Researches Explore Gender Difference In Twitch Streamers

It must be hard being a professional researcher. First, there's the long hours and tedious work. Any tiny mistake throws off entire chalkboards full of data. More importantly, though, they often have to spend their valuable time researching the most obvious things we all take for granted.

Such is the case with the researchers at Indiana University who found that Twitch commenters respond quite differently to streamers of different genders. I know. Shocking, right?


Maybe the warning sign is a bit much.

Of course, the results show that Twitch users have an unsurprising sexist streak, and it's pretty blatant. According to the results, female streamers can expect to see a lot of comments on their looks in a wide variety of crude language (with a bias toward "boobs"). Men, on the other hand, get to see the words "winner," "rank," "kills," and "points" the most. Unless there's an entire book on sexual inuendo I missed, that's a pretty huge difference.

One thing to consider here is the idea that streamers are forced to pander to their subscribers. Their entire channels (and sometimes livelihood) depend on these viewers. So the most successful female streamers feel pressured to either put up with it or play into their viewers' hands. Either way, I feel dirty just reading about these results.