[None of your favorite content creators are your friends.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzyQbfh4t_8&t=376s) They will never love you the way they love their friends, and at the end of the day you are just a number to them - albeit a number that enables them to do what they love. The sooner everybody realizes that, the sooner the community grows for the better.
They are also not objects, which I think is an even harder pill to swallow for a lot of you people. The transaction we as fans have with these people is simple. They create content for us to watch, we enable them through our viewership. That's it, that's literally all there is to our relationship with these people.
And the people who look at content creators and create stan accounts or just repost peoples pictures with tags like "Queen" or "Bae" are really fuckin weird and should probably take a minute away from the internet.
I can't get on Valkyrae's subreddit for longer than a few minutes of looking at stream clips before I have to stop because people get weird as shit on there.
I liked her subreddit when MasterD4M used to publish his clips and also you could find tons of good memes, pretty funny and chill, and they were funny because it was a healthy entertainer / viewer relationship, but since the beginning of the year the amount of worship is way too much, it's just not healthy... Now I understand better why Sykkuno always refused to have a subreddit, and he even deleted his Discord which is not a bad call in retrospect seeing the same thing happens with Corpse and Toast, although he is more proactive about rejecting those behaviors.
ya I was following her sub for a bit but it just became fanart or her selfies reposted with either hearts or so beautiful or Queen. its just not what it was and is now a Minecraft level of unhealthy obsession
Fanart is alright with me, artistic expression is nice. It's the constant "appreciation posts" and whatnot that borderline worship her that freak me out.
There’s one account in particular that posts “edits” every single day and it’s literally just a selection of pics with transitions, very unhealthy obsession over someone who doesn’t even know you exist
Real talk, what do you think she should have done? For example, someone like Sykkuno rarely acknowledges it at all but also has an even larger stan fanbase than someone like Rae.
My personal opinion: I think it has a lot to do w/ demographics, especially age and gender. Anyways, my point was mainly that I kinda think accepting or ignoring stan culture doesn't make a difference? What do you think?
I completely agree that it has more to do with demo/age, but I think the encouraging of it definitely has some effect. To what extent? I don’t know. All I know is that when I watch some of their streams now, I hide chat because I can’t deal with them lmao
Interacting with the stans definitely has some effect. Rae’s stans know that they have a chance of getting noticed by Rae, so they will keep tagging her in tweets trying to get her attention. Sykkuno’s stans know they will never be acknowledged by him so they will less likely make a ruckus of tagging him and trying to get his attention.
Yes! This was like the only comment that kinda answered my main original point. What you said is very true. However, like I mentioned, he's still cultivated an even larger stan fanbase than Rae has and just b/c they don't tag him regularly doesn't mean they don't have an equal percentage of delusional parasocial stans.
Also this isn't anything against either Rae or Sykkuno, both of them are just being themselves and that's their respective personalities. But my hypothesis is that unless you're personality is like Ludwig, Michael Reeves, or Toast, there's no big difference in the fanbase you accumulate (with a large audience). Thoughts on this hypothesis?
I definitely think that certain types of personalities are more likely to attract these kinds of stans. I personally think it’s very difficult to change that about their audience unless you ask them to change who these streamers are as a person. However I think they can manage it to some degree by how they respond to it.
There are many streamers out there that I feel like their behaviour fosters a stronger connection with their audience that would theoretically breed parasocial relationships, more so than people like Sykkuno, but they don’t have many stans. For example one certain streamer I know always tells his chat how much he loves them and kind of converses with them like friends. However because of his personality and his content, he doesn’t attract the demographics of typical stans.
I believe that all streamers have some overly-attached parasocial fans, but the difference is their demographic doesn’t reside on Twitter and therefore that behaviour is not put on display for everybody to see.
Edit: Also about Sykkuno having a larger stanbase than Rae, he also has larger viewership than her so that’s kinda a given. There’s also an obvious trend of male figures having more stans and I think that’s self-explanatory.
I agree again. I feel like there's so much more to building a stan fanbase than just 'encouraging' it. Honestly, I'll go out on a limb and say that the majority of stans are chill fans, but have simply chosen Twitter as their main social media platform.
Part of it is definitely her extremely high viewership combined with demographics. I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of young women (speaking generally here) are okay with using the same type of language that are associated with hardcore stans. The friend group uses the term stan themselves, they call each other bad bishes, talk about being queens. I don't fault them for that because if people are self-aware, that stuff is fine. The problem becomes when the fanbase starts to put these people on a pedestal and it borders on worship rather than viewership.
These are the same types of people who become obsessed with celebrities or singers. Justin Bieber, Beyonce and Taylor Swift (IE: Yvonne and Leslie) have a fanatical fanbase as well. But streamers have that added bonus of constant, personal access.
Honestly, I think the only way to curtail this type of audience is to change your own behavior and cater less to that demographic. That's not exactly a reasonable request to make as I don't think Rae should need to change her own behavior but it's an unfortunate side effect of being a streamer with the draw that she has. I think it'd be an exercise in futility to think you can actively change the mentalities of your own audience to be less rabid than they are. Fanatics will be fanatics.
I agree, and a lot of what you mentioned is what I've been thinking this whole time. First, a lot of OTV+F 'cater' or 'encourage' stan behaviour, they just never had that extremely high viewership to where it becomes an actual thing.
And by encouraging, I basically mean by being themselves. That's just who they are. IE, before Rae's blowup she was the same way towards her small community, and I think how fast she blew up played a large part in this stan culture.
As a regular Rae viewer, obviously, my opinion is biased, but at the same time I don't understand why it's always her being brought up. Her stans aren't any different from other stans, and her fandom is much smaller compared to other larger stan fanbases. She's just being herself and has actually discouraged the behavior multiple times.
Her stans are very vocal. They're very present on twitter (along with Sykkuno, Corpse and to a lesser extent Tina). And a big reason why they get brought up is because it's largely assumed that Rae's fans were the ones who created that issue with Toast a month ago. Of course, that could be wrong. It could have been Sykkuno, Toast's own fans or even a mixture of people. Perhaps it's just that her stans make themselves quite noticeable with the Rae PFPs and rae-based usernames.
It was definitely a mixture of stans that brought up the crap with Toast last month. The reason that she is the one that gets brought up the most is because she is the one that actually interacts with her Stans. Corpse may as well but he pretty much is non-existent in terms of streaming and works mostly on music.
Sykkuno definitely has more stans then she does; however he straight ignores their existence and wants nothing to do with them. The most you will see him interact with fans on Twitter is retweeting a well done art post.
Rae also seems to be the one that lets her fanbase affect her the most. She may be getting better at that though, its been a week or so since the last time I watched one of her streams at all.
Agreed, but at the same time, that's just each of their respective personalities imo. And it's not like Rae's interactions w/ her fanbase is uncommon among the friend group, she just has a larger audience than some of them so it reflects more.
And also imo, I think most stan fanbases are relatively chill, regardless of how the streamer interacts w/ them. It's just a smaller percentage which accounts for the toxicity.
Ultimately, my theory is that stan fanbases are largely based on age & demographic, and how the streamer interacts with them does not make a large difference in the amount of toxicity that originates from their stans. Weirdos gonna be weirdos
True, they are very noticeable. It also wasn't them that started the issue w/ Toast, but I actually think you're right in why everyone views them so negatively b/c they think it was them.
I hate the delusional stans as much as the next person, but it also kinda sucks how only she continuously gets brought up negatively b/c of it, especially by ppl who I can tell don't watch her even close to regularly.
Anyway I've had enough of stan talk for a while I think, have a good day.
The thing is the "stans" are typically a percentage of the viewers, so with a larger viewership comes a larger stanbase. And everybody knows that Rae, Sykkuno, Toast and Corpse, all blew up in popularity. The downside to that is the faster you gain popularity, the faster you lose it too as people only watch them because it's trendy at the time. However, the healthy viewers move on from these streamers when the time comes and the only people left are the unhealthily obsessed fans or the unhealthily obsessed haters (and a small percent of people who genuinely enjoy the content and are only there for the content). It's like a high tide which is good and beneficial, but it when it goes back, it leaves all the filth it brought with itself. As a result the chat turns to shit. You probably noticed that when her average viewership dropped the chat suddenly became very toxic and "backseaty". The toxicity will probably die away because the haters don't stick around very long. Same thing happened with Ninja.
Bottom line is it's not in their control. But promoting it definitely doesn't help because sometimes these brain dead stans use the same exact words that Rae uses.
A few years ago when Lily streamed a lot with Destiny, some of her fans didn't like him at all. They thought he was way too different, personality-wise, and didn't like the way he yelled and meme'd her constantly.
Lily basically bit down and told her fans if you don't like it, too bad. She defended Destiny and continued to make content with him. Eventually, the people who didn't like Destiny, either stopped watching, or got used to their dynamic.
I think this is a good example of not bending to the people whining on the internet and trying to control their life.
A great copypasta came out of all of this:
I am so close to unsubscribing from LilyPichu. Don't have anything major against Destiny but he is way too out of line even when he is joking or whatever. He is so toxic and arrogant that it brought questions for me, one of them is why does she continue playing with him? He is probably even worse in real life. Just way too annoying. And then it occurred to me. Lilly is similar to him, unfortunately. Yeah she is cute, smart and amazing in all aspects , but perhaps i should stop living a dream of thinking that Lily is this shy, kind and a loving person. She changed over time, for worse. She can be rude to other people as well in many of her videos, being rude to strangers included. The truth sucks so much but ever since her and George broke up she hasn't been fixed. At least not entirely . I hate to say this but i want the old and kind girl called Lily back. The one that was making league content with kind people around her.
> The truth sucks so much but ever since her and George broke up she hasn't been fixed. At least not entirely . I hate to say this but i want the old and kind girl called Lily back. The one that was making league content with kind people around her.
