
For women on Twitch, appearing single has become a minefield - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17661596/twitch-relationship-status-amouranth-women-donations-single
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chris_mc
> For women on _real life_ , appearing single has become a minefield

FTFY, women have had it hard forever when trying to be normal people with
normal lives, but some men don't seem to get that they aren't just a sex
object to exploit. Whether it's on Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, or on the
street, women get hassled day in, day out.

The only way to truly fix it is to get male society, as a whole, to respect
women more, which will take a ton of work since I am sure half the comments
below mine here will be about how I'm wrong and men are all paragons of moral
virtue, explaining how women can be bad people too, or some other logical
misdirection/fallacy.

~~~
always_good
Like most of the animal kingdom, we also live in a world where men must
approach the women, and women are the "sexual selectors".

I think that asymmetry of the social economy explains a lot more than we
think. But we frequently ignore it.

For example, why are incels only men? Why is it so hard for a woman to bother
a man with sexual harassment?

I think there are deeper issues and underlying realities to explore than just
"ugh, men!"

Every morning I watch my tiny rooster chase the hens around until one gives in
and lets him mount her. That is closer to the reality of humans than we like
to admit, we just have more ritual in our sexual script.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Why is it so hard for a woman to bother a man with sexual harassment?

Oh, that's actually very easy. All the woman has to do is walk up to the man
and shove her finger up his asshole (even over clothes). That is a) totally
sexual harassment and b) absolutely unwanted by the vast majority of men.

I think you're just unnecessarily restricting your definition of "sexual
harassment".

------
6cd6beb
Honestly it makes sense to not consider these streamers as people, but as
businesses.

You shouldn't do inhumane things to them, and harassment of any kind is off
the table for decent people acting decently, but you don't know this person
and you never will. They don't care about you. They're a creator and you're a
consumer.

The waitress is not flirting with you and the stripper doesn't love you.
They're both at work.

------
always_good
I cringe when I think of how much time I spent playing games as a kid.

But at least I was playing games, solving problems, getting better at
something, being challenged, and even building relationships online.

I can't imagine the disappointment of having a kid addicted to watching
someone else play games or live their life, nor can I imagine something as
unfulfilling. Much less obsessing over the marital status of some online
personality in a chat room with fellow losers.

As I got older, I realized why my parents kicked me off the computer so much.
I resented it as a kid the same way I resented having to spend a whole 30
minutes mowing the lawn, but I'm grateful and I can relate to their fear as
parents even though I don't yet have kids.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I can 't imagine the disappointment of having a kid addicted to watching
> someone else play games or live their life, nor can I imagine something as
> unfulfilling._

I know how you feel. I'm going to be crushed if my kid likes watching baseball
games on TV.

~~~
volkk
I think I see what you did there, but I don't think it's an apt comparison.
Watching people compete has been done for as long as civilization has been
around, and there is something not only interesting but inspiring watching
certain people that are the best at what they do compete against others.

Watching Twitch streams of people sitting there either putting on makeup, or
some guy sitting in McDonalds eating a cheeseburger spouting memes is the
ultimate form of narcissism. It doesn't develop anything positive but instead
indulges the wrong aspects of people. Letting kids, who soak up everything,
watch this daily is extremely poisonous and develops the wrong values.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Twitch also features people competing in games.

And people have been watching people do banal things forever as well. Plays,
soap operas. Wasn't Seinfeld famously referred to as the show about nothing?
What about community busy-bodies? What about birdwatchers?

I do agree that there are negatives here, but you're bringing up the worst of
Twitch. Of _course_ I don't want my kid obsessions over someone who happens to
have a smart phone, a twitch account, and a +2 CHA modifier. But you can't
bring up the Olympics as one counterexample, and some idiot eating a burger as
another.

Also, what's wrong with watching someone put on make-up? Did you never watch
Bob Ross paint a happy little tree?

~~~
volkk
Well I'm mostly bringing up the worst of twitch because that's what this
article is focusing on. In terms of watching e-sports, that's easily
comparable to watching basketball on TV. I do the same thing.

What I'm bringing up is the IRL streams. If you're comparing the genius of
Seinfeld to the mindnumbing garbage that you see on those streams, then I'm
not sure what we're discussing here at all.

I'm also not sure why I can't bring up the Olympics since your initial point
is exactly just that except using baseball as an example.

Watching someone put on makeup as an ASMR sort of thing like Bob Ross is also
fine. You're missing the point of what I'm trying to say here. Bob Ross didn't
wear skimpy clothes and share racist opinions all day on TV, either. He sat
there and painted. There wasn't any romantic undertones with his viewers if
they watched him long enough or paid him enough money. It's honestly crazy to
me that I even have to have this argument and that this isn't objectively
agreed upon.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Yeah, you're right. I still don't think it's the end of the world - it doesn't
seem significantly different to me than people getting hooked on soap operas,
but you're definitely right that this is much more aimed at children and young
people than other media, and we don't really have a good way of educating kids
about why the shitty shows are shitty.

------
jandrese
Basically, Twitch streamers should accept that they are effectively minor
celebrities and all of the baggage associated with that. It's a hassle but
they aren't the first ones to experience it.

This is the dark flipside to "sex sells". A bunch of those viewers weren't
tuned in because they care about your recipes, they tuned in because your
profile picture shows cleavage.

~~~
gtf21
I'm not sure that they should _accept_ it. The fact that it happens to other
people doesn't make it any more acceptable.

Saying "they tuned in because your profile picture shows cleavage" implicitly
places some blame on the woman in question for "using sex to sell", but women
have been subject to this sort of criticism pretty much forever and it's
basically the same as slut shaming, suggesting that someone has something
coming to them because of the way she (almost invariably she) is dressed.

Pointing out that there is a problem for women on these streaming sites is
perfectly valid, as it raises the profile of the issue. I don't use any of
these sites so I have to say I was pretty surprised by the video which talked
about "Amouranth's big secret", it was _really_ pathetic and probably
highlights a huge problem in the extent to which these people will dig into
the private lives of others - borderline stalking IMO.

~~~
jandrese
If you want to fix celebrity worship culture be my guest.

~~~
gtf21
I can't fix it, but we shouldn't excuse its unpleasant sides.

------
magic_beans
I will never understand why some people will watch a streamer with a bit of
cleavage showing and be offended that she is in a relationship.

Just because one sees boobs does not mean they _belong_ to you!!!

------
laurex
The "sex sells so this isn't sexism" argument would feel more plausible if
there were lots of women who weren't seen as "sexy" making money on Twitch, or
if the men who are making lots of money were doing so because of perceived
"hotness."

------
ordinaryradical
I mean, if you’re going to commoditize your sexuality as a product in an
interactive medium, should you really be surprised that people will cross
boundaries with you in attempting to have “more?”

Seems pretty obvious that there is some kind of fantasy element to watching
these streamers that a part of the audience gets off on. People can trick
themselves into believing they have a “relationship” in this format even more
easily than with other forms of media. And much like the fans of K-pop idols,
having that fantasy be intruded on by reality upsets the fantasizer. The
emasculated, or creepy, would of course want a medium that didn’t contain the
risks of true human contact or relationship, so I don’t think this is a
particularly surprising outcome given the audience this medium attracts.

Couching this as “yet one more difficulty women face” or proof of inequality
is completely missing the forest for the trees.

~~~
metajack
You are using the "she asked for it" argument to rationalize this behavior.
Stop. Harassing people is wrong.

~~~
ordinaryradical
That is absolutely not the argument I’m making. I’m pointing out that if you
objectify yourself for consumption people get weird. That doesn’t make what
the men do okay either—far from it—but it doesn’t make it new and it also
doesn’t make it sexism. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, celebrities
have been dealing with this kind of behavior since forever.

Is this an outcome of making oneself in a fantasy relationship with ones
viewers? Absolutely.

~~~
kup0
Not sure "this always happens so get used to it / stop complaining / don't be
surprised" does anything other the blame the person getting harassed.

The argument is _indeed_ dangerously close to "you dressed immodestly so you
deserve it".

It's only missing the deserve sentiment, but is still roughly, "X always
happens when you do Y, so it's your fault that X happens if you keep doing Y"

~~~
ordinaryradical
Because, as said elsewhere in this topic, the sexes are not coequals in sexual
selection, not even close. And when someone zooms in on a peculiar dynamic
like this one and says “AHA, men!” they completely miss this.

This is built into the nature of sexual relationships across the genders and
possibly even gender itself. What I’m talking about is descriptive, not
oughts. No one ought to be harassed, but people will keep doing this because
it is an outflowing of an emasculated culture.

What I don’t like about your line of argument is how it infantilizes women.
It’s clear just by the nature of how this medium has developed that it’s going
to create unwanted or unrecriprocated sexual attention. It’s a fantasy
relationship simulator. That doesn’t make harassment okay, either. But how do
you police this? Are you really saying women need to be protected from the
precise male gaze they are courting? How?

Not only is this impractical, demonizing men or trying to frame this as a
woman’s liberation issue just furthers the emasculation culture which leads to
the creepy, inappropriate behavior you take issue with

