Twitch No Longer Cool With Streamers Taking Their Clothes Off

Slowly but surely the pendulum of our society is swinging towards a repeat of the prudish 1950s. And that's bullshit, because by the time we get to the 60s again, I'll probably be too old to fucking appreciate it.

If Giant Bomb still used Twitch regularly, this would really cramp their style. Now Jeff can't stream this or this anymore.

I just don't see how it's hurting anyone. This is just you wanting to enforce your moral beliefs on someone else to make them conform. Twitch doing it I have zero issues with, it's their platform and this type of behaviour does effect them. You however? You mostly seem like you're moralising and trying to seem like you're better than others because of the high horse you found ;)

Maaaan...

In a lot of ways the rules are probably something that made some sense to do better later than never anyway, such as the self-inflicted harm bit, considering the growing popularity of Twitch and the comfort people having using it. However I'm sure it's also a partial effort to make a dent in this curious social problem.

For anyone worried about prudishness, it's less an issue of sanctioning sexuality and more to do with discouraging the precedent of playing to a low base with promiscuity and titillation. There are nuances to any situation where we sanction against promiscuous clothing in say the work place or educational environments but it all ostensibly serves the same purpose, to make irrelevant a distraction that can easily fall along gender lines and potentially foment sexual advances.

My problem is with the wording of this all. Who decides what is "Drinking excessively" and who decides what is "Sexually suggestive" clothing. To some people playing 3-6 rounds of Beerio Kart is the start of their night while for some it's getting to the "fuck that is too much" level. For some people a deep v-neck is sexually suggestive and for others it isnt. Best case scenario it gets rid of some girls showing off their chests to get views or people playing aggressive drinking games with their buddies on camera. Worst case scenario it gives a tool to trolls to clog up their mods by responding to false claims about sexual content or 'self destructive behavior'.

Its got to be done on a case by case basis. The stuff there's trying to cut out is a bit Babestation.

In theory, this makes some sense, but considering actual problems on Twitch, this seems like a sign of backwards priorities.

A far bigger problem than actual "sluts" on Twitch are all the streamers and viewers who regularly mock, dismiss, and harass female streamers for being at all attractive. Female streamers that don't even have cameras are impacted by the common slut shaming for streamers daring to be women on a "men's website".

I really love watching streams on Twitch, but there are serious problems with how women are treated and talked about on the site. It's bad enough to be a woman(or sometimes even feminist man) in chat often running into assholes, but being a female streamer is like a constant gauntlet of dickishness, lewdness, and dismissal. I don't know of any female streamer that hasn't been merely dismissed as a slut just making money off her looks.

Some individual streams are better at moderating themselves, but that's more a testament to their own personal rules and moderators than a truly safe place from such nonsense. There are a few streamers that push the rules, but a bigger problem is the wider acceptance of treating women in a demeaning and dismissive fashion on Twitch. Far too many are jerks to them while others excuse what they do as the streamers asking for it. People say, "If they dressed differently, they wouldn't get the lewd comments." Which is so far from the truth. Even when women purposefully dress down to things like over-sized hoodies, people make lewd comments and demand to see more skin. And if they draw attention to the abuse and lewdness, they're called attention whores that should just suck it up. They can't win.

Ultimately, this will likely not "clean up" Twitch. It may affect a handful of streams that were pushing it, but mostly, it will just give more fuel to the many people who regularly hound and look down on female streamers. This reinforces the folks who complain that women on Twitch are some kind of great threat to the site. As though cleavage is going to sink the ship. If a woman isn't pretty or doesn't focus on her clothes and makeup, she's dismissed as an ugly whore or desperate nerd, and when she is pretty and confident in it, she's dismissed and hounded as a slut that should focus on the games. People demand more skin while others shame them for showing "too much", and others just seem to think they're entitled to be demeaning or lewd to any woman daring to stream on the site.

For those saying this is a move that will help them be seen as more professional, the few female streamers aren't the big stumbling block to that. The negative aspects of a boys' club mentality and discrimination are far more corrosive to the site's professionalism, as it's more widespread and destructive to the experience of being on the site. You can easily be on Twitch every day and never be impacted at all by a small amount of people being inappropriate on their streams, but the immature and discriminatory nonsense you come across in many streams and their chats is regularly detrimental to enjoyment of the site.

I've been regularly watching Twitch streams for a few years now, and while it's one of my favorite sites online, it also has some serious problems. And one of those serious problems isn't actual "sluts". It's primarily the same mentality and culture that leads to folks mocking and harassing just about any female streamers as "sluts" and those who feel they're entitled to making Twitch a home for general discrimination and dickishness.

@truthtellah: Great points and well put. I don't expose myself to twitch chat by simply turning it off and not looking at it but I do that because I know what goes on in there. I know it's still going on.

Some channels are about to take a HUGE revenue hit...