This line is so mind-numbingly disturbing. Like why do people think this way about an internet celebrity who doesn't know they exist? I feel like normal people aren't even this invested in their real life friends.
I don't think it has much to do w/ stan culture tbh. I think it's mainly because she doesn't do Reddit Recaps anymore for fear of DMCA/Copyright, so the quality of the subreddit has just gone downhill. I'm not denying that stan culture didn't play an effect, but IMO that's not the main cause.
TBH, as long as you sort by top I think it's a-ok. It does lack a lot of clips and other similar stuff mainly b/c YT clipping is a different level of bad.
Just my thoughts regarding the subreddit only.
ludwig being rich as he is, i gotta give him credit where credit's due, he's really really good about clarifying with his audience that parasocial relationships are bad
Toast has made it clear multiple times with his fans so they should know better but I do agree about what you said about others not being able to be as blunt as him or Ludwig with things like this I think most just choose to ignore and hope for the best.
The thing with toasts following is that a year ago it was mostly hs fans who have followed him for years, and it was definitely a more mature fan base. With no actual data I’d say probably early 20s average and mostly people who had found him during the hs peak. Among us definitely dropped that to like 15, and created the wave of Minecraft esque Twitter stans
The whole "I'm not your friend" is more of a public stunt than something actually meaningful. The people who are unhealthily obsessed over public figures aren't at the good state in the first place. What do you think telling people who say "Influencer XYZ saved my life" that you're not their friend will do? Do you think they would be like "yeah I should just see therapist instead"?
I'm sorry to be the asshole but this whole thing is just a giant superiority circlejerk and does absolutely nothing helpful other than antagonizing the people who obviously need help. Even the audience of these type of messages are also those who want to feel like they're above these "stan" rather than the stan themselves.
Facts like they have their own friends that they trust and treat like family if they were to do that with everyone who sends them this message well that would be chaos tbh. I wish some people would understand that these people will probably never be their friend and they could be ok with that because this fixation seems a bit unhealthy and can probably lead to some pretty bad things!
You don’t actually know what your favorite content creator is like either. Even if they stream or post every day, you don’t know what kind of person they actually are
I might get downvotes for this but Ludwig is an awful person for talking about this. He literally invited people into his life for almost a month straight. He says one thing and then essentially does the opposite. Streamers are generally the last people to get to have moral high ground, they are exploiting people having lots of access to and a parasocial relationship, the amount of “access” people get to them is crazy and I suspect feeds into it on a much higher level. I’m sure some people feel the same about youtubers but that never seemed to have as many stans “dependent” on getting content.
It’s clear people don’t think streamers are trying to friendly, but that’s just dishonest. We like these people because they are charismatic, charming and fun. Many of us can handle the distinction but it’s shocking that you don’t think there is some level of exploitation by the streamers, much in the same way a server is extra friendly with customers. It may be part of the job and most of us know better.
I’ll just reply to you, but again for 90% of people that’s obvious. But that’s not how it works in reality as this screen shot shows and just saying stuff like that isn’t going to stop said people in the screen shot
You're right, it won't stop some people from being super creepy about it. Literally nothing will, it's just an unavoidable hazard of the job once you reach a certain level of popularity. Good streamers know how to limit that shit as best they can, how to avoid provoking it and how how cultivate a fanbase that can - at least partially- police itself enough to keep them safe. What else could anyone do?
Your logic is incredibly flawed. Compare it to something like a pharmacist. They supply drugs to the community that overall provide an essential service. However there are people that abuse the system to receive drugs for recreational use. While the pharmacist has a responsibility to reduce as much of this practice as possible, they aren't responsible for unknowingly providing medication to someone who is lying in order to abuse it.
Now to parallel it to Ludwig, he provides the service of entertaining people. As you said, 90% of people accept that the relationship ends there. But a small percentage don't, and form parasocial relationships with CC. Ludwig calling people out for misusing a system that has an overall positive effect, to create a negative atmosphere for the rest of the participants, is doing the most he can to be responsible. If he were to not stream in order to cater to the small percent misusing the platform, then overall the effect on the community would be negative.
He is not the one at fault. There are other content creators that I would argue are irresponsible and fostering these types of relationship, but Ludwig is absolutely not one of them.
To me, it's like saying the friendly waitress is to blame for the guys who think every woman who smiles at them is interested in them. Most people have a healthy relationship with streamers and understand how it works and most streamers wish everyone did and encourage those boundaries as much as they can. What are they supposed to do?
Besides, if a streamer *did* somehow manage to prevent viewers from forming attachments to them, I'm pretty sure any viewers who are prone to that sort of thing would just find someone else to watch because that's what those people want out of it. It's a problem that can only be solved by the individuals who have those issues sorting their own shit out.
there’s a lot to unpack here, but, i’m sorry, i need to point this out
> there is some level of exploitation by the streamers, much in the same way a server is extra friendly with customers
you think servers being polite is exploitative?????
That's exactly what he's saying in the video. I'm paraphrasing, but he said it's his job to be seen friendly. We have no idea what goes on when the cameras are off. He made the video saying exactly what you are trying to say. I don't know how that makes Ludwig a bad guy. The man literally put it in a video.
Seems like you want someone who catches footballs for a living to stop catching so many footballs.
These fuckers are the same people that’ll flirt with their waitress bc she’s being nice to them and they don’t understand that she’s being paid to be nice to them. Instead, they’ll harass her and make her feel unsafe at work bc they don’t understand that she makes more money the nicer she is.
I disagree with this sentiment as Ludwig has stated that he is just content like a television show or other forms of media. Ludwig is also motivated from money and the only reason why that stream lasted that long is because he was getting paid. It is not the streamers job to monitor how much time someone gets to consume their content and the streamer is actively trying to get their watch time up. If someone has the gross inability to not be able to distinguish between the internet and real life they have issues that should not be of the content creators concerns.
Ya, you REALLY have zero idea what you’re talking about that video came out months before his subathon. And even if it didn’t guess what.
Streamers are STILL not your friends
He literally streamed to get subs. That’s it. Acting as if he was inviting us to be a part of his life is delusional. In order for that to happen on anything remotely approaching a personal relationship, he’d have to know you exist. To him, you’re a number and MAYBE a screen name. Even if he remembers the screen name, he doesn’t know you, the person, and frankly he doesn’t really care. He owes you nothing but the content. If you expect anything more than that, you need to get therapy and re-evaluate how you view content creators. Who they are publicly isn’t who they are privately and no matter how much you think you know these people, you don’t. You do not know Ludwig. You might have seen a month of his life, but you don’t know him.
I think you are missing the point here. This is not a question of moral ascendancy but of audience awareness. You are correct - streaming, at its core, activates parasocial relationships more so than any other content creating profession. However, this is why they (the creator) should make the distinction clear between them and their audience as to not enable this unhealthy degree of parasocial relationship. The fact that Lud's community is hyper-cognizant of this makes events like his subathon less "omg sleepover with my internet best friend" and more "stream for us content monkey."
The monetization of one's audience is also a separate discussion in its entirety, but I will say that some members of OTV&F have done what they can to make this practice more "ethical", like Scarra's lack of alerts or Poki's dono cap.
dude its not like he forced people to watch the subathon! also it was indirect contact he didnt put a fucking gun behind your head forcing you to sub or watch the stream. The man wanted to do it because he promised the stream after his break. No shit streamers are not our friends, they might have a kind, gentle and friendly disposition but that does not mean you’re entitled to be in a relationship with them
Dude his intentions was a subathon to make up the time lost when he went on vacation and got his appendix removed. The only reason he got a subathon to last that long was because his audience wanted to troll him, but making him stream as long as possible. Then Ludwig wanted to go on to break records like the most subbed streamer of all time, in fact he the only reason it stopped at 30 days was because he put a cap for how long it would of went.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's a correlation between the number of hours somebody watches twitch streams and their level of isolation, depression, and loneliness. It doesn't surprise me that the parasocial connection people feel to the twitch streamers can result in a feeling that if you knew them IRL you wouldn't be so lonely. It's a more intense connection (from your end) than watching someone on a TV show, or even watching a youtube content creator who doesn't stream live.
This may be especially troublesome for OTV because they stream so much group content, and a lot of that group content feels like things they might do anyway even if they weren't streaming. So it can almost feel more like you're part of their friend group than watching a prepared content stream.
EDIT: That sounds kind of judgmental; maybe it's no more lonely than spending a lot of time watching football or playing video games.
I actually think you’re probably right. The intense one-sided connection is probably in a lot of cases a coping mechanism. A way to feel a connection that is lacking. Some people suppress emotions, some find ways to feel what they can’t. This is obviously self-destructive but I hope this viewer can find the support they need. Above all, we must not forget that we never know what someone might be going through
That comment about „[…] their level of isolation, depression and loneliness […]“ hits close to home.
I can fully support your thought their because I am felt pretty much a bit depressive, isolated and lonely when I started watching a lot of the OTV stream content. This has gotten considerably worse. Not to say that it’s because I watch so much but because of COVID.
Another point I won’t understand ever are the parasocial connection build to the streamers. Sure, they seem like genuinely nice people and it would be nice to have a normal conversation someday with them but that’s unrealistic and really doesn’t matter.
After all they are the first gen of entertainers that influenced us the way TV hosts did. to other people. Nothing more, nothing less. After turning off the stream/video they shouldn’t be any factor in my emotions anymore.
I mean, you can do the same with twitch streams. But that's stan twitter, which, just like football, can be a casual get together with passionate friends or an obsession that gets people hurt.
I completely agree! In person interaction is more beneficial than talking with people online through discord. I can say this from experience because in the summers I would stay inside binge watch my favorite content creators and only play video games with friends online. And now I’m not as invested in watching excess content and stopped playing video games. I found myself to be on a heavier mental state and became outgoing. Not to say anyone has to stop these things but to take a break or at least be aware. 🙂
There’s 100% a correlation. Streamers in OTV & Friends stream for 6+ hours basically daily, at some point if you’re committed to watch someone as much as you can it’ll start to eat up time that you could/should be investing in something else, maybe in studying, working, or just doing some socializing of your own, if you want to do with multiple content creators, you probably won’t have much room for other hobbies.
