Twitch Gaming Communities: Toxicity and Political Power

It’s impossible to talk about Twitch gaming communities without recognizing their political power and impact. Popular Twitch streamer HasanAbi streams both leftist political content and gaming content, frequently intertwined, despite the fact that Twitch and Twitch gaming creators have long had a connection to the alt right pipeline--- white supremacists are intertwined in communities, particularly first person shooters, and recruit the often-young players of those games subtly over time (Kamenetz, “Right-Wing Hate Groups Are Recruiting Video Gamers”). Former Twitch Streamer Dr. Witnesser attempted to convert children on Fortnite to Christianity, which is naturally problematic considering the young age of the typical users of Fortnite, and was then banned on Twitch after he told a young Muslim child that he was going to hell (Conner, “Teaching Gamers About God”). Notable here is Witnesser’s move to DLive, a platform known for its lax rules and proliferation of Neo-Nazis, indicating Twitch’s intention to halt the spread of the alt right pipeline on their platform, though their actual success at this has yet to be proven. Furthermore, earlier this year following the Capitol insurrection, Twitch decided to change one of their most popular emotes (PogChamp) after the person it depicts, Gootecks, sent out a flurry of incendiary tweets regarding the event (Haasch, “Twitch removed one of its oldest and most iconic emotes”). Twitch, particularly during the pandemic, has aimed to uplift BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and female streamers as a way to combat the fact that white cis men tend to conquer the more prominent spots on the platform--- for example, the most subscribed to female streamer on the platform, CaptainPuffy, is 39th overall (Lufkin, “How online gaming has become a social lifeline”). That’s outside of the politics of the games themselves--- as Tanner Mirrlees and Taha Ibaid point out in their 2021 study titled The Virtual Killing of Muslims: Digital War Games, Islamophobia, and the Global War on Terror, following 9/11 there was a flurry of games that encouraged and normalized violence against Muslims. Toxicity as always existed in gaming, part of it is the nature of a competitive game--- anyone who’s ever played video games online knows the kind of talk that happens in a Call of Duty lobby--- however this toxicity is frequently racist, homophobic or sexist in nature. Despite the ratio of women to men that play video games being more evenly split then ever, especially with gaming’s rise in popularity during the pandemic, female gamers and streamers experience disproportionate amounts of hate--- for proof try watching Pokimane or QT Cinderella go through the unban requests of people who were banned from their chats (Lal, “Toxicity In Gaming Culture”). A highly public example of the toxicity of gaming culture came during the incident this month where, while streaming on Twitch, Heat center Meyers Leonard used an anti-semitic slur in a fit of rage, sparking backlash on Twitter, a ban from Twitch, and a $50,000 fine from the NBA (Wojnarowski, “Oklahoma City Thunder trade Trevor Ariza to Miami Heat for Meyers Leonard”). This kind of behavior and controversy isn’t exactly new in gaming--- I still distinctly remember when in middle school massively popular YouTuber Pewdiepie paid someone on Fiver who didn’t speak English to say “kill all Jews.” Furthermore, gaming has been just as impacted by the #MeToo movement as the rest of society--- last year over 200 sexual harassment complaints from Twitch streamers were revealed in a spreadsheet, and recently former Minecraft YouTuber CallMeCarson was exposed as having sexted underage fans (Greenspan; Tenbarge). Like much of society, gaming communities have likewise had controversies over cancel culture and its validity, especially when you take into account how normalized slurs are/were in certain gaming spaces. However, it should be noted that cancel culture and legitimate criminal allegations, like those against CallMeCarson and other streamers over the years, should not be conflated. As variety streamer xQcOW said, “That’s not cancelled! That’s the law! That’s the f*cking law! When you do a crime, you go to jail! You’re not cancelled, you’re a criminal!” However, toxicity isn’t an integral part of gaming--- moderation both by humans and machines is getting better than ever, and as more gaming communities become less tolerant of the negatives of gaming culture, it will subside (Lal). Twitch and YouTube can help set the overall gaming culture. Even government entities have realized the power of Twitch and Youtube gamers and utilized them for a variety of reasons. NASA live streams their International Space System spacewalks to tens of thousands of viewers on Twitch, the Inauguration this past January was streamed with commentary from tour guides, and the U.K.’s Boris Johnson’s press briefings about the COVID-19 Pandemic and changing regulations are live streamed on Twitch--- and are frequently victim to a chaotic chat spamming copy pastas. Recently, the U.S. Army’s eSports Twitch channel has come under fire for banning the words “war crime” from their chat--- and therefore violating the 1st Amendment, and lawmakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for the Army to cease its eSports recruiting (Horton, “Army ban on war crime comments during Twitch stream may have violated First Amendment, lawyers say”). If anyone’s familiar with the political power of Twitch, it’s AOC, whose October Among Us livestream with gaming creators such as Corpse Husband was one of the biggest events encouraging young people to vote in the 2020 Election (Haasch, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…”).

Works Cited

Conner, Kurtis. “Teaching Gamers About God.” YouTube, uploaded by Kurtis Conner, 11 February 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFP-wGwG7MI.

Greenspan, Rachel E.. “200 allegations of sexual misconduct in gaming were revealed in a recent spreadsheet. Streamers say it reflects sexism they face every day.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/twitch-sexual-assault-misconduct-allegations-video-gaming-community-streamers-harassment-2020-7. 25 July 2020.

Haasch, Palmer. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'Among Us' Twitch stream met voters where they were, and the memes prove it.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-among-us-twitch-stream-memes-vote-2020-10. 22 October 2020.

Haasch, Palmer. “Twitch removed one of its oldest and most iconic emotes after the Capitol siege, saying it encouraged 'further violence'.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/pogchamp-capitol-twitch-removes-gootecks-twitter-emote-poggers-siege-protest-2021-1. 7 January 2021.

Horton, Alex. “Army ban on war crime comments during Twitch stream may have violated First Amendment, lawyers say.” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2020/07/20/army-esports-twitch-speech/. 20 July 2020.

I would highly recommend giving the above article a read, it's an interesting dilemma and, in my opinion, a very funny situation.

Lal, Kabir. “Toxicity In Gaming Culture: Roundtable With xQcOW, Lilypichu, Destiny, Sweet_Anita, And Devin Nash.” Healthy Gamer, https://www.healthygamer.gg/toxicity-in-gaming-culture/. 18 August 2020.

Lufkin, Bryan. “How Online Gaming Has Become A Social Lifeline.” BBC, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201215-how-online-gaming-has-become-a-social-lifeline. 16 December 2020.

Mirrlees, Tanner and Taha Ibaid. “The Virtual Killing of Muslims: Digital War Games, Islamophobia, and the Global War on Terror.” Islamophobia Studies Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/islastudj.6.1.0033. Accessed 23 March 2021.

Tenbarge, Kat. “A 'Minecraft' YouTube star has been accused of 'grooming' and sexting with 2 underage fans.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/carson-callmecarson-king-accusations-of-grooming-underage-fans-youtube-2021-1. 6 January 2021.

xQcOW. “xQc - "YOU'RE NOT CANCELLED, YOU'RE A CRIMINAL.” YouTube, uploaded by Twitch Shorts, 12 March 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofINmV8gtPs.

Wojnarowski, Adrian. “Oklahoma City Thunder trade Trevor Ariza to Miami Heat for Meyers Leonard, draft pick.” ESPN, https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31081495/sources-oklahoma-city-thunder-agree-trade-trevor-ariza-miami-heat-meyers-leonard. 17 March 2021.