Örebro University
Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
“Pop a titty for the boys”
- A qualitative study of negative communication towards female
streamers on Twitch
-Bachelor thesis 04/06/2021 Media and Communication Studies Supervisor: N/A Author: Katrine Kejser
Abstract
Katrine Kejser“Pop a titty for the boys”
A qualitative study of negative communication towards female streamers on Twitch
The development of technology has created many platforms for entertainment, participatory communities and socialization online. One of the largest current platforms for live streaming is Twitch.tv with a focus on gaming and eSports. This is a male-dominated field where women often face harassment and a non-welcoming community. This paper is a qualitative study of the negative communication towards female streamers on Twitch with a focus on the context in which said communication takes place. The aim of the study is to understand the circumstances in which negative communication occurs and how it changes depending on context. The study takes a qualitative approach and analyses the content of six streams from five different channels, as well the negative communication in their chat room. The results show that negative communication varies depending on the content as well as the nature of the community built around the channel.
Keywords: Female Streamer, Negative Communication, Online harassment, Qualitative research, Sexism, SSLS, Third Place, Twitch
List of terms
As some terms used in the study may not be of common knowledge they are described here so it is not necessary to break the text and do so during the paper.
Gamer - A person who plays video games
Streamer/broadcaster - A person live broadcasting themselves and/or gameplay online Viewer - A person watching the broadcast of a streamer
Titty streamer - A derogatory term used to describe women showing cleavage while streaming
VOD - Video on demand, in this case the videos of streams that are saved on Twitch Timed out/Banned - When you get removed from typing in Twitch chat either for a certain time or permanently
Mods - Moderators selected by the streamer with the power to time out/ban viewers Simp - Simp is slang for a person who puts another person on a pedestal and performs excessive sympathy and attention towards them (stereotypically it is men being simps for women)
E-girl - Electronic Girl, a girl who plays video games and spends time online (often used as an insult)
Boosted - Someone who is a higher rank in a video game than their skill level, this ranked is reached by playing with people better than themselves to win
TOS - Terms of Service
THOT - An acronym for “that ho over there”, a woman with casual sexual encounters Chaturbate - A website for free adult webcam feeds with live sex
Discord - A VOIP software (Voice Over Internet Control) designed by gamers for gamers, but which has expanded to include all sorts of non-gaming related communities.
1. Introduction 1
1. 1 Research aim 1
1.2 Research Questions 2
2. Background 3
2.1 Social Live Streaming Services 3
2.2 Twitch.tv 3
2.3 Gender differences in gaming 5
3. Previous Literature 7
3.1 Motivations 7
3.2 Communication environment and gender differences on Twitch 9
3.3 Position of the study 11
4. Theoretical Framework 13 4.1 Third Places 13 4.2 Visual Rhetoric 16 4.3 Cultivation Theory 18 4.4 Participatory Culture 18 4.5 Summary 19 5. Research Method 21 5.1 Qualitative research 21 5.2 Visual Rhetoric 21 5.3 Sampling 23
5.4 Analysing the material 24
5.5 Ethical considerations 25
5.6 Limitations 26
6. Result and Analysis 28
6.1 Empirical data analysis 28
6.2 Channels 28 6.2.1 Amouranth April 2020 28 6.2.2 Amouranth May 2021 30 6.2.3 Pokimane May 2021 32 6.2.4 itsHafu May 2021 34 6.2.5 Sweet_Anita May 2021 36 6.2.6 Kiwo May 2021 38 6.3 Comments 39
6.4 Negative communication based on content 42
6.4.2 Amouranth, Pokimane, Sweet_Anita, Hafu and Kiwo 45
7. Discussion and conclusion 48
7.1 Further research 50 References 51 Electronic Sources 54 Appendix 1 - Limmy Appendix 2 - Amouranth 2020 Appendix 4 - Pokimane Appendix 5 - itsHafu Appendix 6 - Sweet_Anita Appendix 7 - Kiwo
1. Introduction
"Two years ago, I remember I was competing in a huge tournament," Liooon said as her tears began to fall. "I was waiting in line for signups. And there was this guy telling me,
'You're a girl.
You should not be waiting in line here. It's not for you.' "
- Xiaomeng “Liooon” Li, first female Hearthstone World Champion (Yim 2019).
Communication online comes in many shapes and forms and has only expanded with the growth of the World Wide Web and technology. While most people are familiar with “streaming”, movies on Netflix, music on Spotify, a more recent development is social live streaming, broadcasting yourself live with a two way line of communication to the people viewing via a chat room thus creating a participatory communication environment. This has become a big part of the online entertainment landscape with 2,237,939,280 hours watched in April 2021 on Twitch.tv which is just one of the many social live streaming services
(Twitchtracker 2021). Video games are one of the most common topics to broadcast, where viewers get to share the experience of a game they may not want to play themselves or at a higher level than they play at. While video games traditionally were targeted at the straight, white, male consumer, there has been an influx of minorities in the industry, especially women (Salter 2018), though Twitch itself is still male-dominated (Iqbal 2021).
Twitch and the gaming community has been described as a toxic and non-inclusive
community for minorities, and especially hostile towards women (Uszkoreit 2017). This is for example visible through the controversy “GamerGate”, an online harassment campaign targeting women (Alexander 2014) and the strong gender differences in the language used on Twitch (Nakandala et. al. 2017, Olsson 2018). Female streamers receive more objectifying cues (ibid.), often face harassment (Grayson 2017, MostlyBiscuit 2015, Roose 2016) and receive no credit for their achievements, as professional streamer itsHafu expresses:
“Even when I won tournaments, people would say, ‘Oh, you got carried,’ or whatever. In two different games! With multiple tournaments! It always felt so bad, man. People never give
me any credit!” -itsHafu (Grayson 2019)
1. 1 Research aim
There is a general lack of research regarding SLSSs and the online communities that follow, any study regarding this topic would help fill the void. The few studies that do exist which address the gendered language used in the community and on Twitch (Nakandala et. al 2017,
Olsson 2018) and how women are objectified (Ruberg et al. 2019, Uszkoreit 2017, Uszkoreit 2018) are focused around the communication towards and around women, but does not address if the communication changes depending on the context.
Lack of female representation on Twitch means women may not feel part of the gaming community, despite making up a good portion of it ,which in itself is an issue. It is also problematic as participating in gaming and eSports is connected to the mastery of technology(Uszkoreit 2017). Therefore understanding what and why women lack representation and why they feel excluded is important to create improvement in the environment.
The aim of this study is to research whether the negative communication towards female streamers change depending on various factors such as focus of the stream, webcam size, no webcam at all, gameplay or other content and thereby further advance the understanding of online communication dynamics towards female streamers on Twitch. This is done through qualitative text analysis of both the video feed from twitch channels and the chat messages sent during the broadcast. Further research could potentially discover ways of making it a more welcoming environment for women and minorities alike.
