Interviews – An Outsider’s Perspective

Over the course of this semester I have been privy to stories from my peers about their experiences and journeys as a UOW student. Being able to study the interviewer and interviewee as an outsider witness has offered certain perspectives that may not have occurred if I had been an active participant in the conversation. One such example was between two classmates that were interviewing each other about their experiences as a UOW student. One classmate was detailing his journey as a Journalism/BCM student that grew up in America and moved to Australia in 2020, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

He spoke about how he originally hated writing and English subjects in high school but was presented with an English teacher that encouraged his creativity and cultivated a new appreciation for writing. I was able to relate to this asd having a good teacher/mentor can easily change how we perceive different skills and industries, as a good teacher can turn a previously hated subject into one that suits individual skills, whereas a poor teacher can ruin any experience, no matter how much you previously enjoyed it. 

The interviewer also sympathised with him and began telling his own story about wanting to do performance/acting in uni because he enjoyed i8t in highschool but eventually decided that he wanted to be job ready after completing a degree and transferred to a bachelor of communications and media majoring in marketing. The interviewer also talked about his travels to Mexico on exchange and being stuck in another country during the pandemic, just as the interviewee had when he returned to America in 2021. 

I wasn’t able to relate to these experiences as I have never even been on a plane, let alone another country, however I found the interaction amusing as being an outsider witness I was only watching the conversation; not participating in it. This led to interesting discoveries about both the interviewer and interviewee, particularly in witnessing the similarities between two people from different countries. 

As an outsider witness, I was able to write down more details of their individual stories, including some direct quotes. Some examples include the interviewee’s opinion on the difference between Australian universities and American colleges. According to him, American ‘frat parties’ are “fun as hell” and Australian and Americans have “different levels of maturity”, which was believed to be due to the fact that Australians are able to start drinking at 18, as opposed to America’s legal drinking age of 21.  

When the interviewee discussed his brief return to America in 2021, he revealed that he moved back in with his parents for a month and “hated being treated as a child”. The interviewer also revealed that he had moved back in with his parents for a brief time and surmised that “once you move out, you can‘t move back” which he explained to mean that the relationship between parents and children has changed and once you chose to move back in and give up some of the previously obtained freedoms, you may decide that you no longer tolerate not having those freedoms. 

After the interview I was able to provide my perspective on some of the things discussed, such as the fact I had moved back in with my parents after moving out and wasn’t as uncomfortable with the situation as they had described their experiences to be. I was also able to relate with wanting to be job ready after finishing a degree, however I was unable to relate to travelling overseas as I had never experienced it.

Being able to witness a story and share my perspective at the end allowed me to easily write down more details from the stories being told. From this I was able to write down direct quotes and provide insightful perspectives to specific details of the story, which allowed the interviewer and interviewee to gain an understanding of how an outsider witness ‘translated’ their stories into sections of details that stood out or where points of confusion occurred for further elaboration which lead to a more fleshed-out understanding of all party’s perspectives.

Why must people suck?

For one of my classes this semester, I have been asked to recount a story in which there was a change or disruption at work and connect this to ideas about narrative self-development in relation to my professional values.

At my place of employment, I am occasionally put with new employees still training in Front of House procedures and I am expected to show them how to do any tasks they have not yet learned, encourage them to try doing a task on their own after they’ve been shown how to do it a couple times and correct their methods if necessary, and just generally covering the job if the employee still in training would otherwise struggle on their own. 

I’ve been at my current place of employment for 6 years now, longer than any of the other FoH employees and am considered a “veteran”. Because of this, many employees look to me for help and I am usually happy to provide, as long as I am treated fairly and with a reasonable level of respect. I won’t expect respect if I’m being disrespectful, but because I’ve    been doing the job a long time it’s somewhat expected that I have a level of seniority above other employees and am often given more difficult shifts to work alone on as I am more able to handle it than others.

An incident occured within the last few months with one of these new employees we will call “Luca”. Luca had only started working a couple of months prior to this incident and had only worked dinner shifts at one of the sites with one of the other ‘veterans’. Because they had only been scheduled for those specific shifts, Luca was unfamiliar with the procedure they were scheduled for on a breakfast shift at a different site with me. They communicated this with me which I was grateful for and they said that they may need to ask for the next task several times and was happy to be told what to do. The breakfast shift went well with only some minor issues with getting things done on time, which was kind of expected to happen.

