How criticism of nudity fell on the feet of the critics
Because streamers used the Twitch gaming platform for hot tub streams, a controversy arose, to which Twitch is responding with a new category. The dispute shows how diverse the platform has become.
They are just asleep, water splashes, the breath is calm: a Live stream on Twitch, established by the Marine Mammal Rescue Center in Vancouver, shows the life of otters – and thousands of people watch. Even more interesting than the otters themselves, however, are the hashtags and categories that the channel uses to find an audience on Twitch: Pools, Hot Tubs and Beaches. A new category that arose out of a supposed controversy.
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Hot water on Twitch
In recent weeks, they have often been the focus of criticism from commentators and gaming sites: mainly young women who filmed themselves like she is sitting in a hot tub spoke to the audience. In appropriate clothing, namely bikinis, they seemed to stand out on a platform that is mainly used by gamers to stream video games – at least that is the reasoning of the critics. To Gamers selling their bath water, it was now the hot tub women who caused a nuisance.
Of course, many users on Twitch watched exactly these streams, because only then could they even attract the attention they ultimately got. So there seems to be enough interest to use this gaming platform for content that seems to be far removed from gaming.
Twitch as a platform to earn money – and to address communities
If you look at Twitch, regardless of the criticism that young women who want to use the platform for themselves, you discover that the streaming provider has long been used by people for many purposes other than gaming, often with success. Political communication for example, which has been given its own category apart from gaming streams and attracts a large number of viewers, especially in the USA. Or to eat and drink, a category that is mainly used for cooking and eating. In general, the consistently most popular category on Twitch is just chatting, in which the streamers talk about any topic – a few of them have even sat in the whirlpool. The communities that can be specifically addressed on Twitch are becoming more and more diverse and fragmented.
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Twitch is a platform where a lot of people make money. They are sponsored to unbox a product in front of the camera, for example. Or they are offered money to use certain brands in the stream. In addition, Twitch offers users the opportunity to support their favorite streamers financially. In short, Twitch is a very commercial platform, not the small niche in which gamers play their games. It’s a platform that now appeals to millions, every day. Those who criticize people for using Twitch to attract attention should be aware of this – the platform was built around that.
Last week, Twitch responded to the criticism of supposedly too revealing hot tub streamers. “To be perceived as sexy is not against our rules,” it says. In a longer blog post the company explains its rules regarding nudity in the stream, in which swimming and streams on beaches are explicitly excluded. In order to underline this fact and to reflect “the wide range of interests and preferences”, Twitch has in short established a new category: Pools, Hot Tubs and Beaches.
The otter stream at the Marine Mammal Rescue Center in Vancouver is taking advantage of the buzz surrounding this dispute to draw attention to their otters. They show that even this category, which was previously considered to be exploiting a games platform for supposedly offensive bikini streams, offers a range of content options and makes the platform richer than it takes anything away from it. And of course, the critics seem to have forgotten that, it is also simply possible not to click on this category and not watch the hot tub streams. But maybe the criticism was more about the fact that young women wanted to find their niche here – but not under the auspices that the gamers have set.