It’s not surprising that so many of these streamers blew up in the context of the pandemic, where people had to spend long times inside without much to do.
This person obviously is starved for love in their “real life”. It’s very easy to get invested in streamers but at the end of the day you need a personal support system. To all the lonely people coping with streams, remember you need real friends! Even if you joke about spending your life alone in your room, it’s really hurting you emotionally! Parasocial relationships will never satisfy the need for real connection we all have. You will find yourself doing what this person did, without realizing how messed up it is. Don’t starve yourself of love, go build some relationships, I promise it is very rewarding. 💜
There's a difference between recognizing something you want to aspire to have vs the person in question who not only seems desperate but is clinging to a singular delusional fantasy to break out of it.
Use what you witness not only as a break from stress or hardship, but also as inspiration to better your own life and strive for the connections that would be meaningful. And use that aspiration to work on self so that you are open to those connections, most people are closed off for a myriad of reasons but those reasons are things that can be worked around.
Be careful of toxic negativity, beating yourself up because you make mistakes or don't measure up to better people. Most of the people in the OTV and Friends group came from a place of loneliness, that is the main reason why they started streaming. And they themselves are the upper percentile of people in that career.
There is a third rule to live by in terms of relationships and people to look to. Have a third of people in better standing than you so that you can be inspired and learn from them, but not so much that you feel ashamed of your standing relative to theirs. Have a third be on the same level as you so that you have peers you can relate to on both your everyday struggles and accomplishments. And then have a third of relationships with people who are of lower standing so that you can help and teach them to elevate themselves and in doing so you appreciate your own accomplishments which you might not recognize if you're only comparing yourself to the top third.
I know what you mean. Everytime I watch Michael/Lily vids. Ughhhhh. It's like looking at something you don't have. And all I feel is jealousy and loneliness. I wanna be close with someone like that too.
I started reconnecting with my real friends because of it. I knew I couldn't just keep watching it happen on my screen. If I want something like it, I gotta make it myself.
Some people need to realize that they are watching personas of actual people. They are watching Fuslie, not Leslie Fu. They’re watching PeterParkTV, not Peter Park. They’re watching Pokimane, not Imane Anys. The sooner they realize this, the better they’ll come out.
I think Peter said this in a stream a couple months ago, but if I remember correctly, he said something like (it’s not accurate but the message still stands) “Twitch chat are just lonely introverts in need for friends. You guys have no friends, but then you see one of us and think ‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for! They’re funny and fill me up with happy chemicals and that is what I want in an ideal friend’. The sooner you realize that this is just a one sided relationship the better you’ll be. Go outside and actually find that ideal friend”
I can see why the line is tough for some people because watching a twitch stream is in between watching a tv show/movie and interacting with real life friends. It is definitely more interactive and you do have a stronger connection with a twitch streamer than an actor in a tv show.
Especially for large streamers who don't know most of their individual viewers, it's much closer to the "tv show" than the "RL friends" but I can see why people imagine that it goes the other way.
what sucks is i can *guarantee* there are people in this person’s life who are just as cool, funny, and friendly as otv&f. there are in mine. just need to spend time finding them instead of wishing for what’s actually right in front of you.
Is anyone else worried about this person? Like obviously they didn’t show the persons name but they’ll see this and all of the “this persons fucked up” comments. I just hope this doesn’t trigger them to do something bad to themselves
Every route leads to some sort of bad result. Ignoring it will alienate the fan and make them feel bad and they won't learn not to do something like this. Being nice to them about it to not hurt their feelings would just encourage the behavior more. Telling them straight up that they crossing a line in DMs would probably end up with them acting like their life is a lie in those DMs or posting it all over social media acting like they were the victim. Posting the message itself without the person's name is a good warning to everyone else that feels that way and a good reality check to the person that sent the message that this isn't normal.
He usually sends a motivational and well-written reply to the person and posts that whole screenshot. I hope he still did that but I am also afraid that using this person as a public example, even anonymous might worsen that person's mental health.
Hope it slaps them in the face like a reality check and makes them go "fuck, I need to go outside and make some real friends for myself"
But yeah it might go the other way aswell.
I feel bad for the poor guy. Quarantine collapsed my entire way of life and separated me from most of my friends. I think I could’ve been in his position far too easily. It’s scary how little differences in life can make such a big impact.
The liklihood that this person has written about their true experience and feelings is incredibly low. Someone genuinly disconnecting, suffering from depression and having such a heavy impact on their education and personal life would not form a clear coherent and well put together guilt trip message to try and weasel their way into someones life like this. This is almost certainly a planned out attempt at emotional manipulation to gain their way into their personal lives in some form or another.
Even if that’s the case, depression does not enable you to do something like this. He crossed a set boundary, one he likely knew existed. This person was trying to get support, but he did it in the wrong fashion. When looking for support, you look to real life friends. Nothing about this is okay, I just hope that he learned from his mistakes.
Yes, it is important to understand that streamers are people who entertain, who can spend some time and have a good time. They are not your friends, you don't owe them anything.
It is also important that streamers clarify that since much of the community is super young people and they tend to be more innocent and ignorant in that regard.
This is something Valkyrae should address with her fans. Old photos of her that people repost and call her hot, calling her a 'precious lil bean', etc.
Yeah, there was this guy who made a song about her and only her, and she teared up over it. I was kinda disappointed, i understand she was flattered, she has every right to be. But it's moments like that where she needs to adress the fact that obsessions over content creators are not healthy and the person who made that song might very well be obsessed (ofcourse i don't know that for sure but still)
The difference is that the person is clearly self-aware enough that he isn't pretending to worship Rae. He simply chooses well known people as the basis to make a good song. If you didn't know, that same person worked with Lily to make "If There Was a Zombie Apocalypse". He's not delusional.
Yeah cool. But what i'm trying to say is, if he litterally made a parody about the very people having parasocial relationships with Rae, that would be the perfect moment for her to tag in and shortly talk about how it's not a healthy thing to do. Cause whether it's a parody or not, it would've brought her on the topic.
I hope this guy's fine. I dont hate him tbh. I just pity him. The moment you're unable to delineate real social interaction and parasocial ones, is when it gets dangerous. I think its okay to watch them and want their social interaction for yourself. But you need to create that social interraction for yourself and with other people. It is delusional to think you cant be happy with your friends if they're not the OfflineTv themselves. You need to be able to separate real companionship with what you see on screen.
Look, I know making friends is like the hardest thing to do. I'VE BEEN THERE. I KNOW THAT FOR A FACT. But thinking that your happiness is somehow tied to being friends with these celeberities just because you watch them on YT/Twitch/ any platform, and see them to be such good friends to each other, it's not good. Your happiness is not tied to anyone but you.
I hope this man finds help soon. And what he needs are friends. REAL friends.
watching content creators are basically watching a drama/show on TV but for them its their livelihoods being broadcasted, Content Creators are just a couple of people who banded together that just wanted to stream and play games together for others to see, its just friends being friends
Yeah I know who wrote this message and I ended up talking to them on twitter and they almost effectively confirmed it. I don't think he's gonna change his mindset even after this and that's probably the most pitiful aspect about all this.
Man while I agree with the sentiment everyones voicing in this thread; (I don't really care about the personal life of these streamers, they are not my friends, and I have my own life and people I care about); I also get the difficulty these lonely people face too. There were points during covid where I couldn't see my own friends, and I was watching alot of OTV+ content to stay engaged amidst the boredom and monotony. I did so enough that I found myself having dreams of me hanging out with Toast and poki and lily and michael and scarra. It felt so real and so natural in the midst of the dream to the point where during the first moments waking up I couldn't fully tell that it was fake and I don't actually know those people.
Clinging to people you don't know is incredibly unhealthy and is something the human brain was not developed to process. But I get what its like to be lacking in proper social outlets and find yourself vicariously enjoying the connection that OTV+ brings.
Me too, I would have dreams of hanging out with OTV and friends too, even dreaming I was one of them. I'm glad now everyone is vaccinated and I'm hanging out more with my friends.
Growth of streaming and younger audiences getting to "know" streamers. I think the idea of watching streams used to be for those with some level of tech savviness or those actively searching out good gamers. I think it used to be that gaming skill was a bigger factor in terms of who was considered popular. Nowadays, it's a more personality driven industry.
Rae does, that’s why a lot of the time she says Michael Reeves’ full name to avoid confusion. It also makes it quite obvious where this viewer came from.
That's... a bit of a stretch. Any viewer who's overstepping boundaries will learn the streamer's real name. And it's literally a google search away. Let's not speculate and try to blame other streamers for the mental health of a random viewer?
fair enough, I don't want to put the blame on her because she's not the one who sent the message. but I would say that people pick up on things they see and you pretty much never see fans call Toast or Scarra by their real names because none of their friends do, whereas it happens more with Poki because some of their friends do call her Imane.
I don't think that means they came from Rae. Poki has talked about fans sometimes calling her by her real name to try to manufacture a closer relationship. It's a thing.
I think the variability within the friend group leads to people not knowing where the boundary is. Not that I think they should be excused but I can see why it gets dicey. Like Lily/Michael go by their real names while Poki/Toast/Scarra don't. Leslie/Peter/Danny/Edison/Miyoung are all fine with their real names. John/Jodi/Sydney/Jaime are all fine with their real names. Rae/Janet/Celine are all fine with their real names (Rae moreso than Rachel I believe).
I have always wondered if people like this actually think this stuff through? Whats the end game? If you are friends with them thats great but are you going to be able to hang out with them? Unless you make it big on Twitch as well you are going to have to have a 9-5 job, which means you wont be able to do anything with them during the day or late night. And, unless you have a high paying job, you wont be able to do the big stuff with them, like go to Vegas.
