A Woman's Perspective: An Interview with RottenPapi

RottenPapi's Twitter Icon

RottenPapi answers my questions about misogyny on Twitch

Live streaming on websites like Twitch and Mixer is becoming more and more popular every day. People make their careers out of streaming content live to viewers. With this, there has been a rise in women streaming. Like most things, streaming has been male dominated for a long time. This rise in women streaming has brought controversy from almost every corner of the internet. 

I wanted to interview a streamer who I follow on Twitter. RottenPapi has the best attitude and tears down the misogynists with humor and class.  

So let's jump into it! 

Some answers have been edited for clarity.

1. Tell me more about yourself.

Answer: My name is Adrienne and I'm a 22 year old Canadian full-time twitch streamer.

2. What got you into gaming?

Answer: Games have been a huge part of my life ever since I can remember. 

My family had a SNES that they would all play together. I was always too little to really play with them at the time, but I enjoyed it. Later my brother got an N64 for Christmas and I started watching just him play games. He would find fun ways to tell me what was happening in the games before I could read and make jokes the whole time and the experience was really great. I loved it so much that even when I played games by myself I would talk the whole time and make jokes like him, even when no one was there. 

Gaming was one of the best parts of my childhood, it brought me closer to my friends and helped me when I was feeling down or sick. I've always loved them.

3. How did you find Twitch and how long have you been streaming?

Answer: I found Twitch in 2013 through the streamer and YouTuber Vinesauce. One of his videos was uploaded to Tumblr and after that, I became hooked on his Youtube videos. When he started uploading his full streams onto Youtube, I got really hooked on those as well. 

Immediately when I heard about Twitch I knew it was something I wanted to do, without even knowing that is was a thing people did as work. I couldn't get into it at the time though because the streaming equipment was more than I could dream of asking for since my family didn't have a lot of money and I barely had a functioning laptop, so I would just daydream about the day that I could get started and think of what games would be fun to stream.

It wasn't until late March of 2017 that I finally had everything I needed to start, including the guts, and I've been streaming as consistently as possible since then.

4. To you, what does it mean to be a female streamer?

Answer: The same thing it means to be a streamer in general. My job is to make people laugh, entertain them and connect with them. The only difference that I think people really see when they come to my stream vs a male streamer's is that I get more hate comments and because of this we discuss stuff like that more.

I talk a lot about the difficulty I had starting on Twitch because of the horrible messages I got and how much I struggled to deal with it. I try to help dismantle the idea that women have it easier, because we don't. 

With that said though, that is a conversation piece that comes up on my stream and is by no means the main focus.

5. I’ve seen a lot on Streamer Twitter concerning this male perspective that “female streamers have is so easy” and “if I was a female streamer, I’d have so many more viewers”. Why do you think they have this perspective?

Answer: There are various reasons I think people have this mentality. 

One of them being that people think that because the core audience of Twitch is young men that those men would far rather watch and talk to a girl rather than a guy. Which totally makes sense until you see that a lot of men in the community actually gatekeep the women often calling them attention seekers and saying that they just fake being interested in gaming for male approval.

During some of the earlier stages of social media, we've always seen the "gamer girl" posts where a girl will post a picture of herself holding a controller and underneath it we would usually see a lot of comments from young men hyping her up and talking about how perfect she is. 

Girls in the gaming community have always been the minority and the men in the gaming community have been perceived as the nerdy type who has trouble talking to women. Because of this, it leaves us with the idea that a girl who is into gaming has men dying at her feet and praising her left and right for just having an interest when in reality, it is by far the opposite.

6. Do you think the controversy surrounding so called “Twitch thots” or “titty streamers” is a possible cause of how women on Twitch are viewed in general?

Answer: I don't think that "Twitch thots" are the entire reason, but there is definitely a contribution. 

When you look up female streamer in google the first things that come up are "hot Twitch streamers" and "girls who got banned from Twitch for pushing thing too far!" You don't see us being represented by the girls who just game. Instead you see the most controversial figures who are also usually the most sexual because it's easy click-bait for Youtube videos and articles. So even people who don't watch Twitch have the idea that women on Twitch just sit there with their cleavage exposed and get donations from lonely men.

In every conversation that I've tried to have where I explain why women don't have it easier on twitch, the other person will bring up a popular "titty streamer" as an example, forgetting that the majority of the women who stream on twitch just want to play games and don't share that same audience. They think because we are women, we are sexy and our audience just hands us money, but that's not true and it's quite sad to be constantly viewed as a sex object no matter how hard you work.

7. On Twitch it seems there is a "damned if you, damned if you don't" mentality when it comes to women streaming. Is this something you've experienced yourself and if so, how did you handle it?

Answer: I have experienced this the entire time while streaming. I would think that every woman on Twitch has.

