Being a streamer on Twitch or YouTube can be a lucrative career path that often results in million-dollar sponsorship deals and a level of celebrity on par with that of actors and musicians. The wealth and fame can be tempting. When Dr. Disrespect revealed the specs of the gaming PC he uses for streaming, it was estimated that the rig easily hit the $10,000 mark. But creating content on a public platform can also come with some very serious downsides.
Rivals and jealous viewers often come hand in hand with admirers. There are multiple stories of streamers who have had fans show up on their doorsteps, sometimes with less than friendly intentions. And swatting, the act of making a prank call to dispatch armed police officers to a person’s home, occurs at an alarming frequency and has led to deaths in the past. Twitch streamer xQc recently revealed that he had to move house because of the excessive police raids.
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Content creator Amouranth has admitted that she’s considered quitting streaming altogether due to the increased and ongoing harassment about her controversial ASMR and hot tub streams. But things have now gotten even more serious because, on the evening of August 13, someone started a fire on the side of the Twitch streamer’s home near where the trashcan is kept. In a Twitter post about the incident, Amouranth shared that investigators strongly suspect arson.
Luckily, it seems that her house had surveillance cameras, and police are also reviewing security footage from neighbors and any other possible sources to catch the suspect. Unfortunately, Amouranth also revealed that this is not the first time that something like this has happened. Little more than a year ago, on July 4, 2020, somebody planned to shoot fireworks at the Twitch streamer’s house. That person was caught before they could act and was arrested.
Amouranth also stated that she gets “garden variety swatting” on a weekly basis, but she has a good working relationship with the local police and her house is flagged, which can mean the difference between a life and death standoff with law enforcement. Her labeling the potentially deadly activity as “garden variety” is a reflection of just how rampant and how much an accepted part of popular Twitch streamers’ lives swatting has become.
In addition to these dangerous activities, malicious Twitch viewers also frequently engage in hate raids, during which a mob of people show up in a streamer’s chat and barrage them with harassment and hate speech. This occurs most frequently with minority Twitch streamers, like members of the LGBTQA community and people of color. It has become such an ongoing and unbearable occurrence that the hashtags #TwitchDoBetter and #BeBetterTwitch began trending on Twitter.
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