1.2 Research Questions
● How does negative communication towards female streamers vary depending on their community?
● How does negative communication towards female streamers vary depending on the focus of their content?
● How does negative communication towards female streamers vary depending on webcam size?
Through these questions the study will discuss the context that negative communication appears in as well as the nature of the negative communication. In doing so the study will relate to pre-existing theories such as third places, participatory culture and cultivation theory to assist in explaining not only the communication taking place but also the space it occurs in.
In this study negative communication is defined as communication that lacks respect for the one it is targeted at, objectifies them, or does not consider their emotions when receiving the communication.
2. Background
This section provides the necessary knowledge to understand the circumstances of the study.
2.1 Social Live Streaming Services
As social media has developed and grown over time new platforms emerge. Social live streaming services are social media platforms where any user can create content and
broadcast it live while viewers can participate via a chatroom. Both actions of the viewers as well as the broadcaster are synchronous, happening at the same time (Scheibe et. al 2016). This differs from other streaming services such as YouTube, where users create and
pre-record content before uploading it to be watched or re-watched by users at any time. Many such platforms now feature live streaming as well such as YouTube Live or the live option on Instagram.
Common characteristics on SLSSs include the broadcaster using their own equipment (phone, PC etc.) to live stream from and viewers being able to reward the broadcaster in forms of donations, subscribers or the like (ibid.).
Some SLSSs are thematic meaning they focus on a specific theme such as art, pornography or gaming, others are more general where users can stream what they want within the terms of service limits. An example is Facebook that both features Facebook Live as well as Facebook Gaming, one meant for general live streams, the other for broadcasting gameplay in real time. According to a AYTM survey done in 2016 (Pilon 2016), the same year Facebook Live became available to all users, 59% of the respondents reported having watched content on Facebook Live. In 2020 the Streamlabs quarterly report for Q2 showed Twitch as the largest platform with 5,066.5M hours watched adding up to 67.6% of the total hours, YouTube Gaming Live came second with 20% of the hours watched (May 2020). As these live streams have a chatroom where viewers can address the broadcaster directly in real time as well as other viewers there is a direct line of communication between the viewer and broadcaster making it participatory viewing.
2.2 Twitch.tv
Twitch.tv started out as Justin.tv in 2007 with a single channel where co-founder Justin Kan live streamed his daily life around the clock. More people expressed their interest in
streaming their own content rather than watching Justin, and later in 2007 the site was relaunched where users could stream themselves (Iqbal 2021).
The gaming category on Justin.tv received much more interest and in 2011 Twitch.tv was launched based on the gaming theme from Justin.tv. As Twitch grew Justin.tv became redundant and the company was rebranded to Twitch Interactive and Justin.tv was discontinued in 2014. Twitch Interactive was acquired by Amazon in 2014 and at the time had 55 million concurrent users as well as accounted for 1.8% of internet traffic behind only 3 other companies including Netflix (ibid.).
Thanks to this growth live streaming on platforms like Twitch is today integrated into gaming consoles, as well as easily available on mobile phones and on PC.
In April 2021 Twitch had over 3.1 million concurrent viewers and over 900 thousand active streamers (TwitchTracker 2021). The platform has expanded to not only cover gaming and electronic sports, but now features many categories including “Just Chatting” for talk
show/podcast type streams or for just chatting with viewers, “Creative” or “Art” for any sort of crafting, or “Food and Drink” for cooking streams or “Travel and Outdoors” for traveling or other outdoor adventures. Each individual video game still has its own category and users can sort by tags such as “German” if they are looking for channels streaming in German or “FPS” if first person shooters are of interest (Twitch Directory 2021).
While anyone creating a channel on the platform can start broadcasting (as long as they are within terms of service or they will be removed), only some are partnered directly with Twitch. There are two types of partnership: “Twitch Affiliate” and “Twitch Partner”, while affiliate is more easily attainable, partners have the better benefits and higher requirements to get the partnership. Both of these types of channels can be supported by donating “bits” through Twitch, a digital currency users purchase on the platform and then give to the broadcasters, who will get these bits in their own currency paid out by Twitch. The more common way of supporting a channel is by subscribing to them, this costs 4.99 euros/USD a month, where depending on the deal the individual broadcaster has with Twitch, they get half of that subscription money. In return the user who subscribes gets access to customized “emotes” (emojis) uploaded by the broadcaster, that the user can use globally on Twitch in all channels among other benefits depending on the individual broadcaster.
Each channel on Twitch has its own chat room which any viewer with an account can participate in. It is the broadcasters responsibility to moderate their chat room ensuring it
stays within terms of service. A moderator role can be given by the broadcaster to users who will then have the ability to time out and ban viewers. Below is an example of the layout of a Twitch channel, this specific channel belongs to Twitch partner Brian Limond, a Scottish comedian also known as Limmy.
Figure 1 Twitch.tv/Limmy - To the right is the chat room, below the video feed from the left is the stream category, tags, viewer number and broadcast time.
Below the videofeed (not pictured) is the channel description as well as any other
information the broadcaster wishes to share. Limmy’s description can be found in appendix 1.
2.3 Gender differences in gaming
Even though women were among the first programmers in the 1940s and programming was considered women's work as it was more clerical, it was later masculinized to give it more status and erase the low-paid “women’s work” connection. This happened in the post-war era once its importance became more apparent and more men returned to the labor force. In the 1960s the term “software engineering” was promoted in an attempt to recategorize programming with the male-dominated and more prestigious field of engineering. Since this masculinization the western world has associated technology with masculinity which in turn
has made men and boys disproportionally more technologically powerful and has created the stereotype that men are more technologically skillful. A stereotype so pervasive it still affects everyday life of the current population (Salter 2018, p. 248-250).
Another stereotype emerging from this technology is the “geek”, a geek is socially awkward but technologically skillful hence wields technological power. A geek could be anyone but the default stereotype refers to the straight, white, middle class male, who has also internalized this stereotype and uses it as an alternative path to masculinity. Women are often excluded from this stereotype or may only participate by acting as “one of the boys” (Salter 2018, p. 250-252).
This feeling of ownership over technology expands to video games and has created an online environment with a tendency to be hostile and toxic towards minorities, especially women. These videogames are often produced with the “geek” in mind, the target group is the straight, white, male consumer. In 2001 only 16% of characters in video games were female. Male characters were mostly presented as competitors while female characters were props or bystanders (Glaubke et. al. 2001). Female characters were more likely to wear revealing clothes and scream, while male characters engaged in physical aggression (ibid.).
As technology has become more accessible, for example video games on personal devices rather than at arcades, there has been an influx in women both in gaming as well as in technology related fields, resulting in the technological power held mainly by men becoming unstable (ibid.). Twitch is currently male-dominated, 35% of its users in 2021 are female which is up from previous years (Iqbal 2021). The influx of women means more female developers and games that are more inclusive, which in turn has been met with praise as well as online harassment.
