there are no women in the
top third of top earning Twitch content creators. In spite
of the complaints about the quote hot toab meta titty streamers,
um and how some male streamers perceive that female streamers
are stealing views from men. Uh, the numbers shows that
only a small percentage of women are among the ranks
(13:02):
of the twitches highest earning content creators. Um. Yeah, I
know we're gonna talk a little bit about that. When
it comes to users. The Tea stuff found in twenty
that quote distribution of Twitch users in the United States
as a second quarter was sent male and twenty five
percent female. Um. And here's another quote. According to the figures,
twitches top earning streamers are overwhelmingly male. The top spot
(13:26):
is occupied by Table Top Role Playing Collective with around
nine point six million in income. I'm guessing that's the
Critical Role probably, I would think so. I know it's popular.
I've seen them. I've seen them that's huge, followed by
a male overwatch streamer at around eight point four million million. Y'all.
These supposed figures do not account for sponsorships and other
(13:49):
methods through which streamers typically earn revenue, and not on
the flip side, they put it on other social media,
like you're saying, because I know critical role as a
D and D thing on TikTok and they have a
lot of high views on that's what they're monetizing off
of that as well. Yeah, yeah, so, I, like I said,
when we read that other number that was still high
a hundred thousand. Yeah, I mean when we're looking at this,
(14:12):
that is a million, huge difference. Millions, y'all. Millions. And yeah,
just before we getting this next section kind of similar
(14:34):
to the Reddit thing. We're not going to talk to
in depth about anything, but we are talking about some
grossness on the internet, some harassment, some abuse, So just
to put that out there because there is a lot
of that going on um here. So I did want
to go back to those terms hot tub meta and
titty streamers because I didn't know what they meant, although
(14:54):
I had a great for one of them. Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay,
So the war of women's attire on Twitch has been
around since the start. It's something that we see pretty
much everywhere where there are women. UM. Many comments on
women's streams, especially from men, focus on looks and ability.
The first Google result I got when I typed in
(15:16):
women on Twitch was hot women on Twitch kind of
corrected and I was like, wow, Okay. Women who emphasize
their sexuality and body, and even those that don't are
often labeled titty streamers are booby streamers. Um. And there's
sort of this like almost conspiracy theory that they have
a so called business model of dressing up, wearing makeup
(15:39):
and maybe I push up bra for people to compliment
on our insult like that. There's that's their whole purpose.
The vibe is generally that they are asking for this
type of harassment and if they don't like it, they
can leave. Here's an example tweet. If she doesn't like
the fact that someone is talking about her, she can
just quit. By the way, she deserves all of it.
Here's another one. This girl really thinks people come in
(16:02):
not to look at her looks. I mean, you're not
useful for anything else. Um. A streamer once ranted about
quote sluts that are coming into our community, taking the money,
taking the subs. Twitch suspended him um. The most devoted
thread on the subreddit live stream fail is women walks
around in costumes, sells her nudes on YouTube, and claims
(16:23):
that she is an objectified female. Because of this kind
of attitude, many women have reported feeling pressured to dress
a certain way. Sexualized are completely desexualized, So either you
have to They feel like they have to either play
it up or just where hoodies All the time. I've
heard many women talking about the fact that just online
gaming in itself, but also streaming that they will like
(16:43):
disguise their voice or won't talk and then dual revel.
And when they revel happens, they immediately the first comment
and Jamie says it later on, is go back to
the kitchen and make me a sandwich. Is that? Is
that a online game immediate? Like in soul thing, it
has to be that before you can do other creative insults.
(17:04):
Not that you need to be creative, but you know
what I mean, right right? Kid? Like that line seems
to follow all these immature gamers as the first thing
that they say and then like talking about trying to
pull them out, and a lot of the times, the
ones that I've seen, uh again, they come on TikTok, y'all,
(17:24):
I do not this is my my realm apparently is
oftentimes like these ladies are better than them non bine afros,
and then they get so mad and then they have
to be like pushed away. I did see one that
was super cute where the two discovered I think there
was like four of them. Two of the discovered they
were both women and they're like and they were they
were the best on the team, and the way they
(17:44):
were like loving each other. I did love that moment.
There's kind of a famous instance of that. We talked
about it in our Women in Internet Gaming episode where
it was eight women and yeah it's not World of
four Craft, but it's a popular online game and they
were all using gender neutral names and avatires and they
all found out they were women at the and they
were like the best of the best. I love it,
(18:06):
but I mean I did see a recent thing about
that where the numbers is still I think it's like
women still use a gender neutral name in avatar because
they don't feel safe and they've perceived so much harassment
and the harassment numbers are so high. But on the
flip side, there's also I read a lot of articles
about trans people and feeling like they can be there
theirselves in a way they don't feel like they can
(18:28):
offline using that. Yeah, so there's a lot to break
down there. But yeah, and a part of this whole
thing is that stereotype that we've talked about before that
women and these women in particular on Twitch aren't quote,
real gamers. And this whole thing got worse when Twitch
added the I r L category and for non gaming activities,
(18:52):
and a lot of these dudes saying these things thought, great,
you know, not all these fake gamer women can leave
and get male attention elsewhere because that's all that they want.
But that is not really what happened, of course. And
on top of that, when women started making money in
the I r L category, there was a sudden outcry
about these terrible women making money off the kids, the kids.
(19:17):
To that end, in seventeen, Twitch sold some women streamers
that they couldn't advertise their Patreon accounts on their channels.
It wasn't very transparent at all about why, Yeah, that
doesn't make sense to me, How do you not. Yeah, yeah,
well allow, how do you gate keep that? I mean again,
(19:39):
I know, as we're talking about hot up women as
they were titled. I was introduced to this during a
couple of years ago because I was very confused about
what twitch was. I didn't know what this was until
a couple of years ago. I didn't know it existed.
I assumed it was something like Reddit. This is where
I am in life pageant understanding what it was, and
I was very confused. I was like gaming, okay, okay,
(19:59):
and and having women who would sit in kiddie pools. Um,
this is what I saw while gaping, and I was like,
I don't I don't get what's happening, and essentially people commenting,
and she didn't seem to acknowledge. And I think it
was again Amaroth, who has been in the spotlight in
the last couple of weeks, uh with some with some controversy.
(20:23):
But I did not understand what was happening. But what
I was told was that she was making a lot
of money. But still it doesn't sound like making it
too much money in comparison to again what she was
in mid range in the in the statistics of who
was making the most money. Um. But still I was
very confused. I was like, but why, because I was
again I don't understand all of this. Like I will
(20:46):
watch you play games sometimes because I just want to
hang out with you. I'll watch my partner play games
sometimes because I just want to hang out with them,
But I don't necessarily want to do that as an
entertainment off my screen. I guess, as I say, this
is not play phone games. Um. But yeah, there was
a lot of like controversy conversations like continue to be
(21:07):
mad and though I don't get it, I don't understand it.