The disruption occurred when packing down after serving dinner, most restocking and cleaning tasks had been completed and I asked Luca to wash the cutlery and put it away. They did the tasks I asked them to do, but when I was doing final checks, I noticed the cutlery had been put away very haphazardly and lazily, which is not how I want tasks to be completed as laziness is not a preferred value and doing the task incorrectly can lead to injuries, health hazards, and can be inconvenient for the next shift. 

When I attempted to show them why the way they had done it was incorrect/dangerous, and offered to show them how to do it properly and even help them redo the task so it could be done quickly, they became defensive and aggressive, insulting me and calling me bossy while saying “you remind me of my elementary teacher”. I was offended by the lack of respect and failure to effectively communicate which were absent values I hadn’t explicitly said I expected from them, but should have been given anyway as a common courtesy.

When I again attempted to explain that I wanted the task done properly because I believe in fairness and forward thinking when shutting down the site before the next shift, they decided to completely ignore me and refused to speak to me for the remainder of the shift unless it was absolutely necessary. 

I later reported Luca’s behaviour to my supervisor and reiterated that they were still new and unfamiliar with the procedure and deserved a second chance, but that their disrespectful attitude would not be helpful in creating a cohesive team.

I have told this story to some of my other co-workers and most told me they had never had any similar experiences with Luca, as most interactions had shown Luca wasn’t very conversational to begin with so this behaviour wasn’t something anyone would have expected from Luca. They understood why I had felt offended by the lack of respect as I have trained several others and they knew this was a value that I held, even if I am not always vocal about it, and they too held the value of forward-thinking and fairness so they knew that I too held those values and would be perturbed by someone doing a task incorrectly that would affect the people rostered on for the next shift.

OMG She’s So Talented!

Whaddup fam! Welcome to the new semester where I’ve been asked to talk about a skill I happen to possess and how it’s useful? Or maybe we’re just meant to tell a story, idk but having just got back from the UOWSnowsports annual ski trip, I realised that something I think I’m good at is yelling. Now I know this seems pretty stupid, but growing up my family was very big on music, singing, theatre (see photo above) and getting attention from a bunch of people really quickly. In an age where gender roles are still pretty enforced, it can be difficult for a woman to lead and be heard and respected, so having a loud voice and big presence in a room gives a certain edge and feels really good.

On the ski trip I was randomly asked to be a bus leader with no preparation and very little support, but with the help of a microphone and the ability to project my voice (a skill learned from singing and doing theatre in primary school and high school) I was able to convince 50 drunk uni students to participate in games, ice breakers, and challenges to make a 5 hour trip fly by with no injuries, alcohol poisoning, or complaints.

In the workplace, it is often handy to be able to make yourself heard, whether in a board room where some asshole tries to interrupt you, or yelling order numbers in a busy maccas at Goulburn with four busses worth of people competing for a bag of chicken nuggets and chips. Making sure people can hear you is vital to making sure they understand you and hopefully respect you enough to listen in the future.

Anyways that’s my talent…being loud. Ttyl x

The future as Predicted by Futurist Movies From 2016-2021

In the second half of this semester we watched and discussed four movies as a class through live-tweeting. These movies discuss themes such as how people of different nations, cities and countries react to possible world-ending or lifestyle altering events challenge a group of people. They also discuss how an imbalance of power can cause infighting, dissent, poverty and horrible decision making.

The first of our four movies was Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) which posits a scenario where aliens, later called Heptapods, arrive on Earth in different countries around the world and each nation reacts differently. We follow a linguist named Louise Banks who attempts to establish communication with them.

In one of my tweets I noticed that the world’s first reaction sounded very familiar with borders closing, flights being cancelled, panic buying, and people being in lockdown. This sounds very similar to how we reacted in response to Covid-19, which is very surprising considering it was released in 2016; 3 years before we ever knew what Covid was.

Tweet #1

I was also interested about the idea of either language or science being “the cornerstone” (quote from Arrival) of society, as we don’t necessarily measure the development of society by one single aspect.

Tweet #2

One major recurring theme in Arrival is a jump forward/flashback through time where we get a disjointed story of a child with cancer, a marriage, a divorce and later the celebration of communicating with the Heptapods. I made a headcannon/hypothesis about what we are seeing and how Louise is experiencing time in a non-linear way, just like the Heptapods and their ‘Logograms’ which are how they communicate. This idea of mine seemed to help my peers understand what was happening in the movie.

