It’s no secret that Twitch streamers are often subject to some form of harassment. Whether it is some form of hate raid on Twitch, someone belittling their job/profession, and/or something impacting their real life, the public eye in relation to gaming is not always forgiving. It’s also no secret that female Twitch streamers suffer this more than most, with Amouranth often finding herself the subject of such harassment.
No one deserves this particular kind of attention for the content they create on Twitch or elsewhere. One’s opinions on how another makes their ends meet either. Still, for everything Amouranth has endured, she managed to be one of the best Twitch stars of 2021. The total view count of Amoranth’s streams equaled over 38 million hours last year, and yet, she still recently opened up about the ‘unwarranted danger’ of her career.
Quote-tweeting another of her post where she highlighted that she has been swatted (where the act of swatting has resulted in death in the past), has received death threats, has been victim to arson, and has been berated by “5 digits’ of concurrent viewers. Yet, this particular post also highlighted the all too common response she gets: “Psychos…STOP COMPLAINING.” At the end of the day, though, she also says she doesn’t what she does, just the harassment.
“I don’t hate WHAT I do. I don’t hate how much I do it usually even. It’s the harassment, the unwarranted danger that comes from it when I’m just doing my own thing, minding my own biz and not hurting anyone. Someone lacking empathy or smol just wouldn’t understand.”
She goes on to discuss how this form of harassment targets women content creators too, stating “all women...get varying degrees of harassment.” Going live, she argues, opens up these creators to the most extreme form of it—multiply the harassment by frequency and duration that someone streams and then amplify by scale and view count, Amouranth continues.
For someone who has worked in the service industry or who has worked for a multitude of people, they may very well understand Amouranth’s position somewhat—if not the exact degree. No matter what, there’s no real reason for such maliciousness. Whether it’s on Twitch or elsewhere, gaming is for everyone. If something isn’t someone’s particular cup of tea, like a racing game or a content creator’s work, then move on. There’s no reason for anyone to experience anything like this, but as Amouranth highlights, it’s all too common for female content creators.