Initially when I started, I was very afraid of people objectifying me and saying I used my body for views, so every time I stood up I would switch scenes so you couldn't see me. This ended up creating an audience that tried harder to find ways to sexualize me but then in the same way would congratulate me for "not being a Twitch thot". By censoring myself I was catering to the idea that it was my fault if someone objectified me and was putting more attention on it. 

When I stopped covering myself and started acting as though my body wasn't inherently sexual without me doing anything to draw attention to it, I started to normalize myself and my behavior, making it easier to call out the creeps who decide to focus on that because that's not what my stream is about. 

When I censored my body, it was kind of like I was saying "yes you are right my body is sexual and I will cover it." Now that I don't and someone points out something about my body or appearance, its more shocking to me and the audience because that's not why they're there and as a group we tell them they're behavior is unacceptable and disrespectful.

8. I've seen your TikTok videos as well. Do you get the same kind of misogynistic comments on there as you do on Twitch/Twitter?

Answer: No I don't but I think the women who post more gaming related content on TikTok probably do. 

I think this because the only videos that I receive misogynistic comments on are the ones where I talk about gaming or gaming culture. The worst one was a video I made where I jokingly talked about being a "fake gamer girl" and spending thousands of dollars buying games and thousands of hours playing those games and memorizing facts about those games just so that I can trick people into thinking I am a gamer so that I can be called names by men online.

The reception to that video was really good, except some of the comments were pretty gross and helped prove my point. Some of them assumed which games I play and told me those ones don't count. A lot of comments said that my consoles were my brothers/boyfriends and a lot more comments that I was still fake just because I am a girl.

Even with that said though, most of the comments on that video were good as they are for most of the videos that I make there. So I think that kind of hate is less common on TikTok than it is on Twitter and Twitch.

9. Last one. What advice would you give to any women out there who are wanting to stream but might be too afraid due to what they've seen outside of Twitch on other platforms such as on Twitter/Reddit/etc. ?

Answer: Please stream. 

These men that say horrible things to us. [They] don't want us in their space. They don't want us to succeed in gaming and they don't want to see us thrive. Do not let them win. They send us hate because they are threatened by us. They think we are succeeding over them and it scares them. 

Do not let them get in the way of doing something that you love.

What I highly suggest to help with the hate, especially when you are getting started and don't have mods or anyone who can back you up, is just ban. Do not engage with them. Do not fight with them. 

Gatekeeping men purposely find the smallest women streaming and go to their channel to hate because they know they will likely make an impact and get a reaction. Do not give them the satisfaction. 

If someone comes in and acts all nice and then suddenly starts questioning if you're really a gamer, or tries to say something misogynistic, just ban them. What they're doing is so pathetic it's not even worth acknowledging. 

If someone makes you uncomfortable, say by calling you pet names or commenting on your body/appearance. Tell them they are making you uncomfortable and if they do not stop, they are not worth having in your space, they don't care about you. 

Be assertive and be aggressive. 

Your stream is your space and there are no rules on who you can or can't ban. If you are unhappy with how things are going and streaming is not fun for you, it is not worth having that 1+ viewer.

 If you are uncomfortable while you stream, your audience, that's trying to watch, will be too so it'll actually hurt you. Stay strong and don't let them walk on you. Eventually, you will make a community of really cool people who will stand up for you, but first, you need to stand up for yourself.

Takeaway #1: 

Women on Twitch or any other streaming platform do not have it easier than the men. In fact, to me, it seems they have it harder since they are constantly having to defend themselves from others on the internet. While RottenPapi and I focused on the male part of gatekeepers, there are women out there who do the same as the men! I find it insane that other women still tear down their own gender due to how they've internalized the misogyny of the internet.

Takeaway #2: 

If you're a woman who is looking into getting into streaming, please don't be afraid to stand up for yourself. You've got to have a decently thick skin to stream especially before you have a community who has your back. As a part-time streamer myself, I've experienced this. Hell, I stream with my husband and I've still had guys ask for my nudes or ask just sexual things with my husband sitting right there. You cannot let comments get to you when you are a woman and you stream. It will kill your channel faster than streaming an over-saturated game.

Takeaway #3:

We are all content creators. Our gender shouldn't matter. We should be able to entertain people without having to worry about hateful, disrespectful comments from others. It shouldn't be this hard to just be nice to people online. We are all humans. We all just want to play games and have fun.

--

I plan on doing more of these interviews with other streamers. What are some questions you would like answered by both women and men? What was your takeaway from this fantastic interview?Again, I'd like to thank Adrienne for taking her time to answer my questions. I appreciate it and her insight was thoughtful, well-spoken, and hopefully change some people’s minds about women in the streaming industry.

You can find her content here:

Twitch

Twitter

TikTok

YouTube

Now go check her out and support an amazing content creator today! You seriously don’t want to miss out. Did I mention if you follow her on Twitch you get an ASMR slurp? No? You should go hear for yourself.