Tweet #3

The second movie was Alita: Battle Angel (2019) by Robert Rodriguez, a manga-inspired story that discusses cyborgs, poverty, imbalances of power, and challenges our definition of humanity, much like Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995).

In several of my tweets I talked about how the value of human life has significantly decreased in the Iron City with the opening scene of Dr Ido finding Alita in a Garbage heap still alive, then finding that her “very human brain” was still functioning perfectly (surprising since it was definitely there a while), followed by Alita learning about herself and the new environment.

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I had a heft discussion with my peers regarding the use of cybernetics to change the human bodyu to varying degrees, some like the man with the guitar who just has a robot hand, and others like Alita who only have their brains and faces still human. This sparked a debate about where we draw the line on calling these people “human”, much like in Ghost in the Shell where Motoko Kusanagi questions if she is still human without a soul and missing memories. This begs the question: What makes us human?

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I also noticed that my peers were debating as to why the Iron City has a Ban on guns and how modern day America doesn’t, so why do they? This was very easily answered by remembering that everything is a balance of power. If there is anything that can challenge the city of Zalem, it is banned on penalty of death by bounty hunter. If modern day America thought that civilians having guns were a real threat to the government and ruling power, they most certainly would ban guns, but they don’t.

Tweet #6

The third movie in our list is Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One (2018) that sends us into the world of the Oasis; an online world accessed using Virtual Reality (VR) technology. The Oasis tends to prey on the audience’s sense of nostalgia with popular culture references, video game characters, marvel heroes, etc.

It’s a world where you can be whatever you want, which is preferable to the real world where we find evidence of over-population (same as Ghost in the Shell and Alita: Battle Angel), poverty, indentured servitude (borderline slavery), and a general attitude of anger and a power struggle for the fortune of the recently deceased founder of the Oasis.

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We see a massive player in Ready Player One known as IOI (which I realised is an acronym for Innovative Online Industries, that uses places called ‘Loyalty Centres’ to buy people’s debt and force them to work in the Oasis on behalf of IOI to complete the challenge that will give IOI Billions of Dollars worth of shares, as well as complete control of Oasis, opening opportunities for advertising and other money making schemes.

Tweet #3

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The fourth and final movie we watched was Adam McKay’s Don’t Look up (2021). This movie was made to mock current and recent history of politics and the population’s blasé reaction to catastrophe. The president of America in the movie is clearly meant to be a mockery of Donald trump (and his family), and the movie portrays how political leadres of the world fail to react when given advice by scientists, similarly to how world leaders ignored advice relating to the pandemic.

My tweets for this movie were more of a rant on how much I hated how accurate this movie was so I’ll let you read them and then meet back up for a conclusion.

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Ok, so what did we learn from these movies? We know that the general reaction to most catastrophe’s is “ah that sucks, here’s a funny meme I just made about it” (Don’t look up, Russia/Ukraine War and possible WW3), or PANIC (Arrival, Covid-19). In most cases, there is a large powerhouse trying to gain more power (govt. in Arrival, Zalem in Alita: Battle Angel, IOI in Ready Player One, President & Bash CEO in Don’t Look Up), and a group of people who are content to just let them (Iron City in Alita, most people in Ready Player One).

These movies attempted to provide perspectives on how human’s react to the unknown, either by panic or ignorance, and showed us that we are a flawed species that lives in a society where nothing is taken as seriously as it should and the bodies of power that control the world would rather let us suffer in overpopulation and poverty with violence and dehumanising certain groups to maintain a façade of regular people having power, than actually use their wealth and power to help society back on it’s feet by providing answers to poverty, overpopulation, climate change, etc. but if the past, and these movies, are anything to go by, I very much doubt it.

Sincerely, Rosa.

Welcome to the future! Was it predictable, or completely left field?

So we’re back again? Repeating the cycle of having a grand idea, getting it started with some energy, and then the universe throws another slew of problems at you that just get in the bloody way? Yeah, me too. This semester was probably the worst I’ve had in a while. Even before I submitted my pitch for this DA (which you can find here) I had Covid and had to isolate for my first week, then continued to be sick for 8 WHOLE WEEKS!! On top of that, I was unable to work much (because I was sick) and now I can no longer afford rent and am in the middle of moving back in with my parents while I have 3 final assessments due in the next 2 weeks. Suffice to say; I should have predicted something like this might happen. Wendell Bell (1997) said that the past cannot be used to predict the future, but with Covid being a constant concern since 2019 and my own track record of being sick (seriously just look at how many ACs I’ve submitted over the last 3 years due to some sickness or injury).