I'm also confused as to why people are mad instead
of just going to a different channel. Oh yeah, well
more on that in a second. But like as I
said in the Reddit episode, a lot of this is
kind of we're jumping around a bit. But Amaranth was
one of the ones who um was penalized by She's
(21:29):
been penalized by twitish several times without like clearer reason,
and that's happened to a lot of women. Um okay,
but yeah, since you brought it up and I didn't
know what it was, talk about hot tub meta Um okay,
So women streaming and bikinis or bathing suits. It wasn't
necessarily new, but it really blew up in which is
(21:51):
kind of an accidental pun or when people started buying
easier and more accessible blow up hot tubs. And you
can actually find a lot of breakdown in the history
of this if you would like to learn more. In
several streamers on Twitch started broadcasting in their bathing suits
from hot tubs, and these streams drew so much ire
claims that they were using on loophole and twitches policies
(22:11):
and again oh children. In response, Twitter band are demonetized
some of the channels doing this, claiming that they were
not advertiser friendly. Um. And this wasn't the most popular
move so Twitch released a whole article about it to
clarify that they weren't discriminating against women, but they were
cracking down on quote, sexually suggestive content. But it also
(22:35):
came up this line being found to be sexy by
others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not
take enforcement action against women or anyone on our service
for their perceived attractiveness. So like not, it's not fitting together.
What they're saying is not mashing um And somebody made
(22:55):
the great point of like you can be sexy but
not sexual, like there's a there's a break down anyway.
They later penalized yoga videos Twitch did under the same umbrella,
and a lot argue that they, as I said, are
not transparent or consistent with enforcement of their guidelines, and
eventually Twitch went on to add a category for hot
tub streams so advertisers could opt out of that if
(23:16):
they wanted. This same year, after raids against streamers of
color and queer streamers started happening, a lot of the
hashtag twitched you better started trending. Others have expressed annoyance
at the idea that women quote have it easy on
Twitch because of sex appeal and or this sort of
Madonna horde dichotomy that women would either get lewd comments
(23:38):
or backhanded compliments about, Oh, you're a lady, but I
actually like your work outside of your appearance. It's not
just your looks. I'm here for Many articles I found
written by women in the space have spoken about how
they feel they're pitted against other women streamers and how
(23:58):
they often face questions about their gaming credentials. There's also
a lot of complicated feelings women have expressed about how
hot tub meta has essentially exacerbated sexualization for other women
streamers and altered expectations. Others point out the fact that
all of these cries about the children and advertisers unwilling
(24:19):
to advertise hot tub meta, which is often just people
talking in hot tubs like with friends, maybe shows just
how much we sexualize women's bodies. That that's immediately like,
oh god, it's pornography, which is how they're essentially treating it,
and which is funny because the amount of violence and
these video games that I've seen, I'm like, but we're
not talking about that for children, children, Like yeah, what, Yeah,
(24:44):
they had no problem until women started making money in
these spaces, and they're like right, and again, still not
the top tier. Definitely didn't even crack the top twenty.
What uh what a interesting difference a lot of people
pointed out is that women creators often have on more
personal connection with their fans are the people watching, and
that sometimes those fans, who sometimes are largely women, get
(25:07):
so discouraged by the toxic comments that they see of
this person that they like that they leave the platform altogether. Yeah. Yeah,
so many women and marginalized creators are quote chosen and
we're putting that in close by in cell groups to
harass on Twitch and we know how that can go.
(25:27):
Reddit groups, mostly composed of men, claim to have naked
photos of women streamers and will slow down clips and
brag about how often UH they masturbate to them while
often discussing in disturbing detail what they do to the
women in question their body and digitally inserting them into
porn um. Many women streamers and know what it is
to have obsessive male viewers who will do these kinds
(25:49):
of things. And this is after many women have put
so much work and just trying to make money UH
doing what they like streaming games just like anybody else.
And people, mostly women, have reported vile harassment and even
physical threats, and have sounded the alarm around the fact
that Twitch hasn't really faced the me too movement like
other industries have. Many have reported toxic situations only to
(26:13):
have their concerns ignored, which has been a big conversation
for a minute. In twenty twenty, The New York Times
cited a spreadsheet with over two hundred names called UH
Survivor Stories of harassment, abuse, assault within the gaming live
streaming industry. Yeah, and the threats are truly horrific, like
things like, um, I have your dad tied up and
(26:34):
I'll slit his throat if you don't show your boobs.
One woman streamer found a whole network of men sexualizing
her and shared her feelings of being sexualized against her will,
where her male counterparts wouldn't be based on the content
that they were producing, like producing pretty much the same
thing writing this type of continent. You're getting missed your
comment right, um and in A man out of San
(26:56):
Francisco filed a twenty five million dollar lawsuit against Twitch
because hot female gamers on Twitch led him to so
much masturbation he hurt his penis. Has there ever been
a suit against porn industry for that, because that's ridiculous.
The pictures featured in the suit, which were dismissed by
the way, were actually innocuous, like being in a wedding
(27:20):
gown or a bathing suit or bending over um. The
laws of further claimed women coulde are only streaming with
the sole purpose of taking advantage of sexually addicted viewers
who are enticed to spend money on these women for
attention and sexual innu window I love how this is
(27:40):
all blamed on that and not the actual adults, like
who should be held responsible for themselves. But hey, that's
too much to ask for, I know. And by the way,
that that hot female gamers, that's an actual quote. That's
that's not using that's no no, oh my gosh, oh
my gosh. So yes, Now we need to touch on
(28:15):
the recent and ongoing allegations from streamer Caitlin m Ranth
Sia Goosa, one of the most popular and controversial streamers,
and someone often bemoaned as the exemplification of all of
these things wrong with Twitch according to these mostly men,
but not all, not all men, because some women very
frustrated with her too. Um. Amaranth is a twitch I
(28:38):
r L streamer who did streams where she did squats,
she dressed up in cosplay, some of it was revealing
she would dance things like that. Um, she did get
into hot tub meta. There was and is a lot
of conversation about her content, some in good faith and
some and not good pay at all, about the problematic
aspects of her and she's certainly done some things that
(28:58):
are not a good look. Um. And we can't break
all of that down today. But briefly, there are a
lot of quotes from her that read very differently now
about how she knew she was going to be sexualized,
so she leaned into it. She was once banned for
allegedly touching her breast on screen, and that was not
the only time she was banned at all, and reportedly
was so often swatted she was on the first name
basis with local police. The reason I said that these
(29:21):
things read differently now is that in a recent stream,
she alleged that her husband was abusing her, threatening to
kill her dogs. Um, that he controlled her finances and
was forcing her to continue streaming. She also said he
coerced her uh not to tell people she was married
in order to make more money when streaming in the
(29:41):
hot sub category. UM, so men would think like, oh,
I have a chance to be with her. Essentially due
to that, she has also faced her fair share of
online harassment, including when YouTubers like Beautie Pie called her
twitch thoughts, which is an insult used against both twitch
users and sex worshers. Um and yeah, this whole thing
is ongoing. Yeah, there's the whole thing. Because people men
(30:04):
came out angry when she revealed that she was being abused,
and like from what we gather, from what I've gathered,
being alleging that her husband was forcing her to do
the streams just for the money. Um, partially like at
the beginning maybe with her consent, and then towards the
end maybe not so much, leaking audio clips from conversations
(30:25):
and such. And then men, instead of being like we're
so sorry or not even talking, are now mad at
her and harassing her for lying to them about being
made And I'm like, I didn't think that was any
of your business to begin with, Like why does that
matter in general? But they feel genuinely wronged and have
been coming after her. That's what I've seen as late. Um.