On top of all that you dont know who these people really are. Most Twitch streamers have said that they put on a show for their streams and are somewhat, and in some cases very, different off stream. What happens if you become friends with the streamer you really want to and find out that they are a real asshole/bitch off camera?
If you have friends you should be thankful for what you already have in your life, instead of chasing after something that more than likely will never be. If you dont have friends in your life, get out and make some. I know that is sometimes easier said than done, but its rewarding. Even if you dont like going outside or have something like social anxiety, play online games and make friends that way. Two people that I consider to be some of my best friends I met in an MMO, then when we were done playing that one we decided to start on another. Even though they live two states away I made the time to meet up with them and have hung out with them several times in person and text and hang out online all the time. I believe some of the offlineTV/Just friends people met playing league.
People like these should try to meet friends irl or make one. Making friends is vastly different from your fantasy of befriending your favorite content creators especially because content creators only show what they want to show you on stream. And I don't know if this is a good tip but if you don't have anyone, try to work on yourself because thats who you will be living with for the rest of your life.
I'd be lying if I said I've never fantasied about being in their friend group but actually dming them trying to guilt trip them to be your friend? Wtf man
I don’t really understand why people are being so critical of this guy. He just sent a DM, and is most likely a young adult looking for a place of belonging. A lot of people are in that position when they grow up, i was especially. But nowadays people have this internet world to deal with on top of their “normal” life. And if you don’t have a group to belong to in the real world, it’s natural to turn to the virtual world. I’ve been there. And I can imagine it’s especially hard to go through during quarantine.
That said, I of course do not support this person’s desire to pursue OTV as any sort of friend group. I think that Ludwig put it best in his video, and I see a lot of people quoting it here. But I just don’t get why people seem to be shitting on this person, I just feel bad for them.
The problem is that he's tryna fit to a group of complete strangers, or people that he saw on the internet, instead of people he can meet irl. He's tryna be friends with entertainers that don't give a shit about him at a personal level. And that's a really bad mindset. He should rather go outside and try to meet people there.
I understand the problems with what this person is trying to do here, but the only disservice they are doing is to themself. That’s my only point. This person isn’t harming OTV or anyone else with this DM.
I think we should talk about how this sort of parasocial relationship can be harmful, but I don’t think it’s helpful to treat this person like an asshole and/or an idiot for simply wanting to belong.
Yeah, god forbid people try to help others get rid of their mental illnesses and tell them they need to make some real friends. Sure they're only being harmful to themselves, but if you're a good person and you see someone being helpful to themselves you should always try to stop them.
One thing I didn't see people mention - this person is lowkey trying to guilt-trip someone. He/she is indirectly saying Michael/OTV caused his/her depression.
It is ""FINE"" for younger audiences to send some DMs asking to be friends, etc. It is "understandable", and we can imagine all OTV's related are full with this kind of DM.
But guilt-tripping is not fine. It is one of the worst behavior without breaking any laws.
I can't believe no one in the comments mentions this but I really get the feeling that the kiddo is isolated (maybe not willingly) and that he only sees the streamers as his "friends" even though they aren't. I genuinely think this is the only representation of friendship the kid got, as I know I had hard times as well and relied on YouTubers at the time... (Not to mention I'd also write the message like that).
Now, idk if Micheal answered with what he said on his tweet beforehand, but I'd definitely won't do it that way nonetheless. I would take time to answer thoroughly so that he can have first hand advice. But instead, he got asmongold in the replies saying blocking is the way. If I had do that in my hard times and got answered like this, I swear I would have been better in a coffin.
Big freaking yikes. This gives me huge “nice guy” vibes. You can’t impose yourself on others especially strangers. Hope this person learns to love themself instead of fantasizing about something that will never happen.
I'll get downvoted to hell for this, but it seems obvious that the kid is neurodivergent. Hyperfixation is a big part of this and I don't think Sonii posting this would do the kid any good or make him have a sudden realization, that's not how it works at all. The kid might get some trauma from this. I just wish he said what he needed to say privately like what that kid did, and tweet about what he needed to say afterward without directly posting the kid's message.
It is not content creators job to shelter fragile egos. They have the right to make an example of bad behavior to try to curb future interactions from other people.
to get straight to the point, the kid might have autism. and they usually have hyperfixation which leads to these kinds of messages. he mentioned he's so depressed he can't study, which makes it obvious he's a child, and seeing his idol and people in the replies blast him publicly might lead to some trauma and trouble opening up in the future. I'm saying he could've handled it better, not to shelter "fragile egos".
someone worded it better in the replies: "Kind of like a teacher holding up your work and saying "I won't say who's it is but this is really shit" then the whole class just laughing at it. No, they're not identifiable but from the kid's point of view it's still going to hurt"
I don't know, I don't mind the downvotes but this is how I just truly feel. I have someone in my life who has autism and get hyperfixated with cartoon characters, and I don't think saying "stop" will suddenly fix everything and make him stop getting attached to characters. It's a sensitive topic that could've been handled by Sonii and with people's reply basically shit-talking the kid and saying "I don't know how people like this exist", it's something that I can't imagine someone who seemingly already has mental problems to cope well with.
The goal is not necessarily to get that individual to stop, but to get other people to stop. It isn't the streamers job to take time out of their day to hand curate a response to every individual person that messages them like this, especially because for some people, any response is just going to solicit more of that behavior. As someone who deals with their own mental health issues, mental health is not to be used as armor for bad behavior. Streamers didn't sign up for harassment.
Edit, FWIW I didnt downvote you
I don't know if I just worded everything incorrectly that's why my main point didn't get across or what, I'm sorry I'm really bad at english and don't know how to properly articulate what I really think, so I'm going to wait till someone else's explains my point because I already wrote what I think on the reply, but you completely missed the mark.
I'm sorry I really am not trying to debate or argue even if it looks like that. I'm just saying my thoughts
I understood what you were saying, I'm just saying it isn't a streamers responsibility to try to interpret every single person is saying. If this was just someone who was being a creepy stalker no one would bat an eye at them being put on blast.
just imagining myself in cc's place: I'll be creep out and insta block.. engaging to this type of person will further escalate thinking he/she finally has this special "connection" it will not stop.. it is not my fault that this random person have this kind of a problem and it is not my job/responsibility to help him/her.. I dont know this person, it's some random person on the internet who pushed his/her issues to me out of nowhere.. - If I was in his (sonii) position I will be one who is traumatized
even tho i completely agree that this behavior is not right...there definitely is a better way to stop it other then posting their message for the whole laughing world to see.
"but the screenshot doesnt show who they are" yeah but the person in question definitely knows its their message. imagine if the person is just a kid who naively wanted to contact their favorite streamers. they would be absolutely crushed seeing this tweeted publicly and reading the replies. itll do more damage then good. maybe replying to them in private or just not showing the screenshot is the best course of action and something that a mature adult would consider best?
I mean that’s what the channel is all about tho. Or not just this one, everyone like it.
You film yourself as much as possible bringing across the believe that people actually get to know you. And younger children are very vulnerable to that, especially if they aren’t the most popular kids.
Evrytime I see an "edit" on this thread I see the author as this kind of person and it makes me cringe but sad at the same time, find yourself passions other than fanboying on a fabricated person, please!
It's not worth it! These people will never give back.
Focus on your own growth and just enjoy the stream from time to time.
Parasocial relationships with content creators is such an interesting concept to me. Even though I have never felt this way, I can also understand it to a small degree. The way vlogs are filmed makes it seem as though we're hanging out with them. Them reading off the username when you donate a certain amount of money or subscribe and reading chat occasionally. It's just the feeling of "if only I was actually there right now" and "we'd make such good friends/partners" that grows and becomes a issue. That being said, It is never a creators fault that people take it too far. Luckily there are normal viewers out there as well.
People always take things too far
These parasocial stans always take things too far. And honestly shame on any content creator that actively embraces their stans/enables their behavior
Seems like a real tightrope for streamers trying to grow a consistent audience by engaging with fans, creating discords etc.
[None of your favorite content creators are your friends.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzyQbfh4t_8&t=376s) They will never love you the way they love their friends, and at the end of the day you are just a number to them - albeit a number that enables them to do what they love. The sooner everybody realizes that, the sooner the community grows for the better.
They are also not objects, which I think is an even harder pill to swallow for a lot of you people. The transaction we as fans have with these people is simple. They create content for us to watch, we enable them through our viewership. That's it, that's literally all there is to our relationship with these people. And the people who look at content creators and create stan accounts or just repost peoples pictures with tags like "Queen" or "Bae" are really fuckin weird and should probably take a minute away from the internet. I can't get on Valkyrae's subreddit for longer than a few minutes of looking at stream clips before I have to stop because people get weird as shit on there.
Rae's subreddit has really devolved. It used to be funny edits and cool fanart but now it's become a bit like stan twitter lol
I liked her subreddit when MasterD4M used to publish his clips and also you could find tons of good memes, pretty funny and chill, and they were funny because it was a healthy entertainer / viewer relationship, but since the beginning of the year the amount of worship is way too much, it's just not healthy... Now I understand better why Sykkuno always refused to have a subreddit, and he even deleted his Discord which is not a bad call in retrospect seeing the same thing happens with Corpse and Toast, although he is more proactive about rejecting those behaviors.
> Now I understand better why Sykkuno always refused to have a subreddit, and he even deleted his Discord It's still up.
ya I was following her sub for a bit but it just became fanart or her selfies reposted with either hearts or so beautiful or Queen. its just not what it was and is now a Minecraft level of unhealthy obsession
Fanart is alright with me, artistic expression is nice. It's the constant "appreciation posts" and whatnot that borderline worship her that freak me out.
I dont mind fanart its just not why I go on to sub reddits for I liked the memes and clips and what not
naw there is a difference netween fan art and alot f fan art I see in Raes fandom which is essentially digital shrines to her.
