Great news for sexy people at last today, as Twitch has made clear that “being found to be sexy by others is not against our rules.” This landmark decision in sexiness rights comes as part of a larger acknowledgement of the rise of “Hot Tub Streamers” on the platform, i.e., people who sit in swimwear in hot tubs for their Twitch streams, usually in the non-games-focused “Just Chattin’” category.
At the risk of generalizing, the whole hot tub thing has typically been seen as a way to interface with (and, some might argue, get around) Twitch’s strictures on nudity, which state that a streamer can only broadcast in revealing swimwear if it’s “contextually appropriate,” i.e., you’re somehow immersed in water. That, in turn, is part of a much wider, and more incendiary, conversation about the roles of sexuality, parasocial attraction, and more on the platform, as well as the ways that paths that are often primarily utilized by women are much more likely to be met by censure, both from the Twitch community, and the company itself.
See, for instance, the recent news that several hot tub streamers have had advertising pulled from their streams, massively reducing their ability to monetize their content. In the announcement today, Twitch acknowledged that it allows advertisers to declare types of content they don’t want their products advertised on (although it also stated that it does “not permit brands to use protected characteristics as a filter for advertising targeting or blocking,” which feels somewhat nebulous). Twitch also acknowledged that it failed its streamers by not informing them that their ads were about to be pulled.
For now, a stopgap measure: Any streams that feature broadcasters in swim attire will go in a special section, labeled “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches,” that advertisers can opt in or out of. But the wider conversation about the use of sexuality in regards to attracting followers, views, and corresponding ad payments—which, as Twitch itself acknowledges, is so massively subjective as to be rendered borderline meaningless—is still to come, and is unlikely to get any less messy from here on out.
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It says a lot when Satan’s own church has to call out Satan’s own asshole for bad behavior.
Is this “Guy Commenting On Wrong Thread” fanfic?
I honestly thought I was commenting on the Satan article, but I think it works just as well here.
Might also work for the Danny Masterson article.
(although it also stated that it does “not permit brands to use
protected characteristics as a filter for advertising targeting or
blocking,” which feels somewhat nebulous)I might just be ignorant, here, but why is that nebulous? Protected characteristics are defined by the law, therefore wouldn’t this just mean that advertisers can’t use those characteristics to define which streams can/can’t show their adverts? I.e. they can’t explicitly say, for instance: ‘We don’t want to advertise on black people’s streams,’ or ‘We want to advertise on gay streamers’ streams’?
I think it feels nebulous because what you just described is basically a core principal of advertising: specifically targeting the kind of people you think will buy your products. So in reality, of-fucking-course advertisers are going to straight up ignore rules like that and it’s just lip service to pretend otherwise.
Twitch can, and indeed should, tell a company “We will not allow you to block your ads from Black streamer’s channels.”
They CAN say they they won’t send your ads to channels targetted to rap music fans, or those fans of any other technically-independent-but-culturally-very-specific bit of pop culture ephemera…They won’t let you target gays, but they WILL let you target ‘people interested in LGBTQ issues’ and ‘fans of musical theater’ and ‘female softball players’ etc etc.
The moral of the story is “Don’t worry hot people, you can still monetize your hotness”
But only until you’re about 30, 35, tops.
This is a big step forward for the rights of sexy and beautiful people. We won’t be kept down!
I don’t watch Twitch so I am no authority on this, but are any of its advertisers really going to care that their ads are paired with a girl in a bikini? I thought girls in bikinis were advertising 101.
Advertising 101 covers gams and those radio commercials where two annoying voices yammer back and forth. Girls in bikinis is usually covered in the second semester.
If you can’t sell your product with a girl in a bikini, your product sucks. That’s just capitalism.
It’s not against boy rules either. How YOU doin?
I’m a middle-aged old, so I don’t get this, but didn’t God give us porn for a reason? Who wants to listen to some girl blab about shit in a bikini in an inflatable hot tub talk? Go to Pornhub, you idiots.
According to the kotaku twitchologists, she’s essentially an advertisement for her own more porny channels.
Pretty sure most Twitch “viewers” aren’t giving the channels their undivided attention. It’s more like something to have going while you’re playing a game yourself, maybe pop in and out of watching if they hear something interesting.
What’s wrong with being sexy?
The same thing that’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding.
13 year old me would have loved these streams and wanted to borrow Mom’s credit card.Middle aged me doesn’t care much for brainless 19 year olds regardless of their looks and couldn’t care less. Today’s Dr. K stream where he carefully started working with Sasha Grey – who among other things he got to more or less admit she’s terrified of having her channel (and a substantial income stream for her) be banned if she inadvertently breaks some unwritten rule while just chatting – was a lot more interesting, and I suspect the 40k or so viewers who watched between both channels would probably agree.That said, the one thing that I do hope Twitch enforces on this is to build a wall between the hot tub streamers and their Onlyfans accounts. There’s a difference between policing women’s bodies and not allowing advertisements for ‘hey, you can see much more here!’ competitors.
I dunno. Your argument seems to put a bit of “smart pornstar” pressure on the tiddy streamers.Like, sure, you’ve got that era of Sasha Greys and Stoyas and Indigo Augustines and whatnot who were always upfront about being, to put it basically, artistic or intellectual alongside their porn — but how many one-and-done starlets of that era, and how many . . . I mean, just go back and look through Rodney Moore’s oeuvre? Because while there’s been a tectonic shift in communications between then and currently, and we’re now at a place on social media where the 19-year-olds of today have grown up to know better than being radically honest on the internet, I’m uncertain that discovering attention on an Instagram scale and exploiting it for money makes someone braindead, or that low-subscriber tiddy streamers are less intelligent for trying.Also, banning OnlyFans while, I have to presume, allowing Patreon or monetized YouTube accounts? Not sure that approach is as pro-women as it seems at first blush.
Well, we had a bunch of pot bellied male streamers in hot tubs today so we’ll see who wins.And the whole thing just reminds me of the early 2000 flood of sex workers on every dating site in existence, which while I don’t have a problem with their industry, did just serve to annoy almost everyone involved. I do think it’s probably fair for Twitch to protect their brand in that sense; if you’re a partner, it goes both ways.
It’s shocking the number of dudes that must have watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame and emulated their entire personalities off of Frollo. I truly do not understand how in the year 2021 men are still obsessed with seeking out women they find sexy and then punishing them because they’re turned on. Why does it need to be a conversation? No one is going to a beach or pool and shielding their children’s eyes so let’s not pretend this is about the kids. It’s purely dudes being pissed that they want to give money and views to women.
People are dumb.
So don’t sell your ads on “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches,” because that’s for the people yanking it. Got it.
> massively reducing their ability to monetize their content This isn’t true. Advertising revenue is a drop in the bucket compared to subs and donations. In many cases hot tub streamers are promoting patreons or onlyfans that really bring in the dough. This change means twitch can avoid losing sitewide advertising while having minimal impact on these streamers. Sure they won’t get ads on these streamers but three minutes later when the simps have shot their load they’ll probably be moving on to a monetised streamer.