(30:48):
Of course, there's all these concerns and people are coming
to our defense because domestic violence is a huge conversation
that needs to be had in general. But then that
that's that's the reaction. Yeah, at the forefront is shocking.
It was shocking for me, um, as well as the
fact that I know the name Beauty Pie and I
know that he's problematic times thirty from what I understand. Yeah, yeah, well,
(31:13):
and I read a lot of articles for this and
it was pretty painful. And strange to read the stuff
written about her before this came out. But even before that,
people were so suspicious that she had a husband. They
were all like, oh, I think she's lying about that.
And I think a lot of the things that people
hated about her when she came out was like, yeah,
(31:34):
I haven't wanted to do some of this stuff and
I do have a husband. And then they were instead
of being like, oh, yeah, that's so sorry, they're like,
I'm like, well, you lied about these fronts that they
already didn't like. Yeah. Yeah. Because of all of these
things we've been talking about, Twitch has updated their guidelines
a few times, and some of them we've already talked about,
(31:56):
like in declared that any content deemed us eateful would
be suspended from their platform. Um, if you'll notice, as
we do a bunch of these technology episodes, a lot
of them happened the same year, and they're usually after
like this was based on Donald Trump, uh stuff with Trump,
which I find interesting, But these the same guidelines that
they introduced these that year also muddied the water around
(32:19):
sexual content that could be removed because again a lot
of things they put out aren't very clear, not very
transparent UM, several women who were streamers spoke out about
harassment and abuse they'd experienced on the platform. Notably, thanks
in part to the pandemic Yearship more than doubled that year.
Twitch assured that they'd cooperate with the law, but many
(32:40):
felt like they weren't doing enough, and June many users
and streamers participated in a Twitch blackout day. Later that day,
at Twitch put several bands in place of those that
have been accused and promised to send details to law enforcement.
A few days later, they put a temporary suspension on
a Donald Trump campaign account, citing a violation of their
(33:01):
rules around hateful content. A new policy around such content
went into effect, specifically aiming to protect marginalized users that year.
UM It also included things like a sliding scale of punishment,
so a full out band was only one of the
tools near arsenal. It included a ban on racist emotes
that weren't specified at the time, and the Confederate flag.
(33:24):
Words like in cell and virgin were labeled as harassment
under the right conditions UM. Some words like simple cause, debate,
and things like blind play through were later removed due
to ablest connotations, so However, study found that Twitch was
enabling far right extremists both financially and in terms of
(33:46):
spreading their hateful rhetoric. Many have also raised concerns about
double standards when it comes to gender, and here's a
quote from game rant uh users. She had a Haiku,
popular Twitch streamer with over twenty thousand followers, tweeted out
the ability to title a stream I hate men, while
the alternative I Hate women was struck down by Twitter's
(34:07):
modern policy. In her latest dream, she highlighted that her
intention with the tweet was to point out the humor
behind the double standard. While Twitch streamers have been struck
down for their sexist rants, she had wu was only
taking a moment to laugh about the idea that streamers
could voice their hatred towards one gender but not the other.
That caused a lot of conversation, especially about miss conversations
(34:29):
we could have have been having, and it led to
Twitch updating their guidelines once again. I wonder if that
I Hate men conversation would have been so much like
we don't need men versus rape women, Like I don't
see men as but I mean, I get it, But
(34:49):
the level of vitriol feels like a little different. Yeah,
it's it's also just an inherent gender power balance that
we're talking about there. Yea, So a lot of that
was a quote from gay Brant about it, and I
think that that was sort of the point was we
didn't have the conversation we should have had after this.
Um I was more like men being mad that Twitch
(35:11):
didn't take that down. There was a bigger and more
nuanced conversation we could have been having. I thought so
many things with the technology and social media, is that
we are not having the actual root of the problem
conversation and just putting small band aids. Because if we
did that and we actually faced what was the problem,
these platforms may lose a lot of money. Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep.
(35:35):
And yeah, as we've talked about in so many of
these episodes, many women have reported not feeling supported by
Twitch when they raised their hand about something, asked for
something hateful and pornographic to be removed, They're ignored and
they feel like they're only recourse is to leave. Aren't
get a new job if it's their job, because again,
for some people, this is their livelihood and this is
(35:58):
what they're dealing. But yeah, I uh, as we said
and read it. We've we've been focusing on a lot
of the negatives, but there are so many positives about
twitch right and there is so much community that people
have found and I've i mean, even in that goofy
fan fiction, I was like, this is so cool that
(36:19):
this exists. And I've heard friends who love it and
they talk about that part. So it is. It is
a place that can be really beautiful space for finding
people and connecting. Um, but we do have all of
these issues still that right did that we need to
talk about and focus on. I think there's so much
(36:40):
to be said with new platforms, and then when it
kind of blends into not longer have been just that
one little platform, so it's origination expands, like the I
r L stuff and that you understand, there's lines being blurred.
I am too much of a stickler and that is
no longer this anymore, So why are we calling it this?