Academic Consideration Submissions (2019-2022)

Because of my “extended sickness” I was only able to stream 3 times this entire semester. This (for once) had nothing to do with motivation and everything to do with a stuffed nose, coughing, constantly lacking energy, etc.

Comparison of viewers 7 March/22 May

Admittedly I was surprised to find I only lost 3 followers from 150 at 7 March and I still had at least one subscriber (a whole $2.33 in my account)

My loyal subscriber

I was honestly so excited to look at the future of Twitch streaming, I had a bulletproof schedule, I had a collection of background research cultivated from my own research as well as a few resources provided to me by my peers following the Pitch:

“Twitch Might Be The Future of Digital Viewing” (Joshua Krietzer, 2020) was a blog discussing Twitch’s current audience (which I used to shape my content and attempt to remove minor’s from my channel when I can to avoid any guilt about my language or behaviour on-screen), Likely future advertisers, current and future trends of %s of digital video viewers and % of Twitch users, and advice on how to engage with advertising on Twitch.

Twitch Might Be the Future of Digital Viewing

“SullyGnome – Twitch stats and analytics” is a website that tells you what games are currently trending on Twitch which would have been useful to know how popular the current game I was streaming is, and which games might get more attention if i were to stream them at the time.

I also intended to use concepts from this semester’s lectures to help guide my DAsuch as:

• Wendell Bell’s theory that the past cannot be used to predict the future to show how using past analytics and statistics is a flawed method due to unforeseen complications such as Covid, sickness, Australian weather (floods), financial difficulties, a possible World War 3, a defamation trial that is being streamed and discussed on every social media platform known to us, etc.
• Cybernetics and cyber culture to discuss the idea of being able to take Twitch with us everywhere via phones, computers, laptops, tablets, blutooth headsets, does this make us cyborgs? what’s next? Watching Pokemane on our Apple watches? in our cars?
• Will livestreams even exist in the future? One of the texts for this subject was Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ (2018) suggests that Twitch will survive with the introduction of ‘full dive’ VR known as the ‘Oasis’ where the Heroine is a Twitch Streamer. This is a fairly hopeful message for Twitch as people are becoming more technologically inclined and seek entertainment online, as well as seeking two-way interactions with their chosen content creator through chats, point systems, etc.

While I wish I could say that I was hopeful for the future of this DA and my Twitch streaming career, the trend over the last three years has bee a mix of a lack of motivation/sticking to schedules, and my body betraying me by getting sick or injured which inhibits me from streaming. I can say that I have the charisma and language skills to be a decent Twitch streamer, until I either truly commit to being healthy, or a proper streaming schedule, this DA will likely go no further.

Anyway, if you want to see a 20 minute video of some highlights of my streams, here’s one I made myself;

If you want to follow me on Twitch here is the link: Iz_Rosa

OH AND I DIED MY HAIR AGAIN!!! IT’S WHITE!!!

Lazy or unmotivated? Where did I go wrong? (I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness)

The three Pitch videos I reviewed and commented on had very succinct, yet detailed videos that covered most of the criteria required for this assignment They each had a well laid out production timeline with details about content and research with specific days and weeks and applied the lecture concepts to their blogs in varying degrees with one peer relating their pitch about recycling and reducing waste with the anthropocene. They also had strong references lists that supported their DAs well that will help frame and justify the future of their DAs.

The comments I made to each provided my opinion on these details they did well and provided some ideas on how they can take their DAs to the next level. I suggested the use of Buffer, an online social media scheduling tool that allows you to create and schedule posts on a number of social media sites in advance, allowing you time to pump out the work early and focus on other things throughout the week. I suggested to another peer who was looking at possibly becoming a social media manager for their current employer and suggested some tactics and strategies for improving her skills and suggested a university course (MARK301 – Digital Marketing) that would help her develop the skills to become a social media manager if she chose to follow that career path. Another student’s DA Pitch presentation was so effortlessly flawless that apart from telling them exactly what I believed they did well, I had no additional information or advice to provide that would help in any way except to wish them luck.

