In late January, I held a 36-hour Thanksgiving stream on Twitch to celebrate one year of gaming on the platform—and it came with all the fanfare you’d expect: spicy noodle challenges, me dressed to the nines, lots of perks and fun prizes for anyone else coming into the stream to donate or subscribe to the channel, and all that jazz.
It’s very exciting and even emotional to engage with a community I’d built for a year now, greeting my regulars and even making new friends. Being showered with gift subscriptions and donations from people who genuinely enjoyed my content was just the cherry on top.
As the night went along, we switched from the more exciting co-op games to a cozy farming simulator. People were sleeping, and even my household had quieted, prompting me to play a more relaxing game.
During the small hours of long live streams, the chatbox (or simply “the chat”) tends to be quiet. The viewers linger but are usually asleep and keep you tabbed on their PCs, laptops, or phones to show support and retain the viewer count.
In the middle of harvesting pumpkins in-game, the chat lit up with a new message. At the time, I thought it was one of my viewers in the US saying hi. As I picked up the last of my digital pumpkins, I turned my head to my chat box and saw a new message from a first-time chatter.
“Hey, how much for a tittyf*ck?”
That night, I took one glance, internally grimaced, and then simply deleted the comment as I continued to tend to my pixel farm.
Unfortunately, this was not an isolated case.
This was not the first unsavory and overtly sexual comment I’d gotten on stream. The first few had me incredibly upset, crying until I found the wherewithal to click the “end stream” button. As I continued to field them over the year I was on the platform, I paid less and less attention.
It had become automatic for me to either just delete the message and ban them wordlessly or make one snarky comment before getting rid of them. But deep down, I felt hurt and violated, even reduced to some f*ckable commodity someone could tune into without considering the person who remained after they clicked “end stream.”
It had become a reality for me, even before I started streaming, to have to dodge comments like this. Being a woman on the internet is almost dehumanizing by default—and it has to change.
***
The statistics change every year—sometimes every handful of months.
In 2020, 7 out of 10 girls worldwide reported online harassment of some kind, while at least 50 percent of those women reported that it happens frequently. This was three years ago—the pandemic and its aftermath have only exacerbated things.
And this is a number based on a study done only on women aged 14 to 24 in 31 countries, with incidences that were reported. There are still many that go unreported, unrecognized, and paid little to no attention.
Further, other studies show that only 1 in 4 women worldwide ever report online sexual harassment, with 9 out of 10 opting to limit their internet exposure because of it or get off social media altogether.
When it comes to people who face the most harassment when playing video games online, women top this list.
And while the internet is not a necessity by any means, it’d be nice to feel like we can get on it without having to recoil or brace ourselves.
***
The norm has become this: You take at least twice the amount of security measures that your male friends do when it comes to social media to avoid harassment and sometimes still get it, or you just grow desensitized enough to stomach it.
It’s not right.
Just because “nice guy” DMs or creepy come-ons are laughable nowadays when we post them on meme pages or subreddits dedicated to the worst of these messages and garner sympathy and laughs does not make it fine for it to keep happening.
The fact that I have to make myself virtually unsearchable on Facebook, close my DMs on Twitter, and ensure message requests on Instagram are at their highest possible security level does not make sense for someone just trying to exist on social media and the internet in general.
The fact that I have received an unsavory message on LinkedIn, the last place I expected, has convinced me that enough is enough.
So many of us are just trying to watch funny dog reels in peace. Misplaced advances and unsolicited photos are not something we have to feel we need to worry about constantly in the back of our minds after posting a selfie—and yet, here we are.
***
“The internet is not for softies,” says cis hetero white male creators when I, and other women, complain about the volume of harassment I receive that they do not experience on the same level as well. “If you can’t endure it, stay off it.”
I am appalled at the reception I get when I finally speak up. Women are either told that they should feel emboldened and safe enough to speak up about their issues, or that our issues, when we do speak up, aren’t “big enough.”
“It’s not that bad,” so many people tell me. “It could be worse.” As if physical assault has to arise before so many of us can call it a problem.
Let’s call it what it is—it’s not just some harmless compliments, it’s harassment. So many people feel as if they’re immune to harassing women because they have lady friends, they have sisters, and they aren’t bad guys, but the truth of the matter is that they feel entitled to so many women online just because the patriarchy has molded even the internet to be a chauvinist playground.
Being told to just stay off the internet in 2023 to avoid getting harassed is the most mindless take I’ve ever heard.
As if I have to adjust my hobbies and the way modern communication is carried out because of men who either can’t get head or even headshots in their FPS games—and now they have to take it out on me.
As if I have to find other ways to play the games I enjoy, connect with friends I have met online, and even remove myself from the funniest memes on Twitter just so I don’t have to deal with disgusting propositions.