This is all bleeding over again. I get everything from
to talk, so like I get Twitch streams like clips
(37:03):
that come over to TikTok um, So I'm very confused
about what I'm watching half the time, but not understanding
of that, it's not TikTok. Same thing with Instagram. I
am having a hard time, but in general, like you
you start wondering, you know, the purpose of it, and
then what it does expand because the purpose of it
begins to be about money, not about the community, and
then you have people who bring it back to that
(37:25):
community and it's nice to see. But there's just just
like the variation of when it comes to technology is
so vast, and it's growing so quickly. It doesn't seem
like the individual platforms can keep up, and it's always
a competition to be the next step up. That makes
sense yea, yeah, And as we talked about with Bridget
in our episode around her new podcast in Your Net
(37:47):
Hate Machine, I think there's also like there are people
marginalized communities on these platforms who love them and want
to use them, and when they speak up about them
are ignored. Like I feel like we're seeing that over
and over again. Right, Hey, here's a problem, and then yeah, nothing.
Something else we didn't really talk about we kind of
touched on, but is a positive thing about Twitch is
(38:10):
they do have a lot of streams that the company
will match often that are charitable that are for charity,
and that's something that Jamie is going to talk about
in our upcoming interview we did with her, so look
out for that. In the meantime, are there any streamers
(38:31):
you recommend listeners? Are you on Twitch? What's your experience been?
Please let us know. I would love to know. Yeah,
I thought you were asking me and I was like,
any did we not just go? I haven't been listening
to you the entire times about the although there is
someone from YouTube who has a Twitch channel that I
do like, which is a Girlfriend Reviews, which is this
(38:56):
play Together, and they are on Twitch and they do
SPoD things. I like their content. I don't know what
they looked like on Twitter, but I will recommend that.
I know that we talked about that with the last
of us. Do lots of trauma? Yes, yes, Well please
let us know all of your recommendations and your experience.
If you have any UH you can email us a
(39:16):
stepping your mom stuff at I heart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom stuf, podcasts,
or Instagram and stuff I've never told you. Thanks as
always to our super producers, do know, thank you and
thanks to you for listening sho Nerturalise, production of I
Heeart Radio. For more podcast on my heart Radio, you
can check out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast or
where you listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, this is Andy and Samantha, and welcome to Stephane.
Never told your protection of iHeart Radio. And today we
are continuing are just real slew of technology. So I
(00:25):
guess we're having a technology mini series and I think
that's what we just call it. We really are, and
we have a lot more planned um which I've had.
I've had a good time researching. I mean, there's a
lot of not great things we're talking about, but I
don't know. A lot of this is sort of new
to me, and I'm fascinated with the technology behind it.
And today we're talking about Twitch, which I have a
(00:48):
very little experience with. What about you, Samantha, I have
zero I have zero zero zero, at least with the
Reddit episode, I knew I've read it and it's like
I've read post from it, so I can click things,
people will show me things from it. Would I know
of Twitch? Can I give you my definite, my my
understanding of Twitch and then see how badly I mucked
(01:12):
this up. Essentially is a live streaming service for gamers
who get to cut like have a community, and in
that community can build a large following that can make
money and if you're big enough you may be a
star and you have these things. Apparently they were I
think featured on the Ryan Reynolds movie Free City a
(01:36):
few of the larger streamers. Larger streamers, um if you
look at some of the the cameo, so I'm assuming
they're from twitch, I understand it's any game, but typically
more from streaming like PCs. Yeah, well, I'll give you
a solid on that one, but I really passing. I
(02:01):
don't give you a C plus. How about okay, thank you,
and maybe it's higher. We'll see, but we'll go through
together and you can fight me at the end if
you want. I'm taking my sea and running. That's also
a legitimate reaction. I think you've mostly got it though.
I think you've got the very basic understanding of what
(02:23):
it is. And all, by the way, apparently my nephew
is somewhat has a large large ish following, not huge,
but hasn't been en to fall in that. I'm not
really okay. I thought about doing it, and you've heard
my my I keep wanting to say scheme. It's not
a scheme, but I was gonna like play the last
(02:44):
of Us and just do that. It maybe makes some
money off of it because I'm just so good at it. Now,
that's the funny part. I think I've had like five
for Quiz and I know that's like not a lot,
but it is for on specific game that's like constantly
less of what endeavor, if not more. And I but
(03:08):
that's the other thing is I can customize it. I
always ask like do you want like just the storyline
or do you want me to take time and read
the notes? Like how much do you want? So I
could really do it now, I could offer like a
lot of experiences. I don't know that that's exactly how
Twitch verks either, to be honest, but that what you
said was my basic understanding of it as well. Hilariously enough,
(03:31):
I have another fan fiction connection with this one because,
as I said in the Reddit one and it is
a popular trope to feature technology from our modern day
and these fan fictions. And there is one about Twitch
that I very very much enjoy. It's super cute. Um,
they're like too very popular Twitch streamers and then they
fall in love. What Okay, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did
(03:53):
want to put the date on this one just because
we are talking about an ongoing story and I had
to check the date um it is November three. Uh,
just because yeah, some of these things we're going to
talk about might have changed by the time this comes out. Um.
And also, uh, this has kind of become a two
parter because as much as Samantha and I don't know
(04:14):
about Twitch, we do have a listener in front of
the show, Jamie Summers, who does know a lot about Twitch,
and uh it is streaming a lot. And uh we
we reached out to Jamie asked if she'd be willing
to talk to us about it, and she was awesome.
She she did and that became a much larger conversation.
(04:36):
So it's going to be its own episode. Oh yeah,
of course we had a great time. Um. But yeah,
look out for that look out. I'm always I'm always hesitant.
Is it lookout or listen out? It's both. It's coming
Uh an interview with Jamie Summers about what it's like
to be on Twitch that will be coming up next.
So yeah, I'm excited. M hm sta. That's my contribution. Yes,
(05:00):
and I hope Jamie, we don't want you down because
it's always interesting when you're talking about a topic where
mostly you're depending on the research that you find. Um.
To talk about it. So hopefully we have done it well,
but you can let us know if we did it all. Right.
So we're not going to get too in depth here
(05:20):
about the kind of history of twitch, but let's we're
gonna start with some basics. So Twitches a live video
streaming service based out of the US, created by Justin
kahn Um. It was launched in June eleven, and that
was not his first venture in the technology realm. He
had previously founded accompany him and a few others that
(05:41):
offered an online calendar similar to what Google Calendar is
now um, but it wasn't profitable, so con and the
other founders sold it on eBay for about two hundred
and sixty thousand dollars. Mmm uh. They used that money
to make Justin TV in two thousand five, with the
goal of streaming whatever was going on in their lives
(06:03):
like Big Brothers style, essentially just broadcasting your life. And
since this wasn't two thousand five, people were primed to
eat it up because this is when webcams were becoming
more affordable and they were all the rage, and the
cost of the Internet was coming down and it was
becoming more accessible in most places, not all the places,
(06:24):
but most places beginning of many horror movies, Tony, but
he didn't add that any So first the service guarded
a mixed response, which even just hearing it that way
basically huh, yeah, this is a good idea. Also naming
it after yourself, that's interesting. A lot of people were
annoyed by the reality TV I expect of it to them,
(06:48):
but they were curious if it could be used for
different applications, and the platform wasn't without issues then either,
and some users were the target of the precursors of swatting,
which I think we've talked about before, when the police
raided apartments after pranks implied a shooting or stabbing had
taken place. They are and eventually, yes, people got murdered.