"lol a lot of whores are gonna lose money now" or "[female streamer I don't like] is screeeewwed" seem to be really popular responses to this news today, and seeing so many comments like that keeps increasing my trepidation regarding how this may end up being a net negative on Twitch, further reinforcing some of the worse elements of the site and community around it.

Still won't make it any less idiotic, parents should be responsible/liable for what their kids are doing, holding the whole of society "hostage" to "protect children" will end up being a doomed approach.

It will only be a matter of time until Germany also demands special censorship on Twitch so it abides by German youth protection laws, which btw demand age checks of the most impossible nature. Then there will be no more streaming of 18+ rated games, showing close ups of "gruesome violence" will be banned and so on, in addition to those above rules.

It will only be a matter of time until every single damned country wants to start enforcing their moral ideals on the Internet, up to a point where there will be nothing left on the Internet, not even cat videos (those will be considered cruelty against animals as the cats can't give their permission for being recorded).

Streamers are stream monsters.

I get where Twitch is coming from, but this is going to cramp Kaceytron's style and that makes me sad. She is such an incredible parody of professional girl gamers and makes me laugh with her antics.

I feel like this is a way of stopping all of the LoL streamers that wear a really tight tank top just to get more viewers...

Yep. You got it. Because Twitch doesn't want to be held liable for a lawsuit, cat videos will be banned from the internet.

This is all Greg Miller's fault, isn't it.

@anund: Having morals is a good thing, but that's not what this argument is about. It's about not letting Twitch turn into any more of a shit hole than it already has to be .

Well, no more shirtless trihex at AGDQ next year.
That means, no more shirtless donation incentive.
Which also means, a hit to cancer donations.
Meaning: Twitch supports cancer.

Poor BroTeam the first and second option will severely limit him LOL

There is much praise around the internet, about this at the moment. Believing it should quell the amount of girls that use their cleavage to get easy views and money.

Which definately happens. However, it doesn't actually say anything about cleavage, just underwear and stuff. I doubt that much will change and asking girls to cover their natural assets will probably cause a shitstorm.

I don't give a sliver of a fuck pie about girls using their cleavage to get easy views or a guy using his abs and delts. You're right that this is going to cause a shitstorm. It's a completely childish set of rules written by what appears to be a hip moron. The best words I can think of for it are neutering and insulting.

I completely agree! Having morals is great. Trying to impose your morals on others by creating laws and regulation? That's different. Why ask to regulate something that doesn't harm anyone? I don't get it.

Again, Twitch is fully within their rights to do this and I really don't blame them. The people who are cheering them on though, those I don't understand? Seems awfully similar to the people who are against gay marriage. "I don't like this, therefore you should not be allowed to do it, even though it really doesn't influence my life at all!"

Guess I wont be watching Jeff´s naked streams anymore.

Yeah,there are so much better sites, locations and places that offers boobs and six packs.

Twitch should be a place where we see gamers' reactions and impressions while interacting with them at the same time.

I just wish that it will always be about gamers doing their best at video games instead of being like "hey! look how awesome i think i am ;)" and viewers are like "can you play the game now? "

Just so people know, this won't have any impact on any streamers that show cleavage. It's likely not going to be significantly impacting any prominent streamers or women either. So any celebrations about this hurting all those "camwhores" and "sluts" on Twitch are even sillier than they already are.

It may help with some smaller streams and PS4 camera streams, but for the most part, it's just a slight legal change that may protect them in the future, sold to us in a hip corporate fashion meant to reduce people's concern. That, and it will once again give more fuel to the fire of those who think women are a big threat to the site. All of the most successful and best paid streamers on Twitch remain men, and that's likely not going to be changing any time soon despite repeated complaints about how women being attractive or having breasts gives them some kind of terrible advantage.

Support the streams you enjoy and stop worrying about other streamers. There's plenty of Twitch for everyone.

@truthtellah: No man! The internet is limited! If people are off enjoying other Twitch streams there'll be none left for me! Gotta grab it all while we can because once the walls come down it'll be back to trading and bartering.

And for those pointing to how a lot of the most-viewed VODs each month are streamers with big breasts, it's worth noting that they don't make money off of that. They make money off of people regularly watching streams, donating, subscribing, and buying stuff from stream partners.

Unless those VOD views translate into people actually coming into the streams and enjoying them on a regular basis, they're meaningless. Look at those with the highest live view counts and subscriber numbers, where money is really made, and it's a very different picture. Men still dominate Twitch, and while some streamers may be jealous of women with cleavage, they're the last thing they should actually be worried about if they want to be successful on the site.

A few girls in bikinis ruined everyone's fun :(

@spraynardtatum said:

Excellent.

what makes it childish? im not agree or disagring just interesting in your choosing of that word

They're a bunch of squares!

They are silly rules.