Streaming as Resistance
For those of you who don’t know, I stream video games on twitch.tv/pizza_yeti. This is something I’ve wanted