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Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

nature.com

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Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#11

Post by trashtensor »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #6

This is a sensitive topic, but an important one. I would like to engage in discussions, apologies in advance if any of this offends and makes people uncomfortable. I will try to learn and be respectful. First minor point - 3 million daily viewers worldwide is WAY less than I thought twitch has. We keep talking about gaming becoming mainstream, but 50+million people watched friends finale in USA alone. Twitch is not a…

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this either but it strikes me that women (or woman-presenting) are on average more sexualized in media and are expected to be sexualized. Whereas men and male-presenting people don't have the same expectations so they aren't sexuality-first, person second.

So I think there's some ideal there in your statement that's on the nose, anybody can express their sexuality without some societal baggage, but that's not how it is today.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#12

Post by wjholden »

I don't really see the contribution from this study. The paper looks fine: quality writing, ample research, statistics are probably fine. What I mean is I don't see any non-obvious insight here.

Also, I think this study would have been much more interesting on more generic video sites like Instagram or Tiktok, which (I assume) have more balanced creator and viewer populations. I don't personally take Twitch seriously, and so it's hard for me to embrace a social study that samples from Twitch.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#13

Post by infecto »

COGlory wrote: post #8

Everyone is focusing on the fact that there are more sexualized women streamers than men - that's an obvious conclusion though because men are far more motivated by sexualized women than vice versa. The interesting thing to me in this article is the amount of women streaming that are sexualized: >However, the majority of women (71.4%) wear attire ranging from moderate necklines to bikinis or minimal clothing and use…

Sadly I think that ship has long sailed into the sunset.

When I used to follow twitch years back I always thought it was amazing that it felt very easy to get temporarily banned on the gaming streams but there was a whole universe of softcore streamers.

I don't have any qualms with it but I always thought it diluted the brand by also having softcore within the same company.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#15

Post by saghm »

Jensson wrote: post #4

Twitch has mostly male viewers, many of them like watching sexy women, not so many like watching sexy men. Makes sense then that popular sexy content on twitch is mostly women.

I think this is a bit reductive because it glosses over the fact that the two trends you cite (more male viewers and more sexual content catering towards larger audiences) aren't independent; how do we know that the reason there aren't more female viewers isn't related to the fact that content (sexual or otherwise) isn't attempting to appeal to them? I think it's a fair question to ask whether more sexualized content from men would cause the distribution of viewers to change; if it wouldn't, I think it's also a fair question to ask why that's the case.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#16

Post by barrkel »

I think you see this dynamic anywhere young women and older teenage girls are trying to build an audience through video, not just Twitch.

I don't see any obvious way to change it. How do you police the line without seeming fundamentalist religious?

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#17

Post by Der_Einzige »

COGlory wrote: post #8

Everyone is focusing on the fact that there are more sexualized women streamers than men - that's an obvious conclusion though because men are far more motivated by sexualized women than vice versa. The interesting thing to me in this article is the amount of women streaming that are sexualized: >However, the majority of women (71.4%) wear attire ranging from moderate necklines to bikinis or minimal clothing and use…

Well you should be happy since the internet has made a concerted effort to eradicate porn/erotica from increasingly large swaths of the internet in the last 10 years.

I'm not even talking about Pornhub deleting most of their catalog. I'm talking about shit like Tumblr banning all porn for no good reason. Tumblr is a shell of its former self. Gen Z and the Fujoshi crowd will never be the same.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#18

Post by sp332 »

Jensson wrote: post #4

Twitch has mostly male viewers, many of them like watching sexy women, not so many like watching sexy men. Makes sense then that popular sexy content on twitch is mostly women.

I didn't realize that the audience skewed so heavily male (65%/35%). Since women are the majority of gamers, it really seems like leaving money on the table not to attract more women as viewers.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#19

Post by geraldhh »

COGlory wrote: post #8

Everyone is focusing on the fact that there are more sexualized women streamers than men - that's an obvious conclusion though because men are far more motivated by sexualized women than vice versa. The interesting thing to me in this article is the amount of women streaming that are sexualized: >However, the majority of women (71.4%) wear attire ranging from moderate necklines to bikinis or minimal clothing and use…

> Porn is generally the least interesting thing a female creator can do in the attention economy and it just reinforces existing gender stratification.

i believe i kinda get you intention, but this sounds just wrong given that data.

> Also, I have no idea why this submission was flagged, it's a reputable source and of real interest to this audience.

both true, tho the research is more of an analysis that confirms popular sentiment and works with a lot of preconceptions instead of investigating alternatives or history.

Re: Sexualized culture on livestreaming platforms: a content analysis of Twitch.tv

#20

Post by zmgsabst »

jacknews wrote: post #2

It seems obvious to me that there are more 'sexy' female streamers than male. You could argue that they are 'forced by the market' to be more sexualized. Or you could argue that they are taking advantage of the market and using sex to sell. I mean the whole thing is asymetric, you can't expect men and women to behave in exactly the same way, they have different needs, desires, and affordances.

There’s also an overlap between porn and streamers, eg Indiefoxx.
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