(07:10):
Khan himself was the victim of one in two thousand
seven and still goes on today. We're going to talk
about that. Another issue. While things were easier than they
had been on the technology side, live streaming still required
a technical know how. Not everyone had in this like
early these earlier days, and equipment like microphones, webcams, and
specific software like getting all those things to work. Because
(07:32):
of this, one of the first people hired for Justin
TV was a specialist in video games streaming, and from
what I gathered, he kind of just helped people set
up their video game streams. Was this whole po he
was part of the geek squad before the geek squatted.
Kind of sounds like okay, And that is what solidified
(07:54):
twitches future as a video game streaming platform specifically, perhaps
because they have this person going around who is a
video game streaming specialists helping people set up video game streams.
But even though that is a lot of what it
does and a lot of what people perceive it as,
that is not the only thing that it does at all. Um.
There have been streams of things like San Diego Comic Con,
(08:16):
an event around Bob Ross. I saw that huge Yes, yes, um,
all kinds of things. On top of that, there are
video games and certain content that are banned from streaming,
which is the source of a lot of arguing and contention.
This is also why I get confused by these platforms,
because't like, wait, this is one thing, but it's not
(08:37):
this one thing. Well, that's a lot of the issue
that Twitch has had, and we're going to get into
that specifically, But Yeah, the platform quickly rose in popularity
in part because it was fairly easy to use UH
and it had a lot of tools that were available
for free. People in general were becoming more comfortable around
using the internet and technology. Twitch was acquired by Amazon
(09:00):
or nine D seventy million dollars UH. These days, fifty
five million or more tune in to watch video game
streams on Twitch, and it is up there with Netflix, Google,
and Apple for Internet traffic. Again that numbers from Feen,
although I would bet it's gone up during the pandemic.
(09:21):
A Twitch was getting over one hundred million views per
month UH and over a fifth of Twitch users spend
around twenty hours a week watching video content on Twitch.
Newer numbers from indicate that the platform hosted three million
broadcasters and fifteen million daily users. So yeah, it did
see a serge during the pandemic. For some creators, it's
(09:44):
a it's a money maker too, with some making upwards
of one hundred thousand dollars or more a year. I've
seen it like way higher, right, And then they have
these whole things where people can contribute, like they give
options during the live streams to give money. That's a
interesting take. On it. Yes, so based on my fan fiction,
(10:05):
which I'm going to assume somewhat correct starting this way. Okay, Yes,
that sometimes you can pay, like depending on how big
the streamer is a certain amount of money and they'll
read your comments there. Yes, yes, that's true. I have
seen that, like if you do certain contributions, they'll do
(10:26):
certain things. Um. I know Jamie is going to talk
about it up in our interview, but I know people
do like specific fundraisers where they'll do a character, they'll
do a request that you want from This is perfect
for your last of us. Oh my gosh, I could
make it a fundraiser. Yeah, I'm just saying this is perfect.
What are you raising funds for? I have to think
(10:49):
about it. Yeah, okay, gosh, okay, okay, we're going to
talk about that in just a second. Um. So this
is also around the time that justin TV was rebranded
as which Interactive. A crowdsource attempt to play Pokemon red
went viral on the platform, and it was hailed as
an example of the transformative works of players around video
(11:10):
games and how video games could be not only entertainment
but also possibly a sport but also possibly like when
I say entertainment. They are entertainment, but entertainment for people
watching them and commenting on them and interacting around them,
Like this whole community is getting entertainment around this playing
of a game. Yeah, so force. Twitch has not been
(11:31):
without its problems, especially around streamers from marginalized communities. I
know we've spoken about this previously. As part of that,
Twitch introduced the Safety Advisory Council in May of which
is concerning that it took that long, but that's a
whole different conversation. A group of streamers, researchers, and people
from think tanks with the goal of coming up with
guidelines to protect marginalized folks from abuse on the platform.
(11:56):
They announced three fifty new tags, many of them around
things like gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability. To create
these tags, and they consulted with organizations and groups like
Trevor Projects, glad Able Gamers, and Special Effect. Yes, and
Jamie is going to talk about that in our interview.
These tags. Yeah, um, so, yeah, let's talk about Twitch
(12:18):
and women specifically, because Twitch is a space largely dominated
by men no surprise, according to Kataku quote, but the
highest ranking female streamers are far further down the list
starting with a valerie streamer Pokemon at thirty ninth place,
cosplayer amaranths at forty eight, and music streamer Santika at
seventy feet. Excluding streams that are run by multiple people,
(12:41):
such as Critical Role, there are no women in the
top third of top earning Twitch content creators. In spite
of the complaints about the quote hot toab meta titty streamers,
um and how some male streamers perceive that female streamers
are stealing views from men. Uh, the numbers shows that
only a small percentage of women are among the ranks
(13:02):
of the twitches highest earning content creators. Um. Yeah, I
know we're gonna talk a little bit about that. When
it comes to users. The Tea stuff found in twenty
that quote distribution of Twitch users in the United States
as a second quarter was sent male and twenty five
percent female. Um. And here's another quote. According to the figures,
twitches top earning streamers are overwhelmingly male. The top spot
(13:26):
is occupied by Table Top Role Playing Collective with around
nine point six million in income. I'm guessing that's the
Critical Role probably, I would think so. I know it's popular.
I've seen them. I've seen them that's huge, followed by
a male overwatch streamer at around eight point four million million. Y'all.
These supposed figures do not account for sponsorships and other
(13:49):
methods through which streamers typically earn revenue, and not on
the flip side, they put it on other social media,
like you're saying, because I know critical role as a
D and D thing on TikTok and they have a
lot of high views on that's what they're monetizing off
of that as well. Yeah, yeah, so, I, like I said,
when we read that other number that was still high
a hundred thousand. Yeah, I mean when we're looking at this,
(14:12):
that is a million, huge difference. Millions, y'all. Millions. And yeah,
just before we getting this next section kind of similar
(14:34):
to the Reddit thing. We're not going to talk to
in depth about anything, but we are talking about some
grossness on the internet, some harassment, some abuse, So just
to put that out there because there is a lot
of that going on um here. So I did want
to go back to those terms hot tub meta and
titty streamers because I didn't know what they meant, although
(14:54):
I had a great for one of them. Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay,
So the war of women's attire on Twitch has been
around since the start. It's something that we see pretty
much everywhere where there are women. UM. Many comments on
women's streams, especially from men, focus on looks and ability.