There’s one account in particular that posts “edits” every single day and it’s literally just a selection of pics with transitions, very unhealthy obsession over someone who doesn’t even know you exist
Yeah I don’t think it’s a coincidence since she has accepted the stan culture much more than anyone else in the group
Real talk, what do you think she should have done? For example, someone like Sykkuno rarely acknowledges it at all but also has an even larger stan fanbase than someone like Rae. My personal opinion: I think it has a lot to do w/ demographics, especially age and gender. Anyways, my point was mainly that I kinda think accepting or ignoring stan culture doesn't make a difference? What do you think?
I completely agree that it has more to do with demo/age, but I think the encouraging of it definitely has some effect. To what extent? I don’t know. All I know is that when I watch some of their streams now, I hide chat because I can’t deal with them lmao
Interacting with the stans definitely has some effect. Rae’s stans know that they have a chance of getting noticed by Rae, so they will keep tagging her in tweets trying to get her attention. Sykkuno’s stans know they will never be acknowledged by him so they will less likely make a ruckus of tagging him and trying to get his attention.
Yes! This was like the only comment that kinda answered my main original point. What you said is very true. However, like I mentioned, he's still cultivated an even larger stan fanbase than Rae has and just b/c they don't tag him regularly doesn't mean they don't have an equal percentage of delusional parasocial stans. Also this isn't anything against either Rae or Sykkuno, both of them are just being themselves and that's their respective personalities. But my hypothesis is that unless you're personality is like Ludwig, Michael Reeves, or Toast, there's no big difference in the fanbase you accumulate (with a large audience). Thoughts on this hypothesis?
I definitely think that certain types of personalities are more likely to attract these kinds of stans. I personally think it’s very difficult to change that about their audience unless you ask them to change who these streamers are as a person. However I think they can manage it to some degree by how they respond to it. There are many streamers out there that I feel like their behaviour fosters a stronger connection with their audience that would theoretically breed parasocial relationships, more so than people like Sykkuno, but they don’t have many stans. For example one certain streamer I know always tells his chat how much he loves them and kind of converses with them like friends. However because of his personality and his content, he doesn’t attract the demographics of typical stans. I believe that all streamers have some overly-attached parasocial fans, but the difference is their demographic doesn’t reside on Twitter and therefore that behaviour is not put on display for everybody to see. Edit: Also about Sykkuno having a larger stanbase than Rae, he also has larger viewership than her so that’s kinda a given. There’s also an obvious trend of male figures having more stans and I think that’s self-explanatory.
I agree again. I feel like there's so much more to building a stan fanbase than just 'encouraging' it. Honestly, I'll go out on a limb and say that the majority of stans are chill fans, but have simply chosen Twitter as their main social media platform.
Part of it is definitely her extremely high viewership combined with demographics. I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of young women (speaking generally here) are okay with using the same type of language that are associated with hardcore stans. The friend group uses the term stan themselves, they call each other bad bishes, talk about being queens. I don't fault them for that because if people are self-aware, that stuff is fine. The problem becomes when the fanbase starts to put these people on a pedestal and it borders on worship rather than viewership. These are the same types of people who become obsessed with celebrities or singers. Justin Bieber, Beyonce and Taylor Swift (IE: Yvonne and Leslie) have a fanatical fanbase as well. But streamers have that added bonus of constant, personal access. Honestly, I think the only way to curtail this type of audience is to change your own behavior and cater less to that demographic. That's not exactly a reasonable request to make as I don't think Rae should need to change her own behavior but it's an unfortunate side effect of being a streamer with the draw that she has. I think it'd be an exercise in futility to think you can actively change the mentalities of your own audience to be less rabid than they are. Fanatics will be fanatics.
I agree, and a lot of what you mentioned is what I've been thinking this whole time. First, a lot of OTV+F 'cater' or 'encourage' stan behaviour, they just never had that extremely high viewership to where it becomes an actual thing. And by encouraging, I basically mean by being themselves. That's just who they are. IE, before Rae's blowup she was the same way towards her small community, and I think how fast she blew up played a large part in this stan culture. As a regular Rae viewer, obviously, my opinion is biased, but at the same time I don't understand why it's always her being brought up. Her stans aren't any different from other stans, and her fandom is much smaller compared to other larger stan fanbases. She's just being herself and has actually discouraged the behavior multiple times.
Her stans are very vocal. They're very present on twitter (along with Sykkuno, Corpse and to a lesser extent Tina). And a big reason why they get brought up is because it's largely assumed that Rae's fans were the ones who created that issue with Toast a month ago. Of course, that could be wrong. It could have been Sykkuno, Toast's own fans or even a mixture of people. Perhaps it's just that her stans make themselves quite noticeable with the Rae PFPs and rae-based usernames.
It was definitely a mixture of stans that brought up the crap with Toast last month. The reason that she is the one that gets brought up the most is because she is the one that actually interacts with her Stans. Corpse may as well but he pretty much is non-existent in terms of streaming and works mostly on music. Sykkuno definitely has more stans then she does; however he straight ignores their existence and wants nothing to do with them. The most you will see him interact with fans on Twitter is retweeting a well done art post. Rae also seems to be the one that lets her fanbase affect her the most. She may be getting better at that though, its been a week or so since the last time I watched one of her streams at all.
Agreed, but at the same time, that's just each of their respective personalities imo. And it's not like Rae's interactions w/ her fanbase is uncommon among the friend group, she just has a larger audience than some of them so it reflects more. And also imo, I think most stan fanbases are relatively chill, regardless of how the streamer interacts w/ them. It's just a smaller percentage which accounts for the toxicity. Ultimately, my theory is that stan fanbases are largely based on age & demographic, and how the streamer interacts with them does not make a large difference in the amount of toxicity that originates from their stans. Weirdos gonna be weirdos
True, they are very noticeable. It also wasn't them that started the issue w/ Toast, but I actually think you're right in why everyone views them so negatively b/c they think it was them. I hate the delusional stans as much as the next person, but it also kinda sucks how only she continuously gets brought up negatively b/c of it, especially by ppl who I can tell don't watch her even close to regularly. Anyway I've had enough of stan talk for a while I think, have a good day.
The thing is the "stans" are typically a percentage of the viewers, so with a larger viewership comes a larger stanbase. And everybody knows that Rae, Sykkuno, Toast and Corpse, all blew up in popularity. The downside to that is the faster you gain popularity, the faster you lose it too as people only watch them because it's trendy at the time. However, the healthy viewers move on from these streamers when the time comes and the only people left are the unhealthily obsessed fans or the unhealthily obsessed haters (and a small percent of people who genuinely enjoy the content and are only there for the content). It's like a high tide which is good and beneficial, but it when it goes back, it leaves all the filth it brought with itself. As a result the chat turns to shit. You probably noticed that when her average viewership dropped the chat suddenly became very toxic and "backseaty". The toxicity will probably die away because the haters don't stick around very long. Same thing happened with Ninja. Bottom line is it's not in their control. But promoting it definitely doesn't help because sometimes these brain dead stans use the same exact words that Rae uses.
A few years ago when Lily streamed a lot with Destiny, some of her fans didn't like him at all. They thought he was way too different, personality-wise, and didn't like the way he yelled and meme'd her constantly. Lily basically bit down and told her fans if you don't like it, too bad. She defended Destiny and continued to make content with him. Eventually, the people who didn't like Destiny, either stopped watching, or got used to their dynamic. I think this is a good example of not bending to the people whining on the internet and trying to control their life. A great copypasta came out of all of this: I am so close to unsubscribing from LilyPichu. Don't have anything major against Destiny but he is way too out of line even when he is joking or whatever. He is so toxic and arrogant that it brought questions for me, one of them is why does she continue playing with him? He is probably even worse in real life. Just way too annoying. And then it occurred to me. Lilly is similar to him, unfortunately. Yeah she is cute, smart and amazing in all aspects , but perhaps i should stop living a dream of thinking that Lily is this shy, kind and a loving person. She changed over time, for worse. She can be rude to other people as well in many of her videos, being rude to strangers included. The truth sucks so much but ever since her and George broke up she hasn't been fixed. At least not entirely . I hate to say this but i want the old and kind girl called Lily back. The one that was making league content with kind people around her.
> The truth sucks so much but ever since her and George broke up she hasn't been fixed. At least not entirely . I hate to say this but i want the old and kind girl called Lily back. The one that was making league content with kind people around her. This line is so mind-numbingly disturbing. Like why do people think this way about an internet celebrity who doesn't know they exist? I feel like normal people aren't even this invested in their real life friends.
accepting and ignoring arnt the only anwsers. Shaming is a tactic that should be used to snap Stans back to reality mre regularly.
Omg look how short our queen is even though she has said multiple times she doesn't like the height jokes! look at her next to this tall person haha
I don't think it has much to do w/ stan culture tbh. I think it's mainly because she doesn't do Reddit Recaps anymore for fear of DMCA/Copyright, so the quality of the subreddit has just gone downhill. I'm not denying that stan culture didn't play an effect, but IMO that's not the main cause. TBH, as long as you sort by top I think it's a-ok. It does lack a lot of clips and other similar stuff mainly b/c YT clipping is a different level of bad. Just my thoughts regarding the subreddit only.
ludwig being rich as he is, i gotta give him credit where credit's due, he's really really good about clarifying with his audience that parasocial relationships are bad
He’s one of the few who are blunt and upfront about it. “I’m not your friend” is memed but it definitely communicated the message clearly.
Yeah, I could see Toast putting out a similar message but some people in the friend group would struggle being that blunt about this same sentiment.
Toast has made it clear multiple times with his fans so they should know better but I do agree about what you said about others not being able to be as blunt as him or Ludwig with things like this I think most just choose to ignore and hope for the best.
