US online retail giant Amazon, owner of popular streaming site Twitch, appears to be interested in entering the camgirl sector, bringing fierce competition to a rather profitable industry.
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Amazon, which bought Twitch in 2014, appears to be interested in entering a rather lucrative industry, the camgirl industry, by pushing its filial to recruit more female streamers under the pretence of “gender equality” and protecting the top earners on the site.
The streaming’s site move is unsurprising, having conditioned part of its userbase over the past few months with overly sexualized and questionable content, and having openly protected specific female streamers that were in clear violation of the terms of service, while simultaneously banning minor male and female streamers that do not enjoy a large follower base for the same or lesser violations. Furthermore, while more adult-oriented websites do not have the luxury of having easily accessible websites or applications, Twitch’s app can be download without any difficulties from both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s iOS store, allowing children to watch and follow these streamers, increasing the userbase and popularity of the platform. With the application deemed “safe”, parents do not worry about what their children are doing, thus letting them discover a “whole new world”.
We’ve contacted some of Twitch’s main competitors, and we’ve gathered the following comments:
“We welcome Twitch in our industry. Their soft-core stars give a first experience to children, awakening their sexual interest, which will undoubtably lead them to visit our service next, once they grow tired of the existing content. For this, we’ve decided to increase our advertising budget to reach the next generations, by, for example, collaborating on challenges with YouTubers deemed “child-friendly” by the platform.”,
said Mike Dick, director of Chatbait, one of the leading websites in this industry.
Others are more worried about Twitch’s move, as, contrary to some other players in the industry, they are not seeing any increase in their traffic. This is the case of ManyClips, which claims this new generation of soft-core streamers monetize their content in new ways, such as “premium” [paying] Snapchat accounts or exclusive “lewd” pictures on Patreon, a website that allows people to give a certain amount of money, usually per month, to support their activities, in most cases in exchange of special perks such as exclusive behind-the-scenes, pictures, personalized clips and others.
We’ve also heard complaints from both sides, with, for instance, some camgirls raising objections to the company’s way of doing things. One of the most vocal ones, Syren Cove, an ex-camgirl and YouTuber, well-known for the tattoos covering most of her body, has voiced her complaints on multiple occasions, stating that while she has been discriminated against, insulted, harassed or ignored due to her career and choices, these other girls doing this type of “soft-core” porn are not viewed in the same way, and instead are actually celebrated with words such as “female empowerment”. In other words, while camgirls have to show more skin or entertain viewers in more “active ways”, which results in them being regarded in a negative way, these other streamers, also known as “Titty streamers” or “Twitch thots”, are celebrated and rewarded for just existing while essentially doing the same but showing less skin overall.
On Twitch, not everybody is happy with the company’s move. While some don’t mind and don’t pay attention to it, some have openly spoken about the issue. For some, the sudden rise in popularity and the leeway given to “Twitch thots” has resulted in less viewers, due to part of the community moving to the “Just chatting” section where all these girls stream. On the other hand, female streamers that do not provide this kind of content and instead focus on other things such as gaming or art, have reported an increase in “thirsty” [sexually aroused] viewers who expect similar content to the other “soft” camgirls, and, when not obtaining it, insult or harass the streamer before leaving.
Some of those voicing concerns about the current situation and hoping for the streaming service to come back to what it was originally, have been touting an alternative platform, the Microsoft-owned “Mixer”, although, so far, adoption has been slow. After all, moving from an established website to a newer one that lacks a viewer base is a difficult and delicate task, as viewers have their preferred streamers, while streamers might have to rebuild their audience from scratch, potentially costing them revenue or, in the worst case, their career.
If it wasn’t obvious enough, some parts of this article are sarcasm, and thus we haven’t reached out to Amazon nor Twitch for a comment on this story. Now, for which parts are sarcasm and which ones are real, we’ll leave that to the readers to figure out….
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