GamerGate is a good example of such harassment. It was an online abuse campaign in 2014-2015 targeting women in the gaming industry starting with Zoe Quinn, a developer of a text-based game focusing on depression and mental health. Quinn’s ex-partner released a blog post falsely claiming Quinn performed sexual favors to receive a favorable review of her game (Alexander 2014). This sparked the GamerGate harassment campaign as many gamers “... felt threatened by the growing presence and influence of women as both players and industry participants.” (Salter 2018).
3. Previous Literature
In this section previous literature regarding Twitch will be discussed. Few studies are done in relation to Twitch despite the platform’s size. As it has rapidly grown over the years it has become more relevant to investigate and understand, yet the existing research is scarce and only few studies provide a layer of knowledge on which this study can expand and clarify. Two themes will be considered, motivations for being on Twitch and gender differences on Twitch. Lastly the study will position itself in relation to the existing literature.
3.1 Motivations
In third places (described further in section 4.1) conversation is the main activity, this is also true regarding online third places on Twitch. Hamilton et. al. (2014) discovered through interviews with streamers and viewers on Twitch that streams function as a third place, but only if they are not too large to provide quality participation. When the streams have too many participants, the chat room, where conversation exists, becomes too fast and ruins the quality (ibid.). Some streamers expressed preferring a smaller amount of chatters to make it easier to interact with everyone, though this would often impact their revenue. Though the study interviewed 11 streamers only one was female, which can decrease the accuracy of the generalization regarding the study’s findings. However, the study was done in 2014 at a time where Twitch was even more male-dominated than it is now, so finding female streamers to interview could have posed a problem. The viewers in the study expressed that the reason they stayed and became regulars in channels was because of the community and
socialization. However the reason viewers first seeked out a stream to watch was to learn from the streamer (ibid), what is in other studies described as “information-seeking” (Gros et al. 2017, Hilvert-Bruce et al. 2018, Sjöblom et al. 2017). While Hamilton. et. al. only
interviewed four viewers, their findings were similar to those of other studies addressing a larger sample size of viewers.
Through survey research and a uses and gratification approach these studies put focus only on the viewers to find the most popular motivations for using Twitch as a viewer (Gros et al. 2017, Hilvert-Bruce et al. 2018, Sjöblom et al. 2017). The motivations were generally divided into three categories: entertainment, information and socialization, where entertainment (this includes following tournaments and streaming as a substitute for TV) was found to be
the main motivator (ibid.), followed by information (Gros et al. 2017, Hilvert-Bruce et al. 2018) meaning information-seeking. In the information category, watching streams “to learn new gaming strategies and techniques” (Gros et al. 2017 p. 50), scored much higher than other subcategories. Entertainment and information seeking were also the main motivators in correlation to the amount of time spent watching streamers on Twitch (Hilvert-Bruce et al. 2018). When looking further into motivations for watching different types of streams, the results show that the main motivator for watching casual streams falls in the entertainment category, whereas the main motivator for watching competitive streams (eSport
tournaments or high tier games) falls in the information category (Sjöblom et al. 2017). Another factor believed to impact the viewers of competitive games is the stress one usually feels when playing (stress to perform in high intensity situations) competitive games. These games are generally team games, and there is a social aspect of “toxic” teammates lashing out. Spectating competitive games may give similar gratifications as playing, but with less stress and no risk of “toxic” teammates (ibid.).
Comparing these findings to what Uszkoreit (2018) found in her case study and her PhD dissertation Video Game Live Streaming and the Perception of Female Gamers (2017) proposes a problem. Her research found that there is a lack of female streamers on a higher skill level, or the competitive level, for girls to look up to and learn from, meaning there are not many opportunities for them to master their games and be represented on the
competitive level in eSports, which in turn could motivate even more girls to play and gain the positive attributes gaming has to offer. This is not only a problem because of the gap in pay and participation between the genders, but also because seeing someone a viewer identifies with on TV, in magazines or on live streams, makes the viewer feel part of society. Therefore the lack of female representation on Twitch means women may not feel part of the gaming community. This is unfortunate as participating in gaming and eSports is connected to the mastery of technology. The connection between the inclusion into the gaming community and video games and children’s inclination to enter STEM disciplines is a topic of research (Ibid.). At the same time the lack of competitive female streamers to relate to (Uszkoreit 2018) could mean that female viewers lack a way of affording similar
gratifications to playing, but with less stress, as spectating competitive streams may offer (Sjöblom et al. 2017).
3.2 Communication environment and gender differences on Twitch
To gather an overview of the gender differences in the communication environment on Twitch literature regarding language in the Twitch chat (Nakandala et al. 2017 and Olsson 2018), gender differences in “trolling” (Todd and Melancon 2019), terms like “titty streamer” (Ruberg, Cullen & Brewster 2019) and the trustworthiness of communication by different genders on Twitch (Todd and Melancon 2018) will be considered. While the studies are very different they all regard parts of the communication environment on Twitch.
Nakandala et al. (2017) and Olsson (2018) did in depth research into the chat language of female and male streamers through a quantitative approach. Nakandala et al. (2018) did so by logging and analysing 76 days worth of Twitch chat. The study found that in popular male streamers chat the most used words were game related, such as “epoch, attempts,
consistent, reset, shields, fastest, devs, slower, melee, glitch” (Nakandala et al. 2017, p. 166). However, in popular female streamers chat the most used words were objectifying
comments on appearance such as “cute, beautiful, smile, babe, lovely, marry, boobs, gorgeous, omg, hot” (ibid.), which turns more towards sexual harassment. The results for less popular female streams looked different, but the word “warning” was among the most used words suggesting the channels were more strict in moderation. Similar results were found in Olsson’s research (2018) where positive skill-related comments were more common in male streams but negative skill-related comments appear at the same rate in both male and female streams. Sexual harassment comments were more frequent in female streams and non-sexual harassment was slightly more frequent in male streams (ibid.). Nakandala et. al. did not consider the context of the comments besides being in a male or female stream (2017), whereas Olsson did consider the game played during the broadcasts but not other factors such as the focus of the broadcaster, webcam size etc. (2018).
Hamilton et. al. discovered a major theme in their research, which is that “streams develop an atmosphere that reflects the streamer’s attitude and values” (2014, p. 5). Interviewees reported that how a streamer acts on stream attracts viewers who will match it. If a streamer is openly angry, the viewers will reflect that (ibid.). Multiple of the streamers interviewed reported using this as a way to control the stream environment without having to actively
moderate it. The one female streamer interviewed in the study said the following when discussing sexual harassment:
“It really depends on the way you carry yourself … because the attention isn’t on me being a girl, it’s on the game... if you go to any stream, what they [the streamer] is focused
on is what chat will be focused on.” (Hamilton et. al. 2014, p. 5) This finding suggests that the streamer has some amount of control over their chat environment.
