Recently, YouTuber Valkyrae announced that she is now a co-owner of her company 100 Thieves along with CouRage. The decision by founder Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag was to help build a platform centered on its content creators, allowing them with more responsibility, stake, and stance within the company. Not only is this great news for women, but women of color in the gaming industry as well.
However, Valkyrae more recently revealed that not all of the feedback has been "congratulations." Some haven't been as supportive of the Valorant streamer's recent milestone, including misogynistic folks who are attempting to downplay her success. Of course, most of the top comments on her Twitter announcement were positive, but scrolling towards the bottom, it's easy to see the type of toxicity that Valkyrae and many other streamers face day-to-day.
Treatment Towards Female Streamers
Towards the bottom of the Twitter comments, one person sardonically asks if she's still enjoying "hand wraps," implying she performed sexual acts to become as prolific as she is. While this is a wildly inappropriate comment, this type of behavior is all too common when it comes to female streamers. One case relates to the controversial streamer Alinity, who was accused of performing sexual acts with Twitch executives in exchange for favoritism on the platform. This was in light of Alinity's accusations of animal abuse and her wardrobe malfunctions, for which she only received brief bans.
Pokimane, one of Twitch's most prominent names, also sees this same type of harassment online. Quite often does she see her chat commenting on what she's wearing or accusing her of using her looks for views, while other streamers get comments praising them for not wearing revealing clothing on camera. Last year, Pokimane addressed these viewers, pointing out that she couldn't be getting views for her looks rather than personality if she was averaging more than 11,000 viewers without a camera on, but even so, others tried to downplay this success. None of these comments are appropriate, but they happen all too often, even with the aid of moderators.
In a tweet, Valkyrae called out some of the hate she's received since announcing becoming a co-owner of 100 Thieves. As many commenters put it, the criticism is others who make excuses for their own accomplishments by minimizing others'. And some simply don't want to see strong women in a position of power or admit that skill was used to get to that level of success.
How Valkyrae Responds to Toxicity
The gaming industry has never been particularly accepting of women. Rather, women face criticism at every corner. As Valkyrae puts it, "might as well get yo bags" if people are going to scrutinize everything women do, no matter what, simply because they're women. Valkyrae started from a humble place, working at GameStop while in college until she started streaming Fortnite on Twitch. In fact, Valkyrae's female audience reportedly tripled when she started streaming Fortnite.
Now, at 29 years old, she's the co-owner of a widely successful esports brand, and it's nothing short of an impressive feat. Similarly, other commenters posted words of support, congratulating her on her well-earned accomplishment, or even a GIF of Disguised Toast wiping his tears with wads of cash.
But having more women in authoritative positions will likely have an impact on the gaming and esports scene. YouTube streamer Valkyrae's new responsibilities include scouting and signing more content creators and having a woman of color partially making these decisions could lead to more women of color streamers getting noticed, such as the new 100 Thieves member Kyedae.