The first Google result I got when I typed in
(15:16):
women on Twitch was hot women on Twitch kind of
corrected and I was like, wow, Okay. Women who emphasize
their sexuality and body, and even those that don't are
often labeled titty streamers are booby streamers. Um. And there's
sort of this like almost conspiracy theory that they have
a so called business model of dressing up, wearing makeup
(15:39):
and maybe I push up bra for people to compliment
on our insult like that. There's that's their whole purpose.
The vibe is generally that they are asking for this
type of harassment and if they don't like it, they
can leave. Here's an example tweet. If she doesn't like
the fact that someone is talking about her, she can
just quit. By the way, she deserves all of it.
Here's another one. This girl really thinks people come in
(16:02):
not to look at her looks. I mean, you're not
useful for anything else. Um. A streamer once ranted about
quote sluts that are coming into our community, taking the money,
taking the subs. Twitch suspended him um. The most devoted
thread on the subreddit live stream fail is women walks
around in costumes, sells her nudes on YouTube, and claims
(16:23):
that she is an objectified female. Because of this kind
of attitude, many women have reported feeling pressured to dress
a certain way. Sexualized are completely desexualized, So either you
have to They feel like they have to either play
it up or just where hoodies All the time. I've
heard many women talking about the fact that just online
gaming in itself, but also streaming that they will like
(16:43):
disguise their voice or won't talk and then dual revel.
And when they revel happens, they immediately the first comment
and Jamie says it later on, is go back to
the kitchen and make me a sandwich. Is that? Is
that a online game immediate? Like in soul thing, it
has to be that before you can do other creative insults.
(17:04):
Not that you need to be creative, but you know
what I mean, right right? Kid? Like that line seems
to follow all these immature gamers as the first thing
that they say and then like talking about trying to
pull them out, and a lot of the times, the
ones that I've seen, uh again, they come on TikTok, y'all,
(17:24):
I do not this is my my realm apparently is
oftentimes like these ladies are better than them non bine afros,
and then they get so mad and then they have
to be like pushed away. I did see one that
was super cute where the two discovered I think there
was like four of them. Two of the discovered they
were both women and they're like and they were they
were the best on the team, and the way they
(17:44):
were like loving each other. I did love that moment.
There's kind of a famous instance of that. We talked
about it in our Women in Internet Gaming episode where
it was eight women and yeah it's not World of
four Craft, but it's a popular online game and they
were all using gender neutral names and avatires and they
all found out they were women at the and they
were like the best of the best. I love it,
(18:06):
but I mean I did see a recent thing about
that where the numbers is still I think it's like
women still use a gender neutral name in avatar because
they don't feel safe and they've perceived so much harassment
and the harassment numbers are so high. But on the
flip side, there's also I read a lot of articles
about trans people and feeling like they can be there
theirselves in a way they don't feel like they can
(18:28):
offline using that. Yeah, so there's a lot to break
down there. But yeah, and a part of this whole
thing is that stereotype that we've talked about before that
women and these women in particular on Twitch aren't quote,
real gamers. And this whole thing got worse when Twitch
added the I r L category and for non gaming activities,
(18:52):
and a lot of these dudes saying these things thought, great,
you know, not all these fake gamer women can leave
and get male attention elsewhere because that's all that they want.
But that is not really what happened, of course. And
on top of that, when women started making money in
the I r L category, there was a sudden outcry
about these terrible women making money off the kids, the kids.
(19:17):
To that end, in seventeen, Twitch sold some women streamers
that they couldn't advertise their Patreon accounts on their channels.
It wasn't very transparent at all about why, Yeah, that
doesn't make sense to me, How do you not. Yeah, yeah,
well allow, how do you gate keep that? I mean again,
(19:39):
I know, as we're talking about hot up women as
they were titled. I was introduced to this during a
couple of years ago because I was very confused about
what twitch was. I didn't know what this was until
a couple of years ago. I didn't know it existed.
I assumed it was something like Reddit. This is where
I am in life pageant understanding what it was, and
I was very confused. I was like gaming, okay, okay,
(19:59):
and and having women who would sit in kiddie pools. Um,
this is what I saw while gaping, and I was like,
I don't I don't get what's happening, and essentially people commenting,
and she didn't seem to acknowledge. And I think it
was again Amaroth, who has been in the spotlight in
the last couple of weeks, uh with some with some controversy.
(20:23):
But I did not understand what was happening. But what
I was told was that she was making a lot
of money. But still it doesn't sound like making it
too much money in comparison to again what she was
in mid range in the in the statistics of who
was making the most money. Um. But still I was
very confused. I was like, but why, because I was
again I don't understand all of this. Like I will
(20:46):
watch you play games sometimes because I just want to
hang out with you. I'll watch my partner play games
sometimes because I just want to hang out with them,
But I don't necessarily want to do that as an
entertainment off my screen. I guess, as I say, this
is not play phone games. Um. But yeah, there was
a lot of like controversy conversations like continue to be
(21:07):
mad and though I don't get it, I don't understand it.
I'm also confused as to why people are mad instead
of just going to a different channel. Oh yeah, well
more on that in a second. But like as I
said in the Reddit episode, a lot of this is
kind of we're jumping around a bit. But Amaranth was
one of the ones who um was penalized by She's
(21:29):
been penalized by twitish several times without like clearer reason,
and that's happened to a lot of women. Um okay,
but yeah, since you brought it up and I didn't
know what it was, talk about hot tub meta Um okay,
So women streaming and bikinis or bathing suits. It wasn't
necessarily new, but it really blew up in which is
(21:51):
kind of an accidental pun or when people started buying
easier and more accessible blow up hot tubs. And you
can actually find a lot of breakdown in the history
of this if you would like to learn more. In
several streamers on Twitch started broadcasting in their bathing suits
from hot tubs, and these streams drew so much ire
claims that they were using on loophole and twitches policies
(22:11):
and again oh children. In response, Twitter band are demonetized
some of the channels doing this, claiming that they were
not advertiser friendly. Um. And this wasn't the most popular
move so Twitch released a whole article about it to
clarify that they weren't discriminating against women, but they were
cracking down on quote, sexually suggestive content. But it also
(22:35):
came up this line being found to be sexy by
others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not
take enforcement action against women or anyone on our service
for their perceived attractiveness. So like not, it's not fitting together.
What they're saying is not mashing um And somebody made
(22:55):
the great point of like you can be sexy but
not sexual, like there's a there's a break down anyway.