In their case study Uszkoreit found that some women turn to their looks and sex appeal in an attempt to compete with the popularity of male streamers(2018). In a previous study by the same scholar, Twitch viewers were interviewed regarding assumed characteristics necessary for a streamer to succeed, they found that while male streamers were required to have interesting personalities and high skill, female streamers needed to have physical attractiveness (2018). Female streamers who turn to their looks may be of the intent to empower women and the female body (ibid.), but the language of the Twitch chat
(Nakandala 2017, Olsson 2018), as well as other research (Ruberg, Cullen & Brewster 2019) suggest otherwise. Ruberg, Cullen and Brewster (2019) did a discourse analysis on the term “titty-streamer”. “Titty-streamer” is a commonly used term and is described as “a derogatory label applied to women streamers by detractors who perceive them as drawing undeserved attention and donations from viewers by presenting their bodies in sexualized ways”
(Ruberg, Cullen & Brewster 2019, p. 2). The study finds that women showing more of their bodies, especially breasts, on stream are often considered “fake” or “cheating” at streaming, taking the easy route to success so to speak. This finding suggests that while female
streamers who turn to their looks may feel empowered (Uszkoreit 2018), the viewers tend to have a different opinion. However, the study was made by analysing forum threads on Twitch’s subreddit; people who actively make the choice and take the time to write out a comment may be of stronger opinion than the average user. The opinion that female streamers who turn to their looks are cheating (Ruberg, Cullen & Brewster 2019) is countered in a study by Todd and Melancon (2018) who investigated the differences in source credibility between male and female streamers and viewers through surveys answered both by male and female viewers watching both the same and opposite gender. The study finds that there is no significant difference in trustworthiness of the streamer regardless of the viewer watching a streamer of the same or opposite sex or not. Ruberg,
Cullen and Brewster’s finding (2019) that showing breasts on stream equals being fake (in the minds of some people) is therefore not supported by Todd and Melancon’s findings (2018), where no difference was found in trustworthiness regardless of the streamer having breasts or not. However, Ruberg, Cullen and Brewster (2019) only focused comments on forum threads about female streamers presented on the subreddit as “titty-streamers” (or similar terms), while Todd and Melancon (2018) surveyed 998 people where 76.9% were male and 21.6% female. The two studies are very different in their approach and analyze completely different datasets.
Todd and Melancon (2019) did another study on gender differences in communication, this time regarding trolling on live streaming services. “Troll” is used to describe people who purposely cause havoc and disrupt online environments. Through surveys information about toxic behaviour and sexual harassment in the participatory communication in Twitch chats was collected and then analyzed. The study found that female viewers watching female streams are more sensitive to picking up on toxic behavior and bullying compared to male viewers. Male viewers did not report any significant difference in toxic behavior and bullying based on the gender of the streamer, where female viewers reported more toxic behavior and bullying in the chat of female streamers than male streamers. However, both male and female viewers agreed to having witnessed more sexual harassment in the communication towards female streamers than male streamers.
This finding is consistent with other studies regarding gender differences in communication and objectification of women on Twitch (Ruberg, Cullen & Brewster 2019, Nakandala et al. 2017) as well as Olsson’s findings that sexual harassment was more frequent in female streams but non-sexual harassment was not (2018).
3.3 Position of the study
While the previous literature is all important in understanding the dynamics of Twitch, none of the studies consider the specific context of the communication. This study continues researching the findings of Nakandala et. al. (2017) and Olsson (2018) of language being more negative towards women on Twitch but takes a qualitative approach to understanding when it happens rather than confirming that it does happen. The study also takes its base in Hamilton et. al.’s finding that streams function as virtual third places. As well as the finding
that streamers influence the environment of their chat (2014) by analysing comments made in the chat in regards to the content the streamer provides.
4. Theoretical Framework
This chapter will outline the theories providing a base for this study. To first understand the space where this study takes place Ray Oldenberg’s “third place” theory will be covered as well as how it has been adapted to current times. “Visual rhetoric” exists both as a theory and method, it will be covered here as a theory and further discussed in the method chapter as a method. Cultivation theory in its current state, originally advanced by George Gerbner, will be elaborated and serve as a tool to help understand findings in the study, as will the concept of participatory culture.
4.1 Third Places
In their article The Third Place Oldenberg and Brissett define third places as the following: “Third places exist outside the home and beyond the "work
lots" of modern economic production. They are places where people gather primarily to enjoy each other's company.”
(1982, p. 269)
They argue that people feeling unsatisfied in life are often lacking a third place to socialize, rather than only going from home to work to home again. Third places are public settings accessible to everyone, where everyone enters as equals despite a large diversity in the participants. Outsiders or even the participants may not find the third place particularly intriguing or exciting, but it exists to socialize and create bonds with other humans, not for excitement purposes. These bonds between humans are created by communication described as non-discursive symbolism. This communication is used to establish non-contractual bonds between people, simply put by “getting to know each other”. Discursive symbolism is used in communication that has a goal, for example when
establishing contracts or meeting clients. People participate in non-discursive symbolism to maintain unity and feel a sense of belonging (Oldenberg & Brissett 1982). These third places can be anything ranging from coffee shops to public parks or anywhere else people gather without a set goal to achieve something from the interactions, such as a single’s club where the goal is finding a partner, third places are for relaxing and taking a break from chores at work or home.
As technology has developed the population as a whole has started spending more time on online activities. Forums, chat rooms and other virtual gathering places have since emerged and scholars have started to research whether such places function as third places.
Markiewicz compared the traditional third places with virtual communities to consider whether these function as virtual third places (2019). They state that third places and virtual communities have many of the characteristics in common but also have differences. For example the members of virtual communities often share the same values, attitudes and beliefs, as they can be selective in their choice of virtual community, compared to third spaces that have limited availability in the sense that they are tied to a physical location, and therefore its members may have more diverse values and beliefs. In regards to age,
appearance and social status virtual communities are however very diverse as people from all over the world can join (ibid.) One of the characteristics of a third space is having regulars as seen in the figure below.
