For women on Twitch, appearing single has become a minefield
theverge.com
theverge.com
FTFY, women have had it hard forever when trying to be normal people with normal lives, but some men don't seem to get that they aren't just a sex object to exploit. Whether it's on Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, or on the street, women get hassled day in, day out.
The only way to truly fix it is to get male society, as a whole, to respect women more, which will take a ton of work since I am sure half the comments below mine here will be about how I'm wrong and men are all paragons of moral virtue, explaining how women can be bad people too, or some other logical misdirection/fallacy.
I think that asymmetry of the social economy explains a lot more than we think. But we frequently ignore it.
For example, why are incels only men? Why is it so hard for a woman to bother a man with sexual harassment?
I think there are deeper issues and underlying realities to explore than just "ugh, men!"
Every morning I watch my tiny rooster chase the hens around until one gives in and lets him mount her. That is closer to the reality of humans than we like to admit, we just have more ritual in our sexual script.
Oh, that's actually very easy. All the woman has to do is walk up to the man and shove her finger up his asshole (even over clothes). That is a) totally sexual harassment and b) absolutely unwanted by the vast majority of men.
I think you're just unnecessarily restricting your definition of "sexual harassment".
Incels aren't only men. There are female incels, but they're not violent because women aren't socialized to solve problems with violence. There's a lot on the subject of female incels; google around a bit and you'll find it.
It isn't hard for a woman to bother a man with sexual harassment, either. My first job out of school, one of the admin staff was a "playful" woman who kept a riding crop on her desk. She started swatting me with it "playfully," except it wasn't playful and I was made to feel very uncomfortable by this overt sexual harassment in the workplace.
You shouldn't do inhumane things to them, and harassment of any kind is off the table for decent people acting decently, but you don't know this person and you never will. They don't care about you. They're a creator and you're a consumer.
The waitress is not flirting with you and the stripper doesn't love you. They're both at work.
But at least I was playing games, solving problems, getting better at something, being challenged, and even building relationships online.
I can't imagine the disappointment of having a kid addicted to watching someone else play games or live their life, nor can I imagine something as unfulfilling. Much less obsessing over the marital status of some online personality in a chat room with fellow losers.
As I got older, I realized why my parents kicked me off the computer so much. I resented it as a kid the same way I resented having to spend a whole 30 minutes mowing the lawn, but I'm grateful and I can relate to their fear as parents even though I don't yet have kids.
I know how you feel. I'm going to be crushed if my kid likes watching baseball games on TV.
Watching Twitch streams of people sitting there either putting on makeup, or some guy sitting in McDonalds eating a cheeseburger spouting memes is the ultimate form of narcissism. It doesn't develop anything positive but instead indulges the wrong aspects of people. Letting kids, who soak up everything, watch this daily is extremely poisonous and develops the wrong values.
And people have been watching people do banal things forever as well. Plays, soap operas. Wasn't Seinfeld famously referred to as the show about nothing? What about community busy-bodies? What about birdwatchers?
I do agree that there are negatives here, but you're bringing up the worst of Twitch. Of course I don't want my kid obsessions over someone who happens to have a smart phone, a twitch account, and a +2 CHA modifier. But you can't bring up the Olympics as one counterexample, and some idiot eating a burger as another.
Also, what's wrong with watching someone put on make-up? Did you never watch Bob Ross paint a happy little tree?
What I'm bringing up is the IRL streams. If you're comparing the genius of Seinfeld to the mindnumbing garbage that you see on those streams, then I'm not sure what we're discussing here at all.
I'm also not sure why I can't bring up the Olympics since your initial point is exactly just that except using baseball as an example.
Watching someone put on makeup as an ASMR sort of thing like Bob Ross is also fine. You're missing the point of what I'm trying to say here. Bob Ross didn't wear skimpy clothes and share racist opinions all day on TV, either. He sat there and painted. There wasn't any romantic undertones with his viewers if they watched him long enough or paid him enough money. It's honestly crazy to me that I even have to have this argument and that this isn't objectively agreed upon.
>there is something not only interesting but inspiring watching certain people that are the best at what they do compete against others
Does that make me someone to be pitied, in your opinion? Do you question my morality, or the way I was raised?
Also, there are a lot of hobbies I hope my kid explores before the lowest-effort mode of sitting in front of a television, like anything with an element of creativity instead of raw consumption.
From my experience listening to parents on HN or parents among my friends, one of the most challenging aspects of raising children seems to be getting them to do something beyond watching a screen all day.
This is the dark flipside to "sex sells". A bunch of those viewers weren't tuned in because they care about your recipes, they tuned in because your profile picture shows cleavage.
Saying "they tuned in because your profile picture shows cleavage" implicitly places some blame on the woman in question for "using sex to sell", but women have been subject to this sort of criticism pretty much forever and it's basically the same as slut shaming, suggesting that someone has something coming to them because of the way she (almost invariably she) is dressed.
Pointing out that there is a problem for women on these streaming sites is perfectly valid, as it raises the profile of the issue. I don't use any of these sites so I have to say I was pretty surprised by the video which talked about "Amouranth's big secret", it was _really_ pathetic and probably highlights a huge problem in the extent to which these people will dig into the private lives of others - borderline stalking IMO.
Just because one sees boobs does not mean they belong to you!!!
Seems pretty obvious that there is some kind of fantasy element to watching these streamers that a part of the audience gets off on. People can trick themselves into believing they have a “relationship” in this format even more easily than with other forms of media. And much like the fans of K-pop idols, having that fantasy be intruded on by reality upsets the fantasizer. The emasculated, or creepy, would of course want a medium that didn’t contain the risks of true human contact or relationship, so I don’t think this is a particularly surprising outcome given the audience this medium attracts.
Couching this as “yet one more difficulty women face” or proof of inequality is completely missing the forest for the trees.
Is this an outcome of making oneself in a fantasy relationship with ones viewers? Absolutely.
The argument is indeed dangerously close to "you dressed immodestly so you deserve it".
It's only missing the deserve sentiment, but is still roughly, "X always happens when you do Y, so it's your fault that X happens if you keep doing Y"
This is built into the nature of sexual relationships across the genders and possibly even gender itself. What I’m talking about is descriptive, not oughts. No one ought to be harassed, but people will keep doing this because it is an outflowing of an emasculated culture.
What I don’t like about your line of argument is how it infantilizes women. It’s clear just by the nature of how this medium has developed that it’s going to create unwanted or unrecriprocated sexual attention. It’s a fantasy relationship simulator. That doesn’t make harassment okay, either. But how do you police this? Are you really saying women need to be protected from the precise male gaze they are courting? How?
Not only is this impractical, demonizing men or trying to frame this as a woman’s liberation issue just furthers the emasculation culture which leads to the creepy, inappropriate behavior you take issue with