I love Twitch, I really do, and being that I am relatively new to the streaming community, I don't know a lot of the lingo, so when I heard about the Hot Tub Meta ASMR, or whatever it's called, I was kind of disgusted with it. Now I'm not saying I can't appreciate a beautiful woman in a hot tub, or that everything a woman does shouldn't be sexualized, but the one thing people know Twitch for is gaming and these people were just sitting in hot tubs doing different things and the majority of it had not thing to do with anything other than trying to get people to tune in. Some of the content got very sexually suggestive and some bans from Twitch followed.
Now that the hot tube ASMR trend has seemingly cooled, some people have found a new ASMR. The new thing is called the Ear Licking ASMR Meta, not sure if meta is in the wrong spot or I should have left it out completely, but really I don't care because the whole thing is stupid. So here's the skinny on that, basically what people were doing was putting on yoga pants and licking their mics. I saw one video where a girl had on nothing but a lace bra, some yoga pants, and a chicken mask. She was pecking at the mic like a chicken and doing all kinds of poses. I would say they were sexually suggestive because they were being done with the sole intent to keep attention, but other might argue it differently. That's cool, it's just my opinion, because if she had been doing some of those positions because they happened to be yoga poses and she was doing yoga while doing the whole thing, I would have said there was a purpose to those poses that didn't include just doing them so people would keep watching.
After seeing a couple of clips of the streams, I could see why Twitch would ban Amouranth, IndieFoxx, and the others for their streams being sexually suggestive. For anyone who doesn't know what ASMR is, autonomous sensory meridian response is a relaxing, often sedative sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the body. It's also called a "brain massage" that's triggered by placid sights and sounds such as whispers, accents, and crackles.
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| Amouranth (Left)/IndieFoxx (Right) |
There are lot of good ASMR channels out there, but what these people were doing wasn't that and Pokimane actually made a great point about how there are lot of people who put a lot of time and effort into creating these calming sounds and effects that it's a real slap in the face when people to shoot to the top of the category because they have added some sexual component to it. I agree with her take because these people who are ripping off the category didn't even put in effort, they just threw on some leggings and licked microphones. Some did some humorous things like the girl with the chicken mask, but it was still pretty sexually suggestive for a channel that's been deemed okay to view for a general audience that includes children.
What's the big deal?
Well, the first thing is that the streamers who got banned were only banned for a total of about 3 days, and Amouranth has had multiple infractions on her account within a short span. If I'm not mistaken she's up to at least her 3rd or 4th strike for the same infraction within the same 6 month window, could be a year, but the point is there are streamers who have been banned or threatened with a permanent ban and some for very similar infractions, so where the first problem is that there is no uniformed standard for banning and suspending accounts.
I think we all understand that some infractions are worse than others and that all infractions are a case by case basis, but someone who commits the same infraction more than 3 times in a calendar year should be facing at least a year long suspension, because they obviously have no regard for the rules as they keep pushing the envelop and the reason some keep doing it is because the punishments are so light. If Amouranth had gotten a 6 month suspension from Twitch after her second infraction, she might not have had a 3rd or at least she would have been a lot more careful to avoid a 3rd.
Streamers
XQc and
Alinity both think the Twitch bans are too short and won't change anything. XQc was banned for accidently showing nudity on his stream and Alinity is no stranger to her fair share of controversy, but both believe that if you get 3 bans you should be permanently banned because if you were to receive 3 DCMA bans you get a permanent ban, so it should be the same across the board, especially if they don't want sexually suggestive content on the Twitch platform.
The second problem is that Twitch is platform meant for a general audience, including children, so imagine you walk into your 16 year-olds room and you see them watching these girls lick microphones. I'm not saying all parents would have a problem with it, but I think the majority of them would at least say something about it that and I don't think I'd classify it as something the 16 year-old should just disregard because it's just mom/dad being old. Obviously, parents should be monitoring what their children are doing and watching, but at the same time, it's up to content creators to use some foresight and into how their streams could be perceived as sexual in nature because at the end of the day, they are the ones who chose a platform that caters to a general audience and does not have a mature content section and while they may not specifically be making "mature" content, let's face it, the people who got banned for doing this ear licking crap knew what they were doing and to claim they didn't just means they need to do a better job of knowing their audience.
Where's the Line and How does Twitch fix it?
Well, I think that if were are being honest with each other, I disagree completely that those streams "create" new perverts that harass the other female streamers, but I will say that when stuff like that does come it does bring a lot of attention from the wrong kind of people who will eventually branch out to see what other raunchy stuff they can get into on Twitch, especially if they're new to the platform.
All that being said, I think the line is when people do something solely for the purpose of getting people to look. "Duh, Brandon. That's why people stream in the first place." I know, but here's a for instance. Remember when I mentioned the girl pecking at the microphone? Well, that stream in particular, I wouldn't have said was mature content had she been in a full chicken costume, but since she only had the mask, a lace bra and yoga pants on, and she was doing poses for no other purpose than for the sake of doing poses I found it to be very sexually suggestive. Even if she had just put a t-shirt on over her bra I probably wouldn't have found it as sexually suggestive and I can only assume that the girl in the video chose that attire because she knew it would draw attention; the low hanging fruit, if you will.
And that's what I mean by doing something for the sole purpose of getting someone to watch. Obviously all of us streamers want people to watch us, so we put a lot of thought an effort...well someone of us...into making the streams fun and for as big of a general audience as possible, but when you start specifically throwing leggings into a "challenge" or add bikini's, it automatically adds a sexually suggestive component whether the content creator wanted it to or not, and in most cases they do it intentionally because sex sells and it's easier than actually coming up with a good idea.
At the end of the day, there's a time and place for sexually suggestive content and if Twitch doesn't want it on its platform then it needs to be a lot tougher with bans and suspensions for infractions because is 72 hours is all someone is going to get for repeating the same offense then what's the point? By that point the damage has already been done 3 times and obviously the content creator is going to keep trying to find ways to add that suggestive component because like I said, sex sells and it's easier than coming up with an original idea. Another thing Twitch could do is make creators label their channels and if they get hit with a mature content violation the status of the channel should automatically change and the person should get a week suspension for mislabeling their channel.
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