Characteristics of third places Community criteria of a virtual community
Neutral ground Character of communication
A leveller (a levelling place) Character of communication
Conversation, playful mood Interactivity, a sense of responsibility shared by community members
Accessibility and accommodation Character of communication
The regulars Stability of membership and identity
A home away from home Character of communication (including a person dimension), a sense of responsibility shared by community members, stability of membership and identity
Figure 2 Community criteria in a virtual community vs. characteristics of third places according to Oldenburg (Markiewicz 2019)
According to Markiewicz many authors believe relationships online in virtual communities are short-lived and shallow in part because they hide behind anonymity, and therefore they cannot have regulars participating in the community (2019). These authors also believe that online communities tend to only exist for short periods of time, meaning they cannot have a significant role in the members’ lives. Another difference in the characteristics between virtual places and third places, according to these authors, is the lack of formal supervision and rules (Markiewicz 2019). These points do not hold up with the current state of online communities and in particular on Twitch. Many channels have existed and streamed regularly for years with some subscribers staying subbed for over 10 years (Twitchstats 2021) proving that virtual communities are neither short in existence nor do not have regular members. While communities do come and go both in real life and virtually, they can exist for a long time online as well. Communities on Twitch also do not lack formal supervision and rules, not only are they governed by Twitch’s terms of service as well as enforced by Twitch staff members, they also are moderated by the broadcaster and their chosen moderators, meaning this difference in characteristics is not much of a difference after all.
One of Oldenberg’s listed criterias for third spaces is “identity”, which is connected to regulars, as the people participating in the third space are known to one another. The anonymity online does differ from this criteria, but as many people are strongly attached to their online username, either using it across platforms or by having contributions attached to the name (Markiewicz 2019), it becomes less anonymom and more of a nickname regardless of whether the user’s location, face and real name are known. Many such virtual
communities also require users to use only one account/username, and creating multiple is against the rules (ibid,), so creating new accounts to remain anonymous will be governed by the people enforcing the rules, this is for example the case on Twitch.
Soukup argues that spaces in the virtual world are too different to be called third spaces without modification to the term (2006). They point out that Oldenberg’s third spaces are about the localized community whereas virtual communities ascend from the physical geographical limitations, and therefore third spaces cannot exist outside of the local
community as they exist in relation to the local neighborhood, local work and family (ibid.). They also argue that as third spaces should be available to everyone, virtual spaces cannot
be third spaces since many people lack access to the internet, and a person unfamiliar with the technology might experience anxiety and fear in its use rather than warmth and
accessibility. At the same time since virtual communities often are created around common interests a virtual community member would also need existing knowledge to participate (ibid.). As Soukup’s study was done in 2006 and technology has come far since then, it could be argued that the latter points are no longer relevant in most of society. While there are still plenty of people lacking access to the internet in 2021, it is now common in most societies to have smartphones with internet access as well as laptops and home computers, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic causing many people worldwide to work from home when possible.
It should also be noted that virtual communities overcome the limitations of space and time making them more accessible (Markiewicz 2019).
At the time of Soukup’s study social media as we know it today was just starting out, the massive platform Facebook was just two years old and Twitch had yet to launch.
For the purpose of this study virtual third places fulfilling the criteria will be considered as having the same or very similar benefits as Oldenberg’s traditional third places, despite not being localized. As Hamilton et. al. (2014) found, each individual channel on Twitch can be considered its own third place where members join with the space the broadcaster creates being the “place”. These places often spread across multiple platforms as many broadcasters have their own Discord server connected with their Twitch channel. Discord servers on their own can also serve as a third place, which could be of interest to investigate in another study to further develop the concept.
4.2 Visual Rhetoric
“Visual rhetoric is the actual image rhetors generate when they use visual
symbols for the purpose of communicating” (Foss p. 143), while the process of interpreting the meaning of an image to provide a “rhetorical perspective on visual imagery ... is a
critical-analytical tool” (Foss p. 145).
Visual rhetoric is communication via visual images such as pictures, memes, emojis, video radio and more to convey a persuasive message. For the remainder of this section on visual
rhetoric, as well as in the method section, the word “image” will be used to include all the possible visual options such as film, photography, paintings etc.
The message conveyed in images may differ from what the sender intended as the image may be interpreted differently by all receivers, which is what is studied in visual rhetoric studies. Three characteristics are required in a visual rhetoric: symbolic interaction, human intervention and presence of an audience
(Patton 2020).
Symbolic interaction
Symbolic interaction is the symbolic signs used to communicate a message. This
communication uses a semiotic framework that can also be used for analyzing how images convey meaning. This communication consists of a signifier, a signified and a sign (Patton 2020). A signifier is an idea associated with a word or image. A signified is a word where once read, the reader thinks of the visual image. And a sign is the union between the signifier and the signified (ibid.).
For example, when a large amount of the population sees the word “gamer”, they think of a socially awkward loner in their parent’s basement, despite this not being true in every single gamer. The idea that gamers are socially awkward loners is the signifier, the word “gamer” is the signified and the sign is the connection made between the two.
Human intervention
Human intervention is simply the active decision by a human to communicate through a visual. This could be a photographer taking a picture and actively considering lighting, angle, colors etc. (ibid.)
Presence of an audience
This third characteristic is the audience receiving the visual. Patton writes that “The purpose of visual rhetoric is to understand how the parts of visual imagery function and how the various meanings function to produce not only semiotic meaning, but meaning for the audience.” (2020 p. 129).
It is important to keep in mind the distinction between semiotics and visual rhetoric, while both visual rhetoric and semiotics focus on signs and symbols in communication, semiotics do not need to have a persuasive aspect but visual rhetoric does. It also implies the presence of an audience either real or ideal (Patton 2020).
Visual rhetoric, both as theory and method, is necessary in understanding the video feed included in the empirical data in this study.
4.3 Cultivation Theory
Cultivation theory addresses the long-term effects of television on viewers. As it originated in the 1960s television and technology has advanced since then, and so has the theory in order to still be viable. Between 2000 and 2015 over 125 studies endorsed the theory, and helped it adapt as technology evolved (Mosharafa 2015).
Cultivation theory suggests that media has the ability to shape its audience's morals and views of the world through multiple concepts including the symbolic environment, storytelling, the symbolic function and the multidirectional process (ibid.).
According to the theory the heavier consumption of media the higher the cultivation (ibid.), this is one of the points of cultivation theory that has received critique as the theory suggests the cultivation is linear, but does not consider that some people may be more easily
influenced that others, the theory assumes all people get cultivated at the same rate (Potter 2005).
Another criticism of cultivation theory is that the theory does not look at specific genres but rather television (originally) as a whole. Researchers argued that cultivation differed between genres, whereas Gerbner chooses not to use specific genres as the patterns of TV content across genres are often the same. Both crime shows or comedy can have an underlying message of “the truth always comes out” (Mosharafa 2015).
It is important to note that while media has an effect on the consumers, the consumers likewise has an effect on what media is produced, since if nobody consumes the media there will not be a profit (ibid.)
This theory will help research the comments made by viewers on various broadcasts dependent on the content streamed, assuming overall toxicity towards women on Twitch and in gaming has been cultivated over time.