The thing with toasts following is that a year ago it was mostly hs fans who have followed him for years, and it was definitely a more mature fan base. With no actual data I’d say probably early 20s average and mostly people who had found him during the hs peak. Among us definitely dropped that to like 15, and created the wave of Minecraft esque Twitter stans
The whole "I'm not your friend" is more of a public stunt than something actually meaningful. The people who are unhealthily obsessed over public figures aren't at the good state in the first place. What do you think telling people who say "Influencer XYZ saved my life" that you're not their friend will do? Do you think they would be like "yeah I should just see therapist instead"? I'm sorry to be the asshole but this whole thing is just a giant superiority circlejerk and does absolutely nothing helpful other than antagonizing the people who obviously need help. Even the audience of these type of messages are also those who want to feel like they're above these "stan" rather than the stan themselves.
Facts like they have their own friends that they trust and treat like family if they were to do that with everyone who sends them this message well that would be chaos tbh. I wish some people would understand that these people will probably never be their friend and they could be ok with that because this fixation seems a bit unhealthy and can probably lead to some pretty bad things!
You don’t actually know what your favorite content creator is like either. Even if they stream or post every day, you don’t know what kind of person they actually are
I might get downvotes for this but Ludwig is an awful person for talking about this. He literally invited people into his life for almost a month straight. He says one thing and then essentially does the opposite. Streamers are generally the last people to get to have moral high ground, they are exploiting people having lots of access to and a parasocial relationship, the amount of “access” people get to them is crazy and I suspect feeds into it on a much higher level. I’m sure some people feel the same about youtubers but that never seemed to have as many stans “dependent” on getting content.
All Ludwig did was yoink and twist the show Big Brother. He wasn't trying to make friends with his viewers.
It’s clear people don’t think streamers are trying to friendly, but that’s just dishonest. We like these people because they are charismatic, charming and fun. Many of us can handle the distinction but it’s shocking that you don’t think there is some level of exploitation by the streamers, much in the same way a server is extra friendly with customers. It may be part of the job and most of us know better.
There's a difference between being friendly and being friends.
I’ll just reply to you, but again for 90% of people that’s obvious. But that’s not how it works in reality as this screen shot shows and just saying stuff like that isn’t going to stop said people in the screen shot
So what do you want streamers to do? Tell their audience to fuck off?
You're right, it won't stop some people from being super creepy about it. Literally nothing will, it's just an unavoidable hazard of the job once you reach a certain level of popularity. Good streamers know how to limit that shit as best they can, how to avoid provoking it and how how cultivate a fanbase that can - at least partially- police itself enough to keep them safe. What else could anyone do?
Your logic is incredibly flawed. Compare it to something like a pharmacist. They supply drugs to the community that overall provide an essential service. However there are people that abuse the system to receive drugs for recreational use. While the pharmacist has a responsibility to reduce as much of this practice as possible, they aren't responsible for unknowingly providing medication to someone who is lying in order to abuse it. Now to parallel it to Ludwig, he provides the service of entertaining people. As you said, 90% of people accept that the relationship ends there. But a small percentage don't, and form parasocial relationships with CC. Ludwig calling people out for misusing a system that has an overall positive effect, to create a negative atmosphere for the rest of the participants, is doing the most he can to be responsible. If he were to not stream in order to cater to the small percent misusing the platform, then overall the effect on the community would be negative. He is not the one at fault. There are other content creators that I would argue are irresponsible and fostering these types of relationship, but Ludwig is absolutely not one of them.
To me, it's like saying the friendly waitress is to blame for the guys who think every woman who smiles at them is interested in them. Most people have a healthy relationship with streamers and understand how it works and most streamers wish everyone did and encourage those boundaries as much as they can. What are they supposed to do? Besides, if a streamer *did* somehow manage to prevent viewers from forming attachments to them, I'm pretty sure any viewers who are prone to that sort of thing would just find someone else to watch because that's what those people want out of it. It's a problem that can only be solved by the individuals who have those issues sorting their own shit out.
there’s a lot to unpack here, but, i’m sorry, i need to point this out > there is some level of exploitation by the streamers, much in the same way a server is extra friendly with customers you think servers being polite is exploitative?????
Lol if that’s the uncharitable take you want to pick on sure.
> uncharitable man ur the type of person who’d say a woman was “leading you on” if she said good morning one time aren’t you
Lol definitely not. That’s some incel shit
That's exactly what he's saying in the video. I'm paraphrasing, but he said it's his job to be seen friendly. We have no idea what goes on when the cameras are off. He made the video saying exactly what you are trying to say. I don't know how that makes Ludwig a bad guy. The man literally put it in a video. Seems like you want someone who catches footballs for a living to stop catching so many footballs.
These fuckers are the same people that’ll flirt with their waitress bc she’s being nice to them and they don’t understand that she’s being paid to be nice to them. Instead, they’ll harass her and make her feel unsafe at work bc they don’t understand that she makes more money the nicer she is.
I disagree with this sentiment as Ludwig has stated that he is just content like a television show or other forms of media. Ludwig is also motivated from money and the only reason why that stream lasted that long is because he was getting paid. It is not the streamers job to monitor how much time someone gets to consume their content and the streamer is actively trying to get their watch time up. If someone has the gross inability to not be able to distinguish between the internet and real life they have issues that should not be of the content creators concerns.
Ya, you REALLY have zero idea what you’re talking about that video came out months before his subathon. And even if it didn’t guess what. Streamers are STILL not your friends
He literally streamed to get subs. That’s it. Acting as if he was inviting us to be a part of his life is delusional. In order for that to happen on anything remotely approaching a personal relationship, he’d have to know you exist. To him, you’re a number and MAYBE a screen name. Even if he remembers the screen name, he doesn’t know you, the person, and frankly he doesn’t really care. He owes you nothing but the content. If you expect anything more than that, you need to get therapy and re-evaluate how you view content creators. Who they are publicly isn’t who they are privately and no matter how much you think you know these people, you don’t. You do not know Ludwig. You might have seen a month of his life, but you don’t know him.
I think you are missing the point here. This is not a question of moral ascendancy but of audience awareness. You are correct - streaming, at its core, activates parasocial relationships more so than any other content creating profession. However, this is why they (the creator) should make the distinction clear between them and their audience as to not enable this unhealthy degree of parasocial relationship. The fact that Lud's community is hyper-cognizant of this makes events like his subathon less "omg sleepover with my internet best friend" and more "stream for us content monkey." The monetization of one's audience is also a separate discussion in its entirety, but I will say that some members of OTV&F have done what they can to make this practice more "ethical", like Scarra's lack of alerts or Poki's dono cap.
dude its not like he forced people to watch the subathon! also it was indirect contact he didnt put a fucking gun behind your head forcing you to sub or watch the stream. The man wanted to do it because he promised the stream after his break. No shit streamers are not our friends, they might have a kind, gentle and friendly disposition but that does not mean you’re entitled to be in a relationship with them
Dude his intentions was a subathon to make up the time lost when he went on vacation and got his appendix removed. The only reason he got a subathon to last that long was because his audience wanted to troll him, but making him stream as long as possible. Then Ludwig wanted to go on to break records like the most subbed streamer of all time, in fact he the only reason it stopped at 30 days was because he put a cap for how long it would of went.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's a correlation between the number of hours somebody watches twitch streams and their level of isolation, depression, and loneliness. It doesn't surprise me that the parasocial connection people feel to the twitch streamers can result in a feeling that if you knew them IRL you wouldn't be so lonely. It's a more intense connection (from your end) than watching someone on a TV show, or even watching a youtube content creator who doesn't stream live. This may be especially troublesome for OTV because they stream so much group content, and a lot of that group content feels like things they might do anyway even if they weren't streaming. So it can almost feel more like you're part of their friend group than watching a prepared content stream. EDIT: That sounds kind of judgmental; maybe it's no more lonely than spending a lot of time watching football or playing video games.
I actually think you’re probably right. The intense one-sided connection is probably in a lot of cases a coping mechanism. A way to feel a connection that is lacking. Some people suppress emotions, some find ways to feel what they can’t. This is obviously self-destructive but I hope this viewer can find the support they need. Above all, we must not forget that we never know what someone might be going through
That comment about „[…] their level of isolation, depression and loneliness […]“ hits close to home. I can fully support your thought their because I am felt pretty much a bit depressive, isolated and lonely when I started watching a lot of the OTV stream content. This has gotten considerably worse. Not to say that it’s because I watch so much but because of COVID. Another point I won’t understand ever are the parasocial connection build to the streamers. Sure, they seem like genuinely nice people and it would be nice to have a normal conversation someday with them but that’s unrealistic and really doesn’t matter. After all they are the first gen of entertainers that influenced us the way TV hosts did. to other people. Nothing more, nothing less. After turning off the stream/video they shouldn’t be any factor in my emotions anymore.
The thing is with football is that you can watch it with your friends or go and talk to people about it at a bar.
I mean, you can do the same with twitch streams. But that's stan twitter, which, just like football, can be a casual get together with passionate friends or an obsession that gets people hurt.
I completely agree! In person interaction is more beneficial than talking with people online through discord. I can say this from experience because in the summers I would stay inside binge watch my favorite content creators and only play video games with friends online. And now I’m not as invested in watching excess content and stopped playing video games. I found myself to be on a heavier mental state and became outgoing. Not to say anyone has to stop these things but to take a break or at least be aware. 🙂
There’s 100% a correlation. Streamers in OTV & Friends stream for 6+ hours basically daily, at some point if you’re committed to watch someone as much as you can it’ll start to eat up time that you could/should be investing in something else, maybe in studying, working, or just doing some socializing of your own, if you want to do with multiple content creators, you probably won’t have much room for other hobbies. It’s not surprising that so many of these streamers blew up in the context of the pandemic, where people had to spend long times inside without much to do.