Seeing where my peers have provided brilliant presentations that follow the lecture concepts, the assignment criteria, and their research abilities, I’m reminded just how little effort I realistically put into my assignment and how much farther I have to go. My assignment technically ticked the boxes when it came to criteria but it wasn’t very visually appealing, there was a lack of research and academic sources to support my DA, and I don’t have much knowledge of the subject to provide any true insights or helpful advice to my peers. If I am to do well in this subject, and my future career, I will need to allocate an appropriate level of time and effort into completing these assignments, less I become lazy and unmotivated to create interesting, engaging, and quality projects.

I know we aren’t technically meant to discuss the feedback we have received in this blog post, however I have the comments made on my pitch have said that my DA’s concept is interesting and unique and they have each offered some helpful links to academic sources that I intend to read through and include in the research of my DA.

https://georgiacevans.wordpress.com/bcm325/dont-be-a-pitch/comment-page-1/?unapproved=122&moderation-hash=e221395163d386828b93d55a9fe19612#comment-122

https://mhawkinsportfolio.wordpress.com/2022/03/14/the-future-of-the-digital-media-society-bcm325-pitch/comment-page-1/#comment-62 
https://bonniestonestreet.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/project-pitch-looking-at-the-future-ecoternatives-ly/comment-page-1/#comment-221

Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix: Visions of the future

Blade Runner (1982)

Getting strong Star Wars Themes from this intro with setting the context. Calling the execution of replicants, previously used as slave labour, 'retirement' is a reflection on how the current view of the 'other' or racism may be used to create a version of the future #BCM325 pic.twitter.com/5OM1xe5L4U

— Isabeau (@isabeaurosa) March 16, 2022

Bladerunner had a recurring theme of using dehumanising tactics such as calling the slave labour clones, known as replicants, derogatory terms such as ‘skin jobs’ and calling their execution ‘retirement’. This is similar to the propaganda created by Goebbels for the Nazi party to dehumanise and vilify Jews. Two of my peers made connections to the idea of ‘othering’ which refers to “those perceived as different from self”(Canales, 2000). This ‘othering’ can refer to racism, sexism, orientalism, etc. and highlights that texts that make predictions of the future tend to reflect the views of the time period in which they are created. In 1982, ideas of ‘othering’ and casually using derogatory terms against those seen as ‘other’ is not so different to how it already was. 

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Ghost in the shell's future showcases a likely overpopulation due to constantly surrounded by tall apartment buildings, skyscrapers, and crowding in the streets during the chase scene at the start. It's unsurprising that these movies assume our current problems get worse. #bcm325

— Isabeau (@isabeaurosa) March 23, 2022

Motoko Kusanagi’s Ghost in the Shell showcased the relationship between humans and technology in the future with the ideas of cyborgs becoming commonplace. One of the background motifs is the idea of overpopulation. All of the scenes are set in a Hong Kong-inspired city with buildings stacked on top of each other and skyscraper apartment buildings. This draws on the concept of the Anthropocene which relates to the current age of human activity being the dominant factor on the surrounding environment and climate. It is evident that in this prediction of the future it is believed that overpopulation will continue to be a problem and the increase in technology helps lengthen people’s life expectancy, but doesn’t help with our relationship with our environment as there is still housing and overpopulation issues.

The Matrix (1999)

There are SOOO many biblical references in The Matrix. 'Trinity' is meant to represent the holy spirit, the 'Nebuchadnezzar' was the kind of babylon in the book of Daniel, 'Zion' is the name given to the next world after judgement day. 1/2 #bcm325

— Isabeau (@isabeaurosa) March 30, 2022

One text that is always referenced in some way by all of these texts is the Bible. Biblical references in intertextuality is commonplace in cinematography and The Matrix takes it to the next level. Every name in The Matrix holds significance, mostly biblical. Trinity represents the holy trinity (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit) and Neo (literally ‘one’ backwards) with Morpheus (the god of dreams) who is captain of the Nebuchadnezzar (A king of Babylon in the book of Daniel). In the third movie it is alluded to the idea that the matrix is an earth full of sinners that is in a constant loop of sacrifices and old testament laws. This time the cycle breaks because of Neo’s love for Trinity (who dies), a metaphor for people now having Jesus (his sacrifice) and the holy spirit to take away their sins. On the plaque of the Nebuchadnezzar we see the words “Mark III No. 11” which is supposed to be a manufacturers issue or serial number, but is actually a bible verse. Mark chapter 3 verse 11 says, “Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God”. This highlights Morpheus’ duty to find the one and his conviction that Neo is the one, or the “Son of God”, the saviour.