They later penalized yoga videos Twitch did under the same umbrella,
and a lot argue that they, as I said, are
not transparent or consistent with enforcement of their guidelines, and
eventually Twitch went on to add a category for hot
tub streams so advertisers could opt out of that if
(23:16):
they wanted. This same year, after raids against streamers of
color and queer streamers started happening, a lot of the
hashtag twitched you better started trending. Others have expressed annoyance
at the idea that women quote have it easy on
Twitch because of sex appeal and or this sort of
Madonna horde dichotomy that women would either get lewd comments
(23:38):
or backhanded compliments about, Oh, you're a lady, but I
actually like your work outside of your appearance. It's not
just your looks. I'm here for Many articles I found
written by women in the space have spoken about how
they feel they're pitted against other women streamers and how
(23:58):
they often face questions about their gaming credentials. There's also
a lot of complicated feelings women have expressed about how
hot tub meta has essentially exacerbated sexualization for other women
streamers and altered expectations. Others point out the fact that
all of these cries about the children and advertisers unwilling
(24:19):
to advertise hot tub meta, which is often just people
talking in hot tubs like with friends, maybe shows just
how much we sexualize women's bodies. That that's immediately like,
oh god, it's pornography, which is how they're essentially treating it,
and which is funny because the amount of violence and
these video games that I've seen, I'm like, but we're
not talking about that for children, children, Like yeah, what, Yeah,
(24:44):
they had no problem until women started making money in
these spaces, and they're like right, and again, still not
the top tier. Definitely didn't even crack the top twenty.
What uh what a interesting difference a lot of people
pointed out is that women creators often have on more
personal connection with their fans are the people watching, and
that sometimes those fans, who sometimes are largely women, get
(25:07):
so discouraged by the toxic comments that they see of
this person that they like that they leave the platform altogether. Yeah. Yeah,
so many women and marginalized creators are quote chosen and
we're putting that in close by in cell groups to
harass on Twitch and we know how that can go.
(25:27):
Reddit groups, mostly composed of men, claim to have naked
photos of women streamers and will slow down clips and
brag about how often UH they masturbate to them while
often discussing in disturbing detail what they do to the
women in question their body and digitally inserting them into
porn um. Many women streamers and know what it is
to have obsessive male viewers who will do these kinds
(25:49):
of things. And this is after many women have put
so much work and just trying to make money UH
doing what they like streaming games just like anybody else.
And people, mostly women, have reported vile harassment and even
physical threats, and have sounded the alarm around the fact
that Twitch hasn't really faced the me too movement like
other industries have. Many have reported toxic situations only to
(26:13):
have their concerns ignored, which has been a big conversation
for a minute. In twenty twenty, The New York Times
cited a spreadsheet with over two hundred names called UH
Survivor Stories of harassment, abuse, assault within the gaming live
streaming industry. Yeah, and the threats are truly horrific, like
things like, um, I have your dad tied up and
(26:34):
I'll slit his throat if you don't show your boobs.
One woman streamer found a whole network of men sexualizing
her and shared her feelings of being sexualized against her will,
where her male counterparts wouldn't be based on the content
that they were producing, like producing pretty much the same
thing writing this type of continent. You're getting missed your
comment right, um and in A man out of San
(26:56):
Francisco filed a twenty five million dollar lawsuit against Twitch
because hot female gamers on Twitch led him to so
much masturbation he hurt his penis. Has there ever been
a suit against porn industry for that, because that's ridiculous.
The pictures featured in the suit, which were dismissed by
the way, were actually innocuous, like being in a wedding
(27:20):
gown or a bathing suit or bending over um. The
laws of further claimed women coulde are only streaming with
the sole purpose of taking advantage of sexually addicted viewers
who are enticed to spend money on these women for
attention and sexual innu window I love how this is
(27:40):
all blamed on that and not the actual adults, like
who should be held responsible for themselves. But hey, that's
too much to ask for, I know. And by the way,
that that hot female gamers, that's an actual quote. That's
that's not using that's no no, oh my gosh, oh
my gosh. So yes, Now we need to touch on
(28:15):
the recent and ongoing allegations from streamer Caitlin m Ranth
Sia Goosa, one of the most popular and controversial streamers,
and someone often bemoaned as the exemplification of all of
these things wrong with Twitch according to these mostly men,
but not all, not all men, because some women very
frustrated with her too. Um. Amaranth is a twitch I
(28:38):
r L streamer who did streams where she did squats,
she dressed up in cosplay, some of it was revealing
she would dance things like that. Um, she did get
into hot tub meta. There was and is a lot
of conversation about her content, some in good faith and
some and not good pay at all, about the problematic
aspects of her and she's certainly done some things that
(28:58):
are not a good look. Um. And we can't break
all of that down today. But briefly, there are a
lot of quotes from her that read very differently now
about how she knew she was going to be sexualized,
so she leaned into it. She was once banned for
allegedly touching her breast on screen, and that was not
the only time she was banned at all, and reportedly
was so often swatted she was on the first name
basis with local police. The reason I said that these
(29:21):
things read differently now is that in a recent stream,
she alleged that her husband was abusing her, threatening to
kill her dogs. Um, that he controlled her finances and
was forcing her to continue streaming. She also said he
coerced her uh not to tell people she was married
in order to make more money when streaming in the
(29:41):
hot sub category. UM, so men would think like, oh,
I have a chance to be with her. Essentially due
to that, she has also faced her fair share of
online harassment, including when YouTubers like Beautie Pie called her
twitch thoughts, which is an insult used against both twitch
users and sex worshers. Um and yeah, this whole thing
is ongoing. Yeah, there's the whole thing. Because people men
(30:04):
came out angry when she revealed that she was being abused,
and like from what we gather, from what I've gathered,
being alleging that her husband was forcing her to do
the streams just for the money. Um, partially like at
the beginning maybe with her consent, and then towards the
end maybe not so much, leaking audio clips from conversations
(30:25):
and such. And then men, instead of being like we're
so sorry or not even talking, are now mad at
her and harassing her for lying to them about being
made And I'm like, I didn't think that was any
of your business to begin with, Like why does that
matter in general? But they feel genuinely wronged and have
been coming after her. That's what I've seen as late. Um.
(30:48):
Of course, there's all these concerns and people are coming
to our defense because domestic violence is a huge conversation
that needs to be had in general. But then that
that's that's the reaction. Yeah, at the forefront is shocking.
It was shocking for me, um, as well as the
fact that I know the name Beauty Pie and I
know that he's problematic times thirty from what I understand. Yeah, yeah, well,
(31:13):
and I read a lot of articles for this and
it was pretty painful. And strange to read the stuff
written about her before this came out. But even before that,
people were so suspicious that she had a husband. They
were all like, oh, I think she's lying about that.