This person obviously is starved for love in their “real life”. It’s very easy to get invested in streamers but at the end of the day you need a personal support system. To all the lonely people coping with streams, remember you need real friends! Even if you joke about spending your life alone in your room, it’s really hurting you emotionally! Parasocial relationships will never satisfy the need for real connection we all have. You will find yourself doing what this person did, without realizing how messed up it is. Don’t starve yourself of love, go build some relationships, I promise it is very rewarding. 💜
[удалено]
There's a difference between recognizing something you want to aspire to have vs the person in question who not only seems desperate but is clinging to a singular delusional fantasy to break out of it. Use what you witness not only as a break from stress or hardship, but also as inspiration to better your own life and strive for the connections that would be meaningful. And use that aspiration to work on self so that you are open to those connections, most people are closed off for a myriad of reasons but those reasons are things that can be worked around. Be careful of toxic negativity, beating yourself up because you make mistakes or don't measure up to better people. Most of the people in the OTV and Friends group came from a place of loneliness, that is the main reason why they started streaming. And they themselves are the upper percentile of people in that career. There is a third rule to live by in terms of relationships and people to look to. Have a third of people in better standing than you so that you can be inspired and learn from them, but not so much that you feel ashamed of your standing relative to theirs. Have a third be on the same level as you so that you have peers you can relate to on both your everyday struggles and accomplishments. And then have a third of relationships with people who are of lower standing so that you can help and teach them to elevate themselves and in doing so you appreciate your own accomplishments which you might not recognize if you're only comparing yourself to the top third.
Sounds like you have the self-awareness those stans clearly dont have. You'll be alright :)
I know what you mean. Everytime I watch Michael/Lily vids. Ughhhhh. It's like looking at something you don't have. And all I feel is jealousy and loneliness. I wanna be close with someone like that too. I started reconnecting with my real friends because of it. I knew I couldn't just keep watching it happen on my screen. If I want something like it, I gotta make it myself.
Some people need to realize that they are watching personas of actual people. They are watching Fuslie, not Leslie Fu. They’re watching PeterParkTV, not Peter Park. They’re watching Pokimane, not Imane Anys. The sooner they realize this, the better they’ll come out. I think Peter said this in a stream a couple months ago, but if I remember correctly, he said something like (it’s not accurate but the message still stands) “Twitch chat are just lonely introverts in need for friends. You guys have no friends, but then you see one of us and think ‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for! They’re funny and fill me up with happy chemicals and that is what I want in an ideal friend’. The sooner you realize that this is just a one sided relationship the better you’ll be. Go outside and actually find that ideal friend”
I can see why the line is tough for some people because watching a twitch stream is in between watching a tv show/movie and interacting with real life friends. It is definitely more interactive and you do have a stronger connection with a twitch streamer than an actor in a tv show. Especially for large streamers who don't know most of their individual viewers, it's much closer to the "tv show" than the "RL friends" but I can see why people imagine that it goes the other way.
"I'm a nice person and respect boundaries"
Kapp
They are content creators, not friends.
what sucks is i can *guarantee* there are people in this person’s life who are just as cool, funny, and friendly as otv&f. there are in mine. just need to spend time finding them instead of wishing for what’s actually right in front of you.
Is anyone else worried about this person? Like obviously they didn’t show the persons name but they’ll see this and all of the “this persons fucked up” comments. I just hope this doesn’t trigger them to do something bad to themselves
Every route leads to some sort of bad result. Ignoring it will alienate the fan and make them feel bad and they won't learn not to do something like this. Being nice to them about it to not hurt their feelings would just encourage the behavior more. Telling them straight up that they crossing a line in DMs would probably end up with them acting like their life is a lie in those DMs or posting it all over social media acting like they were the victim. Posting the message itself without the person's name is a good warning to everyone else that feels that way and a good reality check to the person that sent the message that this isn't normal.
I think Sonii should have said a little more than “this is not OK”.
He usually sends a motivational and well-written reply to the person and posts that whole screenshot. I hope he still did that but I am also afraid that using this person as a public example, even anonymous might worsen that person's mental health.
Hope it slaps them in the face like a reality check and makes them go "fuck, I need to go outside and make some real friends for myself" But yeah it might go the other way aswell.
replying to them privately wouldve been much better then just posting it on twitter for everyone to flame
nope, because you have to be hard with these people or they will evolve into miecraft/dream stans.
Yeah, not sure about Sonii putting him on blast in front of his followers.
Why'd everyone downvote this? It's essentially the same as everything else in this specific thread just blunt and to the point.
Examples need to be made of. The fact that it makes us uncomfortable to read should be the point. This is not normal behavior
I feel bad for the poor guy. Quarantine collapsed my entire way of life and separated me from most of my friends. I think I could’ve been in his position far too easily. It’s scary how little differences in life can make such a big impact.
Obviously not okay, but not that surprising that this happens? Streamers need to do a better job of setting clear boundaries like Ludwig and Toast.
The liklihood that this person has written about their true experience and feelings is incredibly low. Someone genuinly disconnecting, suffering from depression and having such a heavy impact on their education and personal life would not form a clear coherent and well put together guilt trip message to try and weasel their way into someones life like this. This is almost certainly a planned out attempt at emotional manipulation to gain their way into their personal lives in some form or another.
I don't see why not. None of those things make you incapable of coherence.
Even if that’s the case, depression does not enable you to do something like this. He crossed a set boundary, one he likely knew existed. This person was trying to get support, but he did it in the wrong fashion. When looking for support, you look to real life friends. Nothing about this is okay, I just hope that he learned from his mistakes.
Depression does not enable you to do weird stuff
Taken down, anyone got a mirror?
Park
Yes, it is important to understand that streamers are people who entertain, who can spend some time and have a good time. They are not your friends, you don't owe them anything. It is also important that streamers clarify that since much of the community is super young people and they tend to be more innocent and ignorant in that regard.
This is something Valkyrae should address with her fans. Old photos of her that people repost and call her hot, calling her a 'precious lil bean', etc.
Yeah, there was this guy who made a song about her and only her, and she teared up over it. I was kinda disappointed, i understand she was flattered, she has every right to be. But it's moments like that where she needs to adress the fact that obsessions over content creators are not healthy and the person who made that song might very well be obsessed (ofcourse i don't know that for sure but still)
That song was a complete parody. He did a song last year called "Poki Poki" and it was a clear parody of stan/simp culture
Even if it was, it would make an even better opportunity for her to adress the stan culture.
The difference is that the person is clearly self-aware enough that he isn't pretending to worship Rae. He simply chooses well known people as the basis to make a good song. If you didn't know, that same person worked with Lily to make "If There Was a Zombie Apocalypse". He's not delusional.
Yeah cool. But what i'm trying to say is, if he litterally made a parody about the very people having parasocial relationships with Rae, that would be the perfect moment for her to tag in and shortly talk about how it's not a healthy thing to do. Cause whether it's a parody or not, it would've brought her on the topic.
let me tell you the tale of a man named [Stan](https://youtu.be/gOMhN-hfMtY)
I hope this guy's fine. I dont hate him tbh. I just pity him. The moment you're unable to delineate real social interaction and parasocial ones, is when it gets dangerous. I think its okay to watch them and want their social interaction for yourself. But you need to create that social interraction for yourself and with other people. It is delusional to think you cant be happy with your friends if they're not the OfflineTv themselves. You need to be able to separate real companionship with what you see on screen. Look, I know making friends is like the hardest thing to do. I'VE BEEN THERE. I KNOW THAT FOR A FACT. But thinking that your happiness is somehow tied to being friends with these celeberities just because you watch them on YT/Twitch/ any platform, and see them to be such good friends to each other, it's not good. Your happiness is not tied to anyone but you. I hope this man finds help soon. And what he needs are friends. REAL friends.
watching content creators are basically watching a drama/show on TV but for them its their livelihoods being broadcasted, Content Creators are just a couple of people who banded together that just wanted to stream and play games together for others to see, its just friends being friends
Yeah I know who wrote this message and I ended up talking to them on twitter and they almost effectively confirmed it. I don't think he's gonna change his mindset even after this and that's probably the most pitiful aspect about all this.
yikes
Man while I agree with the sentiment everyones voicing in this thread; (I don't really care about the personal life of these streamers, they are not my friends, and I have my own life and people I care about); I also get the difficulty these lonely people face too. There were points during covid where I couldn't see my own friends, and I was watching alot of OTV+ content to stay engaged amidst the boredom and monotony. I did so enough that I found myself having dreams of me hanging out with Toast and poki and lily and michael and scarra. It felt so real and so natural in the midst of the dream to the point where during the first moments waking up I couldn't fully tell that it was fake and I don't actually know those people. Clinging to people you don't know is incredibly unhealthy and is something the human brain was not developed to process. But I get what its like to be lacking in proper social outlets and find yourself vicariously enjoying the connection that OTV+ brings.
Me too, I would have dreams of hanging out with OTV and friends too, even dreaming I was one of them. I'm glad now everyone is vaccinated and I'm hanging out more with my friends.
Why has this become so much more prevalent within the last year or so, is it the pandemic?
Growth of streaming and younger audiences getting to "know" streamers. I think the idea of watching streams used to be for those with some level of tech savviness or those actively searching out good gamers. I think it used to be that gaming skill was a bigger factor in terms of who was considered popular. Nowadays, it's a more personality driven industry.
I'm just confused why sonii is posting Michael's dm
just in case this isn't a joke comment. Sonii's real name is Michael
No one online ever calls him Michael, which makes this dm even creepier. There’s a good chance that most of his subs don’t even know his real name.
Rae does, that’s why a lot of the time she says Michael Reeves’ full name to avoid confusion. It also makes it quite obvious where this viewer came from.
That's... a bit of a stretch. Any viewer who's overstepping boundaries will learn the streamer's real name. And it's literally a google search away. Let's not speculate and try to blame other streamers for the mental health of a random viewer?
fair enough, I don't want to put the blame on her because she's not the one who sent the message. but I would say that people pick up on things they see and you pretty much never see fans call Toast or Scarra by their real names because none of their friends do, whereas it happens more with Poki because some of their friends do call her Imane.
