For many people, watching livestreams is an escape from their modern day routine and allows them to distress. Others use livestreams to interact with others within a certain gaming community and discuss topics related to that community. Personally I’ve watched twitch streams to just have as a distraction on in the background. Other times I’ve engaged directly with the streamer and other viewers in chat. Each chat has will have its own topic that it discusses. From my experience many viewers talk about the game the streamer is playing, talk about their own lives or ask about the streamers life. I tend to be more of a lurker then an active participant of the stream, especially for larger streams. My reasoning is that for larger streams the streamer won’t usually see my comment and create the connection that a smaller streamer would. Over the past couple of months who I have watched on Twitch has changed.

When I was in high school, I would watch a lot of Pokémon shiny hunters. I would keep these streams up as I myself would shiny hunt alongside with the streamer. I wouldn’t go for the same Pokémon as the streamer but I would have my own hunts that I had. It was through watching these live streams and some YouTube videos that got me into shiny hunting in the first place. More recently I’ve been watching my friends content on Twitch and what they stream. While I play games with them when they stream, I’ll keep a tab open with their stream. I moderate for them. For one of them, they fit more into the mythical norm by being a white male. The other on the other hand falls outside of the mythical norm as she is a female streamer.

During the time that I’ve moderated for her I’ve seen a handful of sexists comments that have come her way while she has streamed. Random people will also come in and troll by saying anything to provoke her while she is playing. As Guarriello sates, “When women are game live streamers or in professional gaming tournaments, they are often relegated to sexist comments or reduced to their looks, which exacts an emotional and psychological (and sometimes physical threats) toll that ultimately drives them away from streaming sites like YouTube Gaming or Twitch.” (1760) Due to it being a smaller channel, moderation is left to either her or one of the few mods that may be online during the stream. While she faces these comments here and there, it doesn’t affect her and she will often ignore them and moderate the comments. The rest of the viewers will agree with her.

In addition to moderating comments, interacting with viewers and building a community as a streamer is important part. As I’ve watched and participated in my friends streams I’ve seen her community grow. She has incorporated viewers into the games we played. In Never give up, never surrender: Game live streaming, neoliberal work, and personalized media economies it states “Much like Federici’s provocation, friendship becomes integral to building relational bonds for game live streaming. These temporal fragments of friendship and conversation can serve as small moments of resistance to the neoliberal commodification of one’s emotions, time, and life.” (1758) It has been through these friendships that my friend has created with her viewers that we have grown our group of game friends. While this is a trust in strangers, it has given not only me but my friend new friends.