And I think a lot of the things that people
hated about her when she came out was like, yeah,
(31:34):
I haven't wanted to do some of this stuff and
I do have a husband. And then they were instead
of being like, oh, yeah, that's so sorry, they're like,
I'm like, well, you lied about these fronts that they
already didn't like. Yeah. Yeah. Because of all of these
things we've been talking about, Twitch has updated their guidelines
a few times, and some of them we've already talked about,
(31:56):
like in declared that any content deemed us eateful would
be suspended from their platform. Um, if you'll notice, as
we do a bunch of these technology episodes, a lot
of them happened the same year, and they're usually after
like this was based on Donald Trump, uh stuff with Trump,
which I find interesting, But these the same guidelines that
they introduced these that year also muddied the water around
(32:19):
sexual content that could be removed because again a lot
of things they put out aren't very clear, not very
transparent UM, several women who were streamers spoke out about
harassment and abuse they'd experienced on the platform. Notably, thanks
in part to the pandemic Yearship more than doubled that year.
Twitch assured that they'd cooperate with the law, but many
(32:40):
felt like they weren't doing enough, and June many users
and streamers participated in a Twitch blackout day. Later that day,
at Twitch put several bands in place of those that
have been accused and promised to send details to law enforcement.
A few days later, they put a temporary suspension on
a Donald Trump campaign account, citing a violation of their
(33:01):
rules around hateful content. A new policy around such content
went into effect, specifically aiming to protect marginalized users that year.
UM It also included things like a sliding scale of punishment,
so a full out band was only one of the
tools near arsenal. It included a ban on racist emotes
that weren't specified at the time, and the Confederate flag.
(33:24):
Words like in cell and virgin were labeled as harassment
under the right conditions UM. Some words like simple cause, debate,
and things like blind play through were later removed due
to ablest connotations, so However, study found that Twitch was
enabling far right extremists both financially and in terms of
(33:46):
spreading their hateful rhetoric. Many have also raised concerns about
double standards when it comes to gender, and here's a
quote from game rant uh users. She had a Haiku,
popular Twitch streamer with over twenty thousand followers, tweeted out
the ability to title a stream I hate men, while
the alternative I Hate women was struck down by Twitter's
(34:07):
modern policy. In her latest dream, she highlighted that her
intention with the tweet was to point out the humor
behind the double standard. While Twitch streamers have been struck
down for their sexist rants, she had wu was only
taking a moment to laugh about the idea that streamers
could voice their hatred towards one gender but not the other.
That caused a lot of conversation, especially about miss conversations
(34:29):
we could have have been having, and it led to
Twitch updating their guidelines once again. I wonder if that
I Hate men conversation would have been so much like
we don't need men versus rape women, Like I don't
see men as but I mean, I get it, But
(34:49):
the level of vitriol feels like a little different. Yeah,
it's it's also just an inherent gender power balance that
we're talking about there. Yea, So a lot of that
was a quote from gay Brant about it, and I
think that that was sort of the point was we
didn't have the conversation we should have had after this.
Um I was more like men being mad that Twitch
(35:11):
didn't take that down. There was a bigger and more
nuanced conversation we could have been having. I thought so
many things with the technology and social media, is that
we are not having the actual root of the problem
conversation and just putting small band aids. Because if we
did that and we actually faced what was the problem,
these platforms may lose a lot of money. Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep.
(35:35):
And yeah, as we've talked about in so many of
these episodes, many women have reported not feeling supported by
Twitch when they raised their hand about something, asked for
something hateful and pornographic to be removed, They're ignored and
they feel like they're only recourse is to leave. Aren't
get a new job if it's their job, because again,
for some people, this is their livelihood and this is
(35:58):
what they're dealing. But yeah, I uh, as we said
and read it. We've we've been focusing on a lot
of the negatives, but there are so many positives about
twitch right and there is so much community that people
have found and I've i mean, even in that goofy
fan fiction, I was like, this is so cool that
(36:19):
this exists. And I've heard friends who love it and
they talk about that part. So it is. It is
a place that can be really beautiful space for finding
people and connecting. Um, but we do have all of
these issues still that right did that we need to
talk about and focus on. I think there's so much
(36:40):
to be said with new platforms, and then when it
kind of blends into not longer have been just that
one little platform, so it's origination expands, like the I
r L stuff and that you understand, there's lines being blurred.
I am too much of a stickler and that is
no longer this anymore, So why are we calling it this?
This is all bleeding over again. I get everything from
to talk, so like I get Twitch streams like clips
(37:03):
that come over to TikTok um, So I'm very confused
about what I'm watching half the time, but not understanding
of that, it's not TikTok. Same thing with Instagram. I
am having a hard time, but in general, like you
you start wondering, you know, the purpose of it, and
then what it does expand because the purpose of it
begins to be about money, not about the community, and
then you have people who bring it back to that
(37:25):
community and it's nice to see. But there's just just
like the variation of when it comes to technology is
so vast, and it's growing so quickly. It doesn't seem
like the individual platforms can keep up, and it's always
a competition to be the next step up. That makes
sense yea, yeah, And as we talked about with Bridget
in our episode around her new podcast in Your Net
(37:47):
Hate Machine, I think there's also like there are people
marginalized communities on these platforms who love them and want
to use them, and when they speak up about them
are ignored. Like I feel like we're seeing that over
and over again. Right, Hey, here's a problem, and then yeah, nothing.
Something else we didn't really talk about we kind of
touched on, but is a positive thing about Twitch is
(38:10):
they do have a lot of streams that the company
will match often that are charitable that are for charity,
and that's something that Jamie is going to talk about
in our upcoming interview we did with her, so look
out for that. In the meantime, are there any streamers
(38:31):
you recommend listeners? Are you on Twitch? What's your experience been?
Please let us know. I would love to know. Yeah,
I thought you were asking me and I was like,
any did we not just go? I haven't been listening
to you the entire times about the although there is
someone from YouTube who has a Twitch channel that I
do like, which is a Girlfriend Reviews, which is this
(38:56):
play Together, and they are on Twitch and they do
SPoD things. I like their content. I don't know what
they looked like on Twitter, but I will recommend that.
I know that we talked about that with the last
of us. Do lots of trauma? Yes, yes, Well please
let us know all of your recommendations and your experience.
If you have any UH you can email us a
(39:16):
stepping your mom stuff at I heart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom stuf, podcasts,
or Instagram and stuff I've never told you. Thanks as
always to our super producers, do know, thank you and
thanks to you for listening sho Nerturalise, production of I
Heeart Radio. For more podcast on my heart Radio, you
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