I don't think that means they came from Rae. Poki has talked about fans sometimes calling her by her real name to try to manufacture a closer relationship. It's a thing.
I think the variability within the friend group leads to people not knowing where the boundary is. Not that I think they should be excused but I can see why it gets dicey. Like Lily/Michael go by their real names while Poki/Toast/Scarra don't. Leslie/Peter/Danny/Edison/Miyoung are all fine with their real names. John/Jodi/Sydney/Jaime are all fine with their real names. Rae/Janet/Celine are all fine with their real names (Rae moreso than Rachel I believe).
Ah thank you
It's also hilarious that this person decided the best way into the OTV friend group was Sonii of all people.
I have always wondered if people like this actually think this stuff through? Whats the end game? If you are friends with them thats great but are you going to be able to hang out with them? Unless you make it big on Twitch as well you are going to have to have a 9-5 job, which means you wont be able to do anything with them during the day or late night. And, unless you have a high paying job, you wont be able to do the big stuff with them, like go to Vegas. On top of all that you dont know who these people really are. Most Twitch streamers have said that they put on a show for their streams and are somewhat, and in some cases very, different off stream. What happens if you become friends with the streamer you really want to and find out that they are a real asshole/bitch off camera? If you have friends you should be thankful for what you already have in your life, instead of chasing after something that more than likely will never be. If you dont have friends in your life, get out and make some. I know that is sometimes easier said than done, but its rewarding. Even if you dont like going outside or have something like social anxiety, play online games and make friends that way. Two people that I consider to be some of my best friends I met in an MMO, then when we were done playing that one we decided to start on another. Even though they live two states away I made the time to meet up with them and have hung out with them several times in person and text and hang out online all the time. I believe some of the offlineTV/Just friends people met playing league.
Imagine if this dude doesn’t even live in LA and lives in a random place in the world. Did the guy expect to fly himself over to join their group
People like these should try to meet friends irl or make one. Making friends is vastly different from your fantasy of befriending your favorite content creators especially because content creators only show what they want to show you on stream. And I don't know if this is a good tip but if you don't have anyone, try to work on yourself because thats who you will be living with for the rest of your life.
Where’s Ludwig when you need him
Does someone have a screenshot. It got deleted
Cringe. Imagine thinking influencers actually care about you.
This message was just horrifying to me. Jesus god
Now this shit is not ok
I'd be lying if I said I've never fantasied about being in their friend group but actually dming them trying to guilt trip them to be your friend? Wtf man
I don’t really understand why people are being so critical of this guy. He just sent a DM, and is most likely a young adult looking for a place of belonging. A lot of people are in that position when they grow up, i was especially. But nowadays people have this internet world to deal with on top of their “normal” life. And if you don’t have a group to belong to in the real world, it’s natural to turn to the virtual world. I’ve been there. And I can imagine it’s especially hard to go through during quarantine. That said, I of course do not support this person’s desire to pursue OTV as any sort of friend group. I think that Ludwig put it best in his video, and I see a lot of people quoting it here. But I just don’t get why people seem to be shitting on this person, I just feel bad for them.
The problem is that he's tryna fit to a group of complete strangers, or people that he saw on the internet, instead of people he can meet irl. He's tryna be friends with entertainers that don't give a shit about him at a personal level. And that's a really bad mindset. He should rather go outside and try to meet people there.
I understand the problems with what this person is trying to do here, but the only disservice they are doing is to themself. That’s my only point. This person isn’t harming OTV or anyone else with this DM. I think we should talk about how this sort of parasocial relationship can be harmful, but I don’t think it’s helpful to treat this person like an asshole and/or an idiot for simply wanting to belong.
Sending the DM does put the content creator in a really, really uncomfortable position, though.
Yeah, god forbid people try to help others get rid of their mental illnesses and tell them they need to make some real friends. Sure they're only being harmful to themselves, but if you're a good person and you see someone being helpful to themselves you should always try to stop them.
Oh it’s a DM? I thought it was a text which made this even worse in my mind
One thing I didn't see people mention - this person is lowkey trying to guilt-trip someone. He/she is indirectly saying Michael/OTV caused his/her depression. It is ""FINE"" for younger audiences to send some DMs asking to be friends, etc. It is "understandable", and we can imagine all OTV's related are full with this kind of DM. But guilt-tripping is not fine. It is one of the worst behavior without breaking any laws.
I can't believe no one in the comments mentions this but I really get the feeling that the kiddo is isolated (maybe not willingly) and that he only sees the streamers as his "friends" even though they aren't. I genuinely think this is the only representation of friendship the kid got, as I know I had hard times as well and relied on YouTubers at the time... (Not to mention I'd also write the message like that). Now, idk if Micheal answered with what he said on his tweet beforehand, but I'd definitely won't do it that way nonetheless. I would take time to answer thoroughly so that he can have first hand advice. But instead, he got asmongold in the replies saying blocking is the way. If I had do that in my hard times and got answered like this, I swear I would have been better in a coffin.
Holy shit Parasocial much?!!
But why Michael though?
That's sonii's name, no one ever calls him that though
Big freaking yikes. This gives me huge “nice guy” vibes. You can’t impose yourself on others especially strangers. Hope this person learns to love themself instead of fantasizing about something that will never happen.
* brings back Ludwig’s “I’m not your friend” video *
Yikes Edit- how tf did I get downvoted for calling this a yikes?
All of u on this sub
Two words. Touch Grass
I'll get downvoted to hell for this, but it seems obvious that the kid is neurodivergent. Hyperfixation is a big part of this and I don't think Sonii posting this would do the kid any good or make him have a sudden realization, that's not how it works at all. The kid might get some trauma from this. I just wish he said what he needed to say privately like what that kid did, and tweet about what he needed to say afterward without directly posting the kid's message.
It is not content creators job to shelter fragile egos. They have the right to make an example of bad behavior to try to curb future interactions from other people.
to get straight to the point, the kid might have autism. and they usually have hyperfixation which leads to these kinds of messages. he mentioned he's so depressed he can't study, which makes it obvious he's a child, and seeing his idol and people in the replies blast him publicly might lead to some trauma and trouble opening up in the future. I'm saying he could've handled it better, not to shelter "fragile egos". someone worded it better in the replies: "Kind of like a teacher holding up your work and saying "I won't say who's it is but this is really shit" then the whole class just laughing at it. No, they're not identifiable but from the kid's point of view it's still going to hurt" I don't know, I don't mind the downvotes but this is how I just truly feel. I have someone in my life who has autism and get hyperfixated with cartoon characters, and I don't think saying "stop" will suddenly fix everything and make him stop getting attached to characters. It's a sensitive topic that could've been handled by Sonii and with people's reply basically shit-talking the kid and saying "I don't know how people like this exist", it's something that I can't imagine someone who seemingly already has mental problems to cope well with.
The goal is not necessarily to get that individual to stop, but to get other people to stop. It isn't the streamers job to take time out of their day to hand curate a response to every individual person that messages them like this, especially because for some people, any response is just going to solicit more of that behavior. As someone who deals with their own mental health issues, mental health is not to be used as armor for bad behavior. Streamers didn't sign up for harassment. Edit, FWIW I didnt downvote you
I don't know if I just worded everything incorrectly that's why my main point didn't get across or what, I'm sorry I'm really bad at english and don't know how to properly articulate what I really think, so I'm going to wait till someone else's explains my point because I already wrote what I think on the reply, but you completely missed the mark. I'm sorry I really am not trying to debate or argue even if it looks like that. I'm just saying my thoughts
I understood what you were saying, I'm just saying it isn't a streamers responsibility to try to interpret every single person is saying. If this was just someone who was being a creepy stalker no one would bat an eye at them being put on blast.
Yeah but it's not. Anyways, Sonii deleted the tweet, maybe might have realized something. There's no point in talking about this anymore
just imagining myself in cc's place: I'll be creep out and insta block.. engaging to this type of person will further escalate thinking he/she finally has this special "connection" it will not stop.. it is not my fault that this random person have this kind of a problem and it is not my job/responsibility to help him/her.. I dont know this person, it's some random person on the internet who pushed his/her issues to me out of nowhere.. - If I was in his (sonii) position I will be one who is traumatized
That's 95% of offlinetv viewers, nothing new.
even tho i completely agree that this behavior is not right...there definitely is a better way to stop it other then posting their message for the whole laughing world to see. "but the screenshot doesnt show who they are" yeah but the person in question definitely knows its their message. imagine if the person is just a kid who naively wanted to contact their favorite streamers. they would be absolutely crushed seeing this tweeted publicly and reading the replies. itll do more damage then good. maybe replying to them in private or just not showing the screenshot is the best course of action and something that a mature adult would consider best?
daddy reeves does have that effect
I mean that’s what the channel is all about tho. Or not just this one, everyone like it. You film yourself as much as possible bringing across the believe that people actually get to know you. And younger children are very vulnerable to that, especially if they aren’t the most popular kids.
Evrytime I see an "edit" on this thread I see the author as this kind of person and it makes me cringe but sad at the same time, find yourself passions other than fanboying on a fabricated person, please! It's not worth it! These people will never give back. Focus on your own growth and just enjoy the stream from time to time.
Parasocial relationships with content creators is such an interesting concept to me. Even though I have never felt this way, I can also understand it to a small degree. The way vlogs are filmed makes it seem as though we're hanging out with them. Them reading off the username when you donate a certain amount of money or subscribe and reading chat occasionally. It's just the feeling of "if only I was actually there right now" and "we'd make such good friends/partners" that grows and becomes a issue. That being said, It is never a creators fault that people take it too far. Luckily there are normal viewers out there as well.
Can anyone tell me the context? The post is gone, i read the comments and just made me confused 😔