Currently, you must be 13 or older to have a Twitch account, which allows you to both comment and stream on the massive live streaming platform. For context, you could have been born on August 16, 2009, less than nine months after Obama’s first year as president, and you could now create an account and stream it online for all of Twitch to see. Unfortunately, as with anything related to the internet/social media, this has come with a number of drawbacks, the effects of which we are only now beginning to see.
Warning: This article contains discussions of a minor harassing an adult, and general sexism and misogyny. Don’t dox or harass everybody.
Twitch Streamer Amanderz recently tweeted a video of an underage streamer being banned from her chat for harassing her, which he broadcast on his own channel. The young streamer exhibited a range of worrisome behaviors, from believing he had been dating the streamer for two months despite her being an adult stranger and he a child, to “harassing more women because it’s funny and content” ( actual quote from the child).
Fortunately, a majority of the comments condemn this behavior, although everyone has a different idea of what to blame for this behavior, which is a bigger problem than just this one child – and not one with an easy answer.
Some see this as evidence of the growing influence of streamers and streamer culture on adolescents. Many comments on the video indicate that children have no understanding of satire or parody, and so when popular streamers engage in this behavior, even if it is intended as some sort of “joke”, they try to imitate it to emulate their idols. resemble, such as iShowSpeed.
There’s also the problem of young streamers picking up unhealthy practices from their favorite streamers, whether it’s spending tens of hours gaming or spending huge amounts of money mimicking their idols’ setups, sometimes with dangerous fire and light shows. An adult streamer responding to a young streamer’s lineup noted that his heart rate was 147 during his triumphal displays. (Children’s heart rate is usually between 60-115 bpm, and while active video games like pokemon go and motion-control games are qualified as a type of exercise, they’re not the same as actual exercise—and that’s not even hearing loss or eye strain.) I’m obviously not a doctor, but many of these behaviors feel like they can have health effects on the brain. have long term.
Twitch does state that:
“The Twitch Services are not available to anyone under the age of 13. If you are between the ages of 13 and the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction where you reside, you may only use the Twitch Services under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms of Service.”
Twitch.tv – Terms of Service
And “If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child under the age of 13 who has joined Twitch Services, you can contact Twitch at [email protected] to have their account terminated indefinitely and have personal information deleted.”
Ultimately, it is still the responsibility of the parent(s) to actually raise their child, and none of this is meant to demonize video games or streaming in general. It’s just important to recognize that these things can have negative effects and find out how to reduce them.
There are very few guidelines or resources for how Twitch protects or monitors underage viewers and streamers. By all accounts, Twitch makes little distinction between a 13-year-old Twitch streamer and a 30-year-old Twitch streamer. And that’s a problem.
To be fair, this isn’t an issue unique to Twitch; I remember the early 2010s and I was on Facebook and Tumblr with almost no security measures. The few security measures that do emerge always seem to be quite behind (Twitch is 11 years old, younger than the supposed minimum age for use, but is still one of the most popular sites for teens).
It doesn’t help so many resources for parents that to do broaching this topic seems to fit the PTA mom crowd who see their kids as babies in need of protection from “21st century sirens” (yes, that’s an actual quote from OneTwoStream’s article on kids on Twitch) – again, not what do we want to do here. That mindset does more harm than good, because it takes away from children their agency and fails to take into account the fact that children can also be perpetrators of toxicity and bullying on social media.
It also doesn’t help that some people “defend” the behavior by saying that this is what children do and that every generation of children, especially those who grew up with the Internet, go through the same thing.
But the point is, the behavior wasn’t acceptable then, and it isn’t now. Many of the most toxic internet communities have bred toxic adults who have made the world terrible for everyone around them.
Other people blame “simping” for this behavior, but that reformulates the problem around the idea that this behavior is exclusive to gaming. While the inability to understand that a parasocial relationship isn’t the same as a real one can make it easier for kids to cling to streamers, it doesn’t explain everything. As one commenter noted, this behavior is very reminiscent of real-life stalking behavior that can lead to dangerous delusions, as well as real-life harassment.
As with most things, I believe the truth lies in the middle: streaming culture, kids being impressionable and impersonating adults in bad ways, and a general culture of male rights all contribute to this awful mindset.
So what can we do to help?
Unfortunately, there are no real studies on the effects of these platforms yet; we’ve only recently started a backlash against kids as influencers and content creators, a new kind of child star for the digital age. The difference is that many of those kids have been pushed into those careers by their parents.
Normally I hate encouraging parents to monitor their kids’ internet activity as it can be a huge outlet for self expression, but when it gets to the point where people are being harassed then there has to be some kind of intervention. Just having “The Talk” with both guys and girls about the real effects of harassment, online or otherwise, and enforcing boundaries about acceptable internet behavior goes a long way. If you wouldn’t say it to them in person, don’t say it online. And unfortunately the beautiful girl you give money to online is not your girlfriend. She’s not even your nanny.
Twitch and YouTube and a lot of other platforms should probably have a limit on how old you can be to create content for their sites, since in addition to this breeding of toxicity, many children have been used by these content generation systems (see some of the violent family vloggers on YouTube).
And even if you choose to support non-toxic, positive streamers and creators and condemn those who play negativity and harassment, it would make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable to everyone.
(featured image: Milan_Jovic)
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that prohibits personal insults against them, but is not limited to everybodyhate speech and trolling.—
Do you have a tip we should know? [email protected]
.
0 Comments