4.4 Participatory Culture
Participatory culture has followed the development of technology that made it possible for anyone with a smartphone to create and share content. A participatory culture is a culture with low barriers and a general lack of gatekeeping on expression and civic engagement. It has strong support for creating and especially sharing creations, and often contains members of different experience who can pass on their knowledge to other members (Jenkins 2009). To understand participatory culture it is important to know that “members also believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least, members care about others’ opinions of what they have created)” (Jenkins 2009, xi). Regarding Twitch this applies as broadcasters care about whether their viewers like their content.
Forms of participatory culture includes affiliations, memberships in online communities, expressions, producing new creative forms, collaborative problem solving, working together to complete tasks (example Wikipedia) and circulations, shaping the flow of media (blogging, podcasting) (Jenkins 2009). Twitch combines multiple of these forms of participatory culture for example both being online communities with members and shaping the flow of media through broadcasts.
Scholars suggest potential benefits from participatory culture include peer-to-peer learning, diversification of culture expressions, development of skills amongst others (ibid.). Issues needing addressing within participatory culture include the participation gap, unequal access to the opportunities and experiences within participatory culture (ibid.).
Uszkoreit (2017) discovered that participating in gaming and eSports is connected to the mastery of technology. The connection between the inclusion into the gaming community and video games and children’s inclination to entering STEM disciplines is a topic of research. This becomes an issue when Twitch and the gaming community is considered toxic towards minorities, who in some cases are therefore not reaping the benefits of participatory culture.
4.5 Summary
By combining all the mentioned theories it will create a necessary toolkit to understand and analyze the empirical data of this study. The theory of third places helps create an
helps expand the understanding of the dynamics within this community and how
participating can benefit the members of said community. Visual rhetoric is a necessary tool in analyzing the video feed part of the empirical data. Without analysing the video feed itself it is not possible to make connections between the comments made in chat and different factors such as webcam size and the focus of the content, which in turn would make the study unable to answer its research questions. Lastly cultivation theory provides a possible explanation for why the communication towards women on Twitch consist of so many sexual cues and hateful messages as Nakandala et. al (2017) and Olsson (2018) found, and allows this study to explore those types of messages in context with the video feed during which they were posted.
5. Research Method
This chapter explains the methodological approach to analysing the empirical data of this study. It will start by presenting the qualitative approach before expanding further on visual rhetoric as a more specific approach. The study’s limitations and ethical considerations will also be covered to make the basis of the study more transparent.
5.1 Qualitative research
Qualitative research seeks to understand phenomena in context specific situations (Golafshani 2003). Qualitative research is a broad term for research of data that is not quantified, and has multiple approaches (Flick 2007). Two of the approaches to qualitative research will be used in this study.
- Analyzing interactions and communications in the making, in this case the comments made in Twitch chat and potential interactions between the broadcaster and chatters.
- Analyzing images, in this case the video feed accompanying the chat room on Twitch. To do this the study will take a visual rhetoric approach.
While a quantitative approach to analysing the comments could also have been useful, both the limitations of this study prevented that approach, as well as the individual comments being of focus, not only the number of comments.
5.2 Visual Rhetoric
The studying of visual rhetoric is of great importance when studying communication, as it furthers the understanding of the dynamics in public persuasion.
Studying visual rhetoric is not studying the isolated image, but rather studying the image in the specific context the audience will encounter it in and the meaning that context gives it. When using visual rhetoric as a method three different characteristics are used than in the theory, these are: nature of the image, function of the image and evaluation of the image (Patton 2020).
Nature of the image
Nature of the image consists of two components, both the presented elements, what is seen on the surface level of the image, as well as the suggested elements. Nature of the image is
the reality of the scene (ibid.)
For example images on cigarette cartons show people with various damages and illness.
Function of the image
Function of the image is not the purpose of the image but rather what the audience takes away from it, the things they may conclude when seeing the nature of the image. Sometimes the purpose of the image and the function end up being the same when the author is
successful in their persuasion, but that is not always the case (ibid.).
An example of the function of the image is when a shopper may infer illness and fear when seeing the images on cigarette cartons.
Evaluation of the image
Evaluation of the image is the analysis of the image and the conclusions that are drawn from the analysis. There are two approaches when analysing images this way, the inductive approach and the deductive approach.
Inductive approach A type of reasoning and argument that goes from a specific situation to a general
assumption.
Deductive approach A type of reasoning and argument that goes from a general assumption to a specific situation.
Figure 3 (Patton 2020 p. 127)
Many different theories can contribute to analysing an image and its symbols.
Through an inductive approach researchers find the unique features of the image that are distinct from the isolated discursive symbol (Patton 2020).
“The visual images mean something because the viewer conveys a message onto the symbol itself.” (ibid. p. 130).
It often happens that only through visual imagery or other non discursive symbols can human experiences that are dynamic, nonlinear and multidimensional be communicated (Foss 2005), which makes visual rhetorics a critical tool both as a method and theory that contributes to pressing communicative issues of today like bullying, sexism and sexual harassment (Patton 2020), all of which are present in this study. While rhetorical theory seeks to understand the context of this discourse and why it happens, “visual rhetoric helps to place the focus on the images that are often paired with such persuasive discursive messaging” (ibid., p. 134).
Because of the development of technology there is now a general lack of gatekeeping on social media (news papers have editors etc.) where anyone can now post persuasive
messages to a potential worldwide audience. This creates an important and massive field of study for anyone researching communication (Patton 2020).
5.3 Sampling
“Sampling” is often considered selecting the “right” cases from a pre-existing selection of cases (Flick 2007). This approach was followed in the study by recording more broadcasts than are featured in the study, and then selecting the ones that can be compared to each other. The times of each broadcast were not chosen by the author, but rather recorded at opportune moments. This was done in order to prevent the author from watching a stream and choosing a specific time to record and thereby influencing the content of the material included. The author afterwards selected which broadcasts to include in the study without watching the whole recording but based on the content of the streams (gameplay, IRL etc.) that were comparable to each other. Comparing Twitch broadcasts can be complicated as no two channels are the same, so the most comparable recordings in regards to size and content were selected for the study.
Due to illness on the authors part the study was paused for about a year which resulted in recordings from both April 2020 and May 2021, this turned out to be useful as recordings now exist of the same broadcaster creating different types of content.
When choosing broadcasts to record the author went under the Twitch Directory (Twitch Directory 2021) and sorted by most viewers to find women who were live. The author was already aware of some channels with the potential to be relevant after being a member on
Twitch since May 2012, these channels were followed to be notified of when they were live. Finding a channel with a female streamer with no webcam is difficult as it requires a person to watch the stream and learn more about the broadcaster to know. Therefore a few such broadcasters which filled the criteria for the study, that the author was already familiar with, were recorded. A link to each streamer’s channel included in the study will be linked under their respective appendix.
Twitch channels can turn on “subscribers only”, “emote only”, “followers only” and “slow mode”. Only channels without emote only and subscriber only were used, as these prevent the flow of a free chat. Slow mode and followers only are still included, most of the channels had followers only mode on where viewers had to be followed between 2-10 minutes to type in the chat, a small layer of protection against harassment.
