Twitch: The Gift that Keeps on Giving but Not Necessarily in a Good Way
Upon mature and sober reflection it is clear that I am not part of the core demographics associated with Twitch and the culture of live streaming. That is not to say that I don’t “understand it” in that tedious old person idiom, You know that cultural construct where people from one generation just arbitrarily decide to not get and deliberately be at odds with something the young folk do. Nope, I get the whole streaming thing. That’s it’s about communities, engaging and entertaining your audience in a way they find fun and accessible. Twitch can be many things to many people. So I do get it, okay. I just don’t especially care for it. That’s just me and my personal taste, shaped by my age and cultural baggage. I prefer longform content and intellectual rigour. Twitch is more weighted towards fun and the superficial. There’s nothing wrong with either of those things but I find people trying to be excessively upbeat, striving to be humorous (when so many of us patently aren’t) and “right on” to be a little wearing at times.
Like any sort of social media platform, Twitch has grown and evolved overtime. Therein lies part of the problem. A percentage of early adopters see it purely as a core gaming medium and don’t care for its varied and more social contemporary uses. And like any public forum, be it physical or virtual where human beings congregate and interact, the wider socio economic and political complexities of western culture bleed through and impinge upon events and behaviour. If you add the financial benefits of being a successful streamer and influencer, along with the ego issues associated with any kind of performance art, there’s plenty of scope for people to assume positions of self appointed gatekeepers and for any debate to turn into a shit storm. It is also worth pointing out that certain spaces that start out as being male dominated often become more accessible over time. This often leads to conflict with one group feeling, rightly or wrongly, that they’ve been thrown out of their own party.
He doesn’t like her or something like that
So with this in mind, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that Twitch is the regular source of controversies. If you cast your mind back to 2015 you may recollect "concerns" about the sartorial choices made by some female streamers. In fact one “popular streamer”, Sky Williams (remember that asshole), decided to post a video expressing his “thoughts” on the matter. I'm sure you can figure out what happened next. As ever there was a succinct distillation over at Kotaku. Then in 2019 Twitch started cracking down on what they labelled as “sexually suggestive” apparel, after streamer Quqco wore a Chun-Li cosplay outfit, which led to her being suspended for three days. The latest instalment in this tedious, episodic saga is “Hot Tub streaming”. Yes, that is a thing and as you can probably surmise, it has proven a boon for some streamers (have a guess which ones) and has antagonised others (again tax your brain and see if you can figure out who).
I wonder how many of the participants in any of these debacles have stopped for a moment, taken a step back and considered how it looks to the wider world? Precious few I would hazard a guess. Furthermore, the net result of this dispute is that more and more reasonable and level headed gamers withdraw from engaging with the wider community. This is particularly relevant for female gamers. I consider the marginalisation of any group to be an act of folly. However, when you look at this issue that has persisted on Twitch over the years, it comes down to two main reasons. Those who wish to maintain the status quo that serves their needs. Namely old school, male core games who see the platform as “their bat and ball”. And then there’s the perennial “problem” of women entering an alleged shared space and using it successfully, much to the chagrin of the self appointed gatekeepers.
Sleep streaming is also a thing
I find all arguments regarding how a female streamer should dress and the subsequent impact that it has upon the medium, as spurious. Too many are based on subjective moral and ethical viewpoints. Therefore, there are no absolute truths to be found here and such nuanced subjects shouldn’t be presented as a binary argument. Often the ultimate arbiter is the law often. As for Twitch, it has specific guidelines regarding dress standards and as long as streamers stay within those then the matter is effectively closed. Hence "slut shaming" or labeling people "Twitch frauds" are just tiresome strawman arguments. You only have to read some of the comments on the Kotaku articles, linked above, to see opinions shaped by cultural, religious and political agendas. Many seem to have more than a whiff of moral superiority and that misplaced mindset that mistakes a strongly held personal conviction as a universal truth.
The fact that there is serious money to be had from live streaming also muddies the waters and makes things far more contentious. Is this really about an ethical issue or the fact that someone has figured out a marketing schtick that is supposedly more effective than another? It's curious how advocates of an unfettered free market suddenly adopt a far more protectionist approach when they suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of a dividing line. There is an element to this debate that is remarkably similar to the political smack talk or corporate rivalry. What's more it's rather insulting to your audience to try and dress up your business concerns as moral outrage. I'd respect some people a lot more if they simply said this is about making money and that they feel their line of revenue is under threat co’s someone else out thought them.
“Hello, I’m an academic” (Noam Chomsky to be exact)
It has been postulated by many academics that this is the century of "self" and that western culture has effectively given up on wider socio-political ideologies. Rather than work cohesively as a collective for our mutual benefit, we simply apply our consumerist outlook to all situations. We equate our personal expenditure as means of gaining individual representation. Everything is viewed and analysed through the prism of how it affects us personally, rather than as a group. This manifests itself in all aspects of our life, including gaming. Couple this with a decline in critical thinking and the ability to effectively debate and you end up with something like the current bunfight over “Hot Tub streaming”. Thus, by our own hands we fashion the very walls that divide our community. Furthermore, we fail to learn the lessons from the previous debacle. What was that quote again about why we can't have nice things?