Canales, Mary K. RN, PhD Othering: Toward an Understanding of Difference, Advances in Nursing Science: June 2000 – Volume 22 – Issue 4 – p 16-31

‘Making it’ in The Live Streaming Industry

Link to Canva Slides:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAE7SwY4MC0/6K2h4F-OUo3xC9AcZMTqYg/view?utm_content=DAE7SwY4MC0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=homepage_design_menu

My Predictions:

1. I predict that with weekly content and current growth trends, my stream’s audience and reach will have grown by the end of the two weeks. This growth will look like an increase in followers from 150 (as at 18/03/2022) to 300 and an increase in subscribers from 2 (as at 18/03/2022) to 30 subscribers by the end of the 10 week period.
2. I predict that due to lack of motivation and an inconsistent stream schedule, I will gain some growth in the form of an increase in followers from 150 to 250 and an increase in subscribers from 2 to 5 by the end of the 10 week period.
3. I predict that Putin will begin World War Three and I will be conscripted into the army and no longer able to stream.
4. I predict that I will be raided by a famous person as an act of charity and my channel will grow exponentially until I become one of the top 10 Twitch Streamer in Australia.

My first two are predictions based on my Twitch pages current and past trends of growth as well as online easily accessible analytics. The other two are based on speculation and taking unlikely events to their extreme ends.

BCM241 DA; Treatment of Female Video Game Streamers

Links to all aspects of my DA:

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/iz_rosa

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iz_rosa_is_pog/

Discord: https://discord.gg/YaBN6bTEcj

The journey over the last few months with this DA has been filled with hiccups and F**k-ups. The first month of streaming was great. I had created a stream schedule for the pitch video and managed to stick to it flawlessly. In week 6 my weekly schedule changed because of the gym, week 7 I had my wisdom teeth removed, week 8 I was pushed too hard at the gym while still recovering from the dental surgery, week 9 my capture card broke, mid-sem break I was in a cycle of depression and guilt because I was behind on uni work, week 10 I struggled to deliver the Beta videos, week 11 I started my new job, week 12 I struggled to complete my Blog posts, and week 13 I was juggling 3 final assessments, 2 days at work, and my dad’s birthday. Safe to say it hasn’t been easy.

My media niche I have been researching through observation, ethnographic study, and analytical texts is the treatment of female video game streamers, specifically on Twitch.TV. The observation and autoethnographic approaches to this niche are detailed in the video, and I will be discussing the secondary research of academic articles and studies in this blog.

The Reason I chose this research topic is because when I first started streaming, before I enabled chat filters and bots, I received a litany of deplorable messages, both in chat, on Discord, and in my DMs. They would comment about my appearance, demean me, or request sexual favours in return for money or subscriptions. The constant flow of these toxic displays of masculinity took a toll on my mental health and was bringing down the quality of my stream, as I would have to stop what I was doing to delete the message and timeout or ban the sender, which would then put me in a sour mood for the rest of the stream. I decided that there had to be a way to protect myself and my stream from this behaviour, and so began my research project. 

Online gaming, and the streaming of videogames is known to be “an epicenter of toxic masculinity” that is often seen to be “predominantly masculine spaces, in which expressions of femininity can threaten male identities leading to sexual harassment” (Kampel et al., 2020). It is quite common for women in the industry to be sexualised, harassed, and abused, likely because of the lack of agency and the sexualisation and objectification of female video game characters that “promote the objectification of female gamers and unwelcomed attention from male gamers.” (Ruvalcaba et al., 2018).

While there are those who believe that the Twitch site should be more responsible for moderating and enforcing rules, a 2019 study showed that “Twitch users thought that the streamer should be the most responsible entity to enforce the rule in the chat instead of the company…”(Cai and Wohn, 2019). Because the responsibility falls to the streamer to enforce chat rules, it is common for streamers to use tools to help, such as the built-in spam filter, bots like Nightbot to assist with moderating chat, so that the stream doesn’t have to pause everytime someone posts something that violates the chat rules so that the streamer can delete the message and ban the user. 