As it has already been confirmed in previous literature (Nakala et. al 2017 and Olsson 2018) that women receive more negative communication on Twitch, a choice was made to not include male broadcasters in the study, and focus at said communication targeted at women.
5.4 Analysing the material
The material for the study consists of the chosen recordings of broadcasts on Twitch including the comments made in the chat room during the broadcasts.
To create structure in the material categories for the comments were first created (sexual cues, sexual harassment, game-related harassment, harassment, misogonystic comments and foreign comments). Each recording was then watched to count and categorize the comments. Comments that did not fit the categories were not included as they were not of focus in this study.
The recordings were watched again to analyse the video feed and make note of any events that could be related to the comments.
Lastly the comments and video feeds were analysed together and then compared to other broadcasts.
5.5 Ethical considerations
Ethical considerations when conducting research are important to not put anyone included in the study in harm's way (Flick 2007).
To do ethically sound research several things must be considered such as informed consent, participants' privacy, and accuracy of the data and analysis (ibid).
In the case of this study the people being researched are public figures and the data being provided is public access, which means they have not consented to participating in the study. However their privacy will still be considered and will only be mentioned by their chosen usernames when addressing the broadcasters, despite their actual names being publically available. The chatters who’s messages are included in the study will be anonymous. It could be argued that they already are anonymous as it is already a nickname and not their actual names, but many members online use the same nickname across platforms and have strong ties to their chosen name, therefore the names will not be included. The information
included in the study is only what the broadcasters and chatters have chosen to share publicly.
Content streamed on Twitch can be saved as a VOD with different availability options if the broadcaster chooses to do so. The activity in the chat room is also stored in these VODs, however should any comment be timed out it would not appear in the VOD. As the
comments made durings streams were necessary for this study including the ones timed out, the streams were recorded. The content in these recordings belong to the broadcasters and will only be used for the purpose of this study. The recordings will not be uploaded anywhere and should they be necessary for research they can be requested by the author. These
recordings are also a tool to help increase the accuracy of the data.
Screenshots from the recordings will be included in appendices for visual aid in the analysis. Considering the women analysed in this study are put on display it is important to consider whether this will result in them receiving more harassment. While unable to confirm if more harassment will occur, the author deems it unlikely considering the academic environment this study will be published in and the effort it would take from reading this study to seek out a specific streamer, find them live, and then harass them. Albeit still a risk.
5.6 Limitations
This study is limited due to the short recordings (of 30 minutes each) that are part of the empirical data, considering how many hours the individual broadcasters stream a week this is a relatively small example. However the time restraints and size of the study did not allow for larger portions of broadcasts to be considered.
The study only features English speaking broadcasters and chat rooms, foreign comments still appear in the channels and will be recorded. The author can not comment on the content of these comments as well as the communication environment in other languages spoken on Twitch.
The study is also limited in diversity and there is a general lack of representation of all ethnicities. This was not by choice but rather by coincidence, the broadcasts were chosen based on popularity and comparable content, as well as being live during the author’s time zone. The study would however benefit from more ethnic diversity.
Each broadcaster on Twitch is a person and no two are the same, that means comparing them in a study of this nature will never be 100% accurate. To create more accuracy the streams would have to be planned in regards to the study so a broadcaster could create different types of content that could be compared. Even doing so would not be 100% accurate as each streamer has their own community and regulars that act differently from each other and therefore could not be generalized with accuracy.
Human error must be considered as qualitative research is not like math with only right and wrong answers, but rather human interpretation. Human error could also occur as the comments are counted manually and what is considered sexual or harassment may differ from person to person. To combat this error classifications of the comments are described for transparency. Another human error can be related to the jargon used on Twitch, as everyone speaks differently and each channel has its own behavioral patterns. That means the author could misinterpret comments and in turn miss negative comments made on a stream or interpret something as negative that was not.
Trustworthiness is one of the factors included when considering the quality of qualitative research. To increase trustworthiness, bias must be eliminated and transparency increased (Golafshani 2003). There is a risk of unintended bias on the author’s part as the author is both female and has been an active member on Twitch since May 2021, which means she could also be under cultivation as well as biased through personal experiences on Twitch. To combat this the author deliberately chose channels she was not already an active member of (with the exception of no-webcam channels). Being an active member has however assisted with navigating Twitch, the channels and understanding the language on the platform as well as deep firsthand knowledge regarding the various relationships on Twitch.
6. Result and Analysis
In this section the results from analysing the empirical data will first be presented, before comparing the results with each other to look for differences in regards to the research questions. Lastly these findings will be discussed.
6.1 Empirical data analysis
The empirical data consists of six recordings of about 30 minutes each of five different channels as well as their chat rooms during these 30 minutes. First the channels will be described and analysed for their themes, then the comments.
6.2 Channels
In this section each channel’s recording(s) will be described and analysed. 6.2.1 Amouranth April 2020
Twith.tv/Amouranth
Title: I GOT BACK IN THE KITCHEN-- subs get !snapchat Category: Just Chatting
2300 viewers
During this stream Amouranth is cooking sweet potato hash browns, struggling to cut the large sweet potatoes. Her video feed is a fullscreen camera feed of her kitchen with her in the middle of it. Her outfit consists of a crop top with spaghetti straps and cleavage, a mini skirt and over knee socks. In the background the only thing of note is the cardboard cut-out of a half naked Santa claus. In the top left corner her social media handles are circulating and there is a counter for subscribers activating their subscription during the stream. The text
says “Give Dogs Treats! Every 10 subs”. She is talking to the chat throughout the stream, but most of the communication is towards her chat, not with her chat, meaning she does not interact with it much by responding to comments or asking questions.
As there is no game played in this stream, harassment targeting Amouranth’s cooking skills are counted as game-related harassment.
While the activity during the stream is cooking, the focus of the content is not. The choice of outfit as well as the angle of the camera puts focus on Amouranth and her body. Her stream is in the category Just Chatting instead of Food and Drink despite being a cooking stream, and, as mentioned, the camera does not focus on the food but rather her, where she stands is the center of the screen. The outfit and the half naked Santa in the background both suggest sexual undertones.
The title refers to the meme saying “Get back in the kitchen” often followed by “and make me a sandwich” or “where you belong” typically targeted at women in male-dominated spaces. While both being used to make fun of the people holding such beliefs, people using the phrase in a misogynistic manner do exist, which means the title can be interpreted differently depending on who reads it. It can either affirm such beliefs or poke fun at them, either way it repeats the sentiment out loud that women belong in the kitchen.
6.2.2 Amouranth May 2021
Twitch.tv/Amouranth
Title: HOT TUB SPIN THE AMMOWHEEL™ !s !social !INSTAGRAM: amouranth
!GFUEL
Category: Just Chatting 13.000 viewers
Channel marked 18+: No (Twitchtracker Amouranth 2021)
During this stream Amouranth switches between multiple activities dressed in a bikini all while she is in a blow-up pool indoors. Behind her is a wheel that she spins which in turn chooses the activity. During this recording she plays Marbles on stream, Mario Kart, beer pong, basketball and Pokémon charades. Her camera is full screen with her in focus, when she plays games the game is an overlay on top of the fullscreen (see appendix 3).
In the bottom right corner is a new follower counter and in the top left are the biggest donation, sub goal/donation goal counter as well as sub goal rewards. Her social media handles are circulating underneath. Sub goals consist of a bikini change, writing the donator/sub gifter's name on her forehead or body, doing squats, putting a sticker on the wall behind her among others. Throughout the stream she talks to chat and responds to some comments, but no conversations which is to be expected as the chat moves very fast.
While Amouranth does not explicitly say “I will show you my body from various angles for money”, that is what her content does. The different sub/donation goals are made to do just this, for example “sticker on wall” is designed to make her turn around, as is the wheel she spins. Other goals such as “name on body” is a way for subscribers/donors to indirectly touch her by having their name written on her skin. Wearing a bikini on Twitch is against TOS unless you are by a beach or pool, so a blow up-pool indoor creates a loophole to do so regardless. The top donation is described as “Biggest D”, “D” also being slang for penis. More slang is to
be found in her title where the emojis and are used. The peach symbolises a buttocks and the sweat droplets can symbolise both male ejaculation, sweating because something is hot, or being wet.
Her stream is in the Just Chatting category through the entire recording, even when she plays games. This could be because her content does not gain much traction in game categories, or because she changes activity so often that it is inconvenient to change category every time. At one point Amouranth responds to a comment saying “How big are they?”:
“”How big are they?” Chat, I’m at a point where I’m just like “why do you care?”, but at the same point, you know it’s like, well the people who like this are the reason I make so much fucking money. I’m like, I want to yell at you but I can’t, damn it. … It’s the conflict of interest
you know, the ones who are sex crazed are the reasons why THOTS are able to live and eat every month, so it’s like I can’t tell you off even though I desire to. So conflicting.”
- Amouranth 2021
With this statement Amouranth indicates that she wants to speak out against the sexual harassment taking place in her chat, but these are also the people providing her income as they are into the sexualized content she creates. Uszkoreit writes that when women cannot stream high level gameplay, they might take the alternative route to be accepted, by turning to looks and sex appeal instead (2018). When entering the male-dominated Twitch
community, women often adapt to behavioural patterns that are accepted within the
community (ibid.). As previous literature has already stated that women are often objectified and sexualized on Twitch (Nakandala et. al. 2017, Olsson 2018, Uszkoreit 2018), by creating
content like this Amouranth adapts to the people of those beliefs to the point of referring to herself as a THOT, which in turn has made her a successful streamer. At the same time Amouranth received a lot of harassment (see figure 5 and 6 in section 6.3) that was not of sexual nature, criticizing her for her content with comments such as “Put some clothes on, this is a Gaming Platform” and “IS THIS CHATURBATE OR TWITCH”.
This suggests the Twitch community as a whole is divided about what is acceptable behavioural patterns. As each Twitch stream is different and its own community, the acceptable behavior also differs between individual streams.
The nature of this study does not allow the author to know what Amouranth’s reasons are for creating this content, she expresses making a lot of money but could also feel
empowered by her body or enjoy the validation from viewers amongst other reasons. To find out Amouranth would have to be addressed directly.
6.2.3 Pokimane May 2021
Twitch.tv/Pokimane
Title: diamond solo Q sova/raze/viper, wish me luck poggers Category: Valorant
16.500 viewers
During this stream Pokimane plays solo queue Valorant, this means she enters the game alone and gets teamed up with randoms. Valorant is a highly competitive first person shooter. Pokimane’s webcam is in the top left corner to cover the minimap. Her outfit consists of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. During the stream she mostly focuses on the game, which is fast and requires attention, but does not pay attention to all details of the game (such as the economy of both her team and opponents). She does interact with chat when possible, responding to comments, asking questions, but not only is the game fast, so is the chat. Bottom left corner shows a small box cycling with her sponsors. Pokimane both talks with her teammates as well as commenting on the game, she is not quiet for longer periods of time.
The focus of Pokimane’s stream is the gameplay. She does not do anything to draw attention to herself rather than the game. Her webcam is bigger and angled to show more of her body than the most typical shoulders and up angle, but it does not draw attention away from the game or particularly puts any more attention on her physical attributes. Her title informs the viewers of what she is doing followed by a “wish me luck poggers”, “poggers” is both an emote often used on Twitch as well as slang, both are used to express excitement.
“Diamond” as stated in the title is her rank in Valorant. Valorant has a ranking system that has eight ranks, each rank but the highest one has three tiers, where diamond is the third highest. This seems to be the biggest issue for the viewers harassing her with comments such as:
“She does not deserve to be such a high rank, i haven’t witnessed a single round where she has killed someone then survived. You’re all just watching a girl spectate good players”
“N YO ASS AINT DIAMOND WE KOW YO ASS PROBABALY GOLD AT BEST HA !!!! Yo caption actin like u diamond but u n I bofe know yo ass ain’t really diamond! IF I HAD TO SAY YO ASS
MAYBE SILVER !!!! N THAS A REACH! LIKE YO ASS PROLLY AINT EEN SILVER HA !!!!”
“she’s not diamond good lol. Other streamers are way better. It just doesn’t make sense :) just saying. People are in denial. Look at other streamers.”
Many similar comments were made calling her “boosted”. Most of these types of comments rarely directly addressed Pokimane with words such as “you”, but rather called her “she” or
“this girl”. These game related harassments emphasize on her gender, for example in the first comment mentioned above “You’re all just watching a girl spectate good players”, compared to saying “You’re all just watching someone spectate good players”. These comments support the findings of previous studies saying women get objectified on Twitch (Nakandala et. al. 2017, Olsson 2018, Uszkoreit 2018). Generally the comments have the theme that because Pokimane is a girl playing in Diamond rank, she must be boosted.
At one point she asked her chat if they enjoyed her playing on her main account as she has one that is lower rank as well. The regulars in her chat responded that they enjoyed it but chat was awful when she played on her main account. This could imply that her chat does not always have as much harassment, and thereby her being higher rank than the average player is a problem for some people. Considering GamerGate this in turn could be a sign that the people who do harass Pokimane are the ones upset that a woman is succeeding on Twitch by playing games at a higher skill level than they can.
6.2.4 itsHafu May 2021
Title: HAFU -- HELLO!!!!! mornin’ valo lobby :D -- COOKING STREAM @4PM PST(ish) TODAY Category: Valorant
4500 Viewers