As if I, in the year 2023, when everything is online, have to resort to living off the grid just so I reduce my chances of being sent unsolicited genitalia photos or being asked how much I sell my body for.
And what’s more, when people tell me to just grow a thicker skin or get off the internet, they’re also implying a more horrifying truth: They’re comfortable in an online environment that either benefits them or doesn’t inconvenience them enough to change it, so they won’t.
So I have to be the one to leave their internet for making noise about how it’s a place conducive to abuse.
***
Atrioc, a popular Twitch streamer who always stressed how he wanted women to feel his channel was a safe space for them, was caught in February 2023 for watching and purchasing deepfake pornography of his own female Twitch colleagues.
As he was streaming, he switched some tabs around, and his viewers noticed that he had a tab open of paid deepfake pornography of Pokimane and other popular female content creators on the platform.
For those unfamiliar, deepfakes are AI-generated images where you can essentially copy and paste anybody’s face on someone else’s body. That plus the internet makes for dangerous pornographic possibilities. And it has been happening.
Revenge porn statistics have skyrocketed as well as pornography of unconsenting women being spread around. If you have enough images to feed the AI, it can seamlessly stitch your face onto a pornstar’s body with ease.
This is what Atrioc was looking at: pornography of his very own Twitch friends. None of which they ever consented to have their likeness be pasted on.
Suffice it to say there was an online uproar. Atrioc stepped down from the platform after a particularly difficult-to-watch apology stream where his wife cried uncomfortably in the background. A lot of people were left dissatisfied with his explanation and apology and unconvinced that he just “happened upon” the pornography.
It’s no surprise that he has since then returned to the platform, but, to his credit, he has been actively helping the very women whose deepfake pornography (that they didn’t consent to) he’d been watching, taking down images and videos with the help of legal teams.
He has made amends with some of the content creators he hurt by viewing and monetarily supporting the pornography in question.
Sadly, while this did reach a conclusion that was better than expected, these things happen to any woman, in or out of the content creation space.
It’s fair game for anyone–from the content creator who relies on the internet for income to someone who just uses social media to touch base with friends now and then. We are targeted no matter what and then told it’s our fault for using the internet at all.
***
Intersectionality is just as important in this sphere.
Women of color and LGBTQIA+ women of color receive an inordinate amount of hate and cruelty online. Not only are they objectified constantly, but they’re also placed into racial stereotypes or pigeonholed barbarically into what people think the LGBTQIA+ community is like.
I have been monstrously dehumanized because I am a “submissive brown Asian girl.” I’ve received comments that simultaneously infantilize me for having “a deceptive, young, Asian face that’d be so hot with [my] dick in [your] mouth.” I’ve been called “jailbait” despite being 29.
It sadly doesn’t stop there.
It’s like being all these things is triple the invitation—and it’s too much to bear so much of the time. Women on the internet have to endure so much just to exist on it.
***
So much of how the internet works is rooted in subjugating and controlling women. It’s nothing new—we’ve seen it pan out time and again throughout history. The internet is just a new space and medium for it.
It’s the same story, and almost always the same people who perpetuate it. There are people out there demanding female bodies be “tasteful” and “appropriate” while, on the same browser, looking up the most brutal pornography possible.
4chan, shared Google drives, and even Discord group chats are just filled with pornography of women who didn’t consent to having their likeness shared and even distributed. Intimate images sent in confidence are copied, saved, and then sent to others so quickly. And before deepfakes became a thing, there were already entire subreddits based on finding the closest lookalike porn to the random girl you want now.
Women are either sexually harassed endlessly or are being called a litany of slurs for clapping back against harassment and calling it out. You’re either a sex object begging for attention or a frigid bitch who can’t take a compliment. The madonna and the whore complex could not be more evident online.
There’s a dangerous pendulum of being sexy and “worthy” of being hit on and then suddenly uninteresting and deserving of death and suicide wishes if you reject someone. Neither of these extremes is fun to be in. You either endure affection and lewdness you don’t want or potential death threats and violence if you say you don’t want them.
Even simply existing, making the rare post on Instagram, and innocently tweeting about the sandwich you just made is not free from scrutiny and harassment. No matter what, we can’t win. And we have to somehow normalize that constant losing, this default degradation and humiliation because it’s just so commonplace.
Being told I’m stealing viewers after I hastily reject a misplaced sexual advance on stream is dizzying and dehumanizing.
The internet has made it routine for us to be humiliated, shamed, or sexualized. And truly pausing to try and parse through that reality and understand how we’ve tried to just numb ourselves to it is terrifying and cruel.
***
Automod, or automatic moderation, is a tool on Twitch that helps you catch any potentially offensive, racist, or sexist comments immediately. It recognizes certain words and submits them to chat moderators for approval before the message shows up in the chat.