Bots and spam filters can help mitigate inappropriate behaviour, however they are notoriously unreliable and people will always find ways around the filters using substitute characters or changing the spelling/grammar to avoid the filter. Because of this, it is common for streamers on Twitch to employ moderators. Mods are given certain permissions within the stream to delete messages, timeout/ban viewers, change the chat to slow mode, follower mode, sub mode, or emoji mode, and start polls. Mods are also good for larger streamers that have thousands of followers and still want to interact with the audience on a personal level. Mods can be useful in allowing messages to go through to text-to-speak which plays the message out loud, which videos can be played on stream that were submitted by viewers, or other interactions and events. A study in 2020 of the tools streamers use to moderate their chat showed that the “…moderators’ presence and help was critical for the streamers to keep track of viewers’ comments and respond.” (Freeman and Wohn, 2020).

The idea of cyberbullying and online harassment has been common knowledge since the internet was created, and has expanded to include things that many would never have expected, especially on Twitch. New methods of trolling are occurring such as ‘Swatting’ which is where the troll “finds a streamer’s personal information and calls the police to report an incident such as hostage situation at the streamer’s house and then watches the livestream to see when the police break in.”(Todd and Melancon, 2019). Trolling on Twitch can now affect the streamers family and personal life, the quality of their stream, and their mental health. Keeping streams safe from trolling is incredibly important and should not be taken lightly. As Cai and Wohn, 2019 state;

“Racism, sexism, and many other prejudices flourish online while trolling, flaming, spamming, and flooding messages disrupt users’ online experience. Negative behavior online is a concern because it has contagious effects, as users are likely to imitate each other. Furthermore, reducing unwanted behaviors is important because it may cause various adverse health outcomes, such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness, somatic complaints, or suicide.”

Because streaming is very personal and often shows the streamers face and voice, as well as their environment and sometimes even their family or partners, it is easier for trolls to make comments about the streamers personality, appearance, or even make threats to them and their family. “The discourse is much more personal and, therefore, has the potential to be more hurtful and traumatic.”(Todd and Melancon, 2019). Because I had my camera on while streaming, it was much easier for trolls to make comments about my physical appearance and because the comments were personal, they had a larger effect on my mental health.

Everyone is subject to hurtful comments, which is why using bots and mods to keep things clean and safe is so important. Women are incredibly likely to be sexualised, objectified, and bullied as they are seen as an easy target in a male dominated environment, which is why they are more likely to have stricter rules and use multiple methods to mitigate the effects of hurtful comments. The Twitch community is extremely toxic and we shouldn’t have to sacrifice our mental health to appease an audience that sees women as a target for trolling or soliciting sexual favours.

Donghee Yvette Wohn and Guo Freeman. 2020. Audience Management Practices of Live Streamers on Twitch. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 106–116.

Jie Cai and Donghee Yvette Wohn. 2019. What are Effective Strategies of Handling Harassment on Twitch? Users’ Perspectives. In Conference Companion Publication of the 2019 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 166–170.

Kampel, Sonia & Koban, Kevin & Bornemeier, Julian & Ohler, Peter. (2020). The downsides of being a female streamer. An automated content analysis approach to sexual harassment in female Twitch streamers’ chatlogs. 

Todd, P. and Melancon, J., 2019. Gender Differences in Perceptions of Trolling in Livestream Video Broadcasting. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(7), pp.472-476.

Ruvalcaba O, Shulze J, Kim A, Berzenski SR, Otten MP. Women’s Experiences in eSports: Gendered Differences in Peer and Spectator Feedback During Competitive Video Game Play. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 2018;42(4):295-311.

BCM206 DA: Treatment of Female Twitch Streamers

Over the course of this project I have encountered many have encountered several hiccups, and at least a coupe f**k-ups. The first few weeks following the pitch all was well. I was receiving plenty of feedback from my audience during streams about how I could improve the quality of content, such as fixing mic and camera settings, configuring my internet so the stream’s were less laggy, and ideas on what games to stream. I even received some awesome feedback from an audience member when my game was lagging, saying that it was ok, because my audience don’t come to my streams for good gameplay, but rather to watch me, and see how I react when placed in different circumstances and playing different games.

