this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (18 children)

For years, Twitch's "Just Chatting" section has basically been podcasts, Reaction content where streamers play a youtube and go take a shit, and (generally female presenting) streamers in various states of undress. You may have heard of "the hot tub meta" which involved putting on a skimpy bikini.

This has resulted in some pretty awkward front pages where it can look like you are looking out the window in a beach town or left a PG-13 movie on. Because, you know, bikinis.

This came to a head semi-recently when "the topless meta" became a thing where (generally) female (presenting) streamers would put on a tube top, position the camera like they are doing a face stream in the early 2010s, and make people think they are actually topless. So obviously a bunch of the most generic white guys with man buns on the planet (and Kai "Trick guests and other streamers into being raped by my violent rapist buddy" Cenat) lost their shit and competed to go viral with their Reaction content to putting something tamer than what TBS shows on daytime television when they play Austin Powers on the screen.

So Twitch/Amazon actually made a good decision for the first time in years by allowing artistic nudity and sexualized content so long as streamers checked a box that would add content warnings and take them off the front page. Which led to a race to promote OF/Fansly content by the streamers interested in that and to show how sexualized content is destroying the white man by the usual suspects. And Twitch, rather than try to moderate this, rolled it back.

Because, as OP demonstrates, there is this completely asinine "theory" that bikini streamers are ruining and taking over twitch. And, while I am not a fan and wish we had the content warning policy, they really aren't. The top 100 streamers by almost any metric are almost universally dudes (many in tanktops because they hit the gym and male nipples aren't scary) with the few female streamers being people like Pokimane or QTCinderella who actively do not do this kind of content.

But just look at people like andrew tate and like half of kick. There is a lot of money in pushing incel content and hate.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (12 children)

I agree that 95% of the reason is just men being uncomfortable with women having success in "their" space when it involves their sexuality, but I can also sympathize with being unable to find a mid-sized chill stream to watch because so many of them are half-nude ASMR streams or body painting. It's like how YouTube has so much trashy corporate garbage protmoted in its algorithm, it's just exhausting to wade through sometimes.

The way incentives are currently set up on both sites just happen to prioritize those types of content though, so it's pointless to get mad at the creators as if they're doing something wrong. Twitch is still a step above YouTube in this aspect as well, since at least you can't AI generate trash content that gets uploaded 100+ times daily on a livestream. You're at least getting real people.

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