When someone uses a banned word, no one else can see their message. It’s up to the discretion of chat moderators or the streamer themself to judge whether or not it’s alright for it to go in the chat.
Sometimes, people just misspell things and automod catches it. It’s usually funny and immediately resolved. Other times, it’s not.
Since I started streaming in January 2022, I have had to submit dozens of different creative permutations of the word “rape” to automod.
This was not just a preventative measure, unfortunately. This was a necessity after fielding too many.
After being told time and again that I am just “stealing viewers” from “actual content creators” because of how I laugh at jokes or how I dress, I have also been accused of providing a “girlfriend experience” while “cheating” my audience because I’m in a relationship.
And then they pull out the word thinking it’s what I deserve for the unforgivable crime of existing on the internet and playing Animal Crossing in a v-neck.
***
Playing video games online as a young girl should have already been indicative of what was to come.
When I was 12, I loved Ragnarok Online, Gunbound, and a host of other MMORPGs. Unfortunately, my being 11 or 12 did not stop others from seeing my female avatar and still thinking it was a come-on.
A pile of pixels was still something that so many of these creeps felt they needed to sexualize—even after, and sometimes more, I said I was only 12.
Having a female avatar anywhere, I soon learned, meant you were the target of tons of people looking for instant cybersexual gratification.
As soon as I gathered enough wood to become a full-fledged archer on Ragnarok Online, a pay-to-play MMORPG that didn’t come cheap when you were trying to play just off an allowance, some cheesy thief character thought it would be funny to waste my time.
“A/S/L?” They’d ask (short for age/sex/location, the quickest way to weed out people you weren’t interested in).
Back then, I’d either ignore them or say I wasn’t interested. If things continued to escalate and I only had P10 of play left, I would drop that I was 12 so I could squeeze out whatever time I had left to level up and play in peace.
Some people continued, despite being full-fledged adults.
It didn’t matter that this avatar looked nothing like me—pink hair, tall, purple eyes—it had traditionally female features, and that meant I was still “inviting them in.”
After approaching the portal at the edge of the map to warp away, the thief hastily typed, “whore.”
***
So many men who do resort to harassment and incessant messages only usually ever respect another man’s insistence for them to stop. It’s, unfortunately, one of the go-to moves to have to ask someone, “Hey can you pretend to be my boyfriend so he leaves me alone?”
Because so many of these people don’t care about what you want. Their default in their head is that you can’t say no—or you don’t mean it. That you’re teasing. That you’re challenging them. It’s only really a no when someone they respect (AKA another man) steps in for you.
Because they see it territorially. You’re free-roaming, you’re free game. Until another man confirms that you’re his “property.” Then and only then will some of these guys actually fold.
And while I’m aware of how most men who make these advances will not respect a woman’s rejection and keep going in spite of them and only stop when another man tells them to, this doesn’t apply to all of them.
Even when in full-fledged relationships, some of them will try to “get to know you”—and ultimately, it’s your fault for tempting them. It’s your fault for “making it hard” for them to stay faithful.
On the other hand, if you start seeing someone, a ton of men who have claimed to be your friend start treating you coldly. I have had to sit through Twitch streams where they fully ignored me—and I realized it was because I was now in a relationship.
I was never their friend—I was someone they only wanted to be connected with because of the potential of romance they alone crafted in their head. Once that plug was pulled, I was nothing more than used goods and a claimed pair of tits.
***
To exist anywhere, on or off the internet, should not have to come with excessive safety precautions.
Having to worry about posting a simple selfie should not have you bracing yourself for someone telling you how shapely you are in those jeans and how you should either take them off or cover up some more.
Vigilance is a good thing, it’s good to want to be safe. But having to look over your online shoulder every step of the way is too much. It’s taxing, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And the anonymity that has only emboldened so many perverts just makes them even more hellbent on either insulting you or forcibly showing you how much they desire you—things you probably aren’t even looking for.
Whether it’s streamers or just the casual social media scroller, avoiding any kind of sexualization and harassment can be a nightmare. There are so many online tools and means being utilized to demean, dehumanize, and humiliate women—but enough is enough.
I am taking my virtual space and being adamant about calling out bullshit. One unsavory comment is already too many. It should not have to come to a point where you’ve got dozens of receipts for people to take you seriously.
As soon as people realize that the “it’s not so bad” camp is only minimizing things to make themselves continue to feel comfortable in an internet that benefits them, the more we can retaliate and dismantle a space that should be enjoyable.
Yes, it’s bad. Yes, it’s been bad. But the sooner we call it out for what it is and stand firm on how it’s unacceptable, the sooner we push back against a space that wants to make us simple sex objects on display.
However slow the fight, I’m standing beside you.
Art by Ella Lambio
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