In week 6 I had a routine change due to resuming my weight training, which meant that I could no longer continue to stay up late on the nights before I had a PT session. In this time I was still able to get a couple of successful streams in, where I was able to effectively engage with my audience and provide good content by streaming online multiplayer games with my friends and with my audience on a game called phasmophobia. Unfortunately, my capture card broke at the end of this week, which limited what games I was able to stream. I ordered a new one immediately, but It didn’t arrive until week 9. 

Week 7 is where the shit really hit the fan. I underwent dental surgery and was put under anesthetic to have my wisdom teeth removed. This knocked me out for the day, then while in recovery the next two weeks; I was barely able to talk or eat, and my cheeks swelled up until 10 days after my surgery. This meant that I was unable to stream at all for two weeks, and I fell behind on my uni work. In this time, I received great feedback from my audience worried about my absence, and wanting to make sure I was ok.

The research week and mid-sem break was time used unwisely. My mental health had declined severely and I found myself unable to finish my uni work, and completely unmotivated to work on my DA. I streamed twice in this time, one being a successful 6 hour stream where I played several fun multiplayer games, at first with my sister who had just begun streaming, then with some friends. This stream had great audience engagement, where viewers from her stream came to follow me, and some of my followers did the same for her. This was an amazing learning curve as it has shown just how useful it is to be a part of a streaming community that helps each other grow.

The other time I streamed in the mid-semester break was slightly less successful or productive in any way, being that it was a depression induced period of insomnia where I was unable to sleep and I streamed minecraft for an hour and a half while watching the sun rise.

Week 9 was half spent attempting to catch up on uni work, as well as purchasing and assembling my new PC, and the other half enjoying the sunshine so I was unable to stream.

The purpose of this project was to address a problem; female twitch streamers are often treated poorly. This often comes in the form of messages in my Twitch chat with unsolicited remarks about my physical appearance, or insulting comments regarding my intelligence, or abilities, insinuating that it’s because of my gender. It can also unfortunately appear in my Twitch and Discord direct messages. These messages were usually sexual remarks and the occasional request for sexual favours, sometimes with the promise of payment. These advances are terribly common amongst female twitch streamers and I endeavoured to learn how other streamers deal with this issue, and how much these tools and techniques help.

Alongside streaming this semester, I have been observing other twitch streamers, and I have observed that female and male streamers all have a need to mitigate abusive behaviour. Each employs their own methods, and these methods are useful depending on the circumstances. Many streamers use common tools such as the built-in chat filter on the Twitch page, which can help with spam and blocking certain words or phrases from being allowed in the Twitch chat. Another online tool used is called Nightbot which has similar affordances, but also allows for custom commands and extra features like queueing music and making polls. 

Most streamers also have a moderator in the chat, someone they trust, usually a friend but sometimes just a volunteer or loyal viewer. These moderators are given permissions within the stream to timeout, kcik, mute, ban, or delete messages. This helps keep Twitch chats clear of unsavoury language or behaviour, and improves the quality of the stream, as it means that the streamer can continue to entertain their viewers without worrying about people’s behaviour and having to pause the stream to deal with the issue. Most smaller-sized streamers will have a few moderators that help out when available. Many Larger streamers like ValkyRae, PokiMane, Syndicate, etc. will have teams of moderators online at the same time, sometimes taking shifts. This is mostly due to the high volume of people talking at the same time, making it difficult to manage for only one or two people.

The other issue has been Twitch and Discord DMs. Discord has a handy-dandy feature where you can choose the level of moderation of DMs, and you can change certain settings that make it so people can only send direct messages if you accept their friend request. Twitch DMs have no such features as far as I know, and I believe the best policy to be avoidance. Just don’t read them. The messages sent on their have been incredibly toxic and a drain on my mental health and stability.

I have implemented many of these methods in an attempt to mediate the unsavoury behaviour and found several to be useful. The built-in chat filter on the Twitch page certainly works, but is limited. The Nightbot has far more customizability and extra features, as well as being able to link it to my Discord server, meaning that I didn’t need to implement and set up a completely separate moderation tool. I haven’t yet used the custom commands for my streams, but I have tested them and come up with some ideas to use them for that I may do in the future. 

I have two moderators. One of them is a friend I met at a class last year that rarely shows up to help, and one is a loyal viewer that I have built a strong relationship with and trust him, however I usually stream while he is at work, so he can’t really help. I have found that enlisting moderators is difficult, but expecting them to sit in  a five hour stream waiting for someone to say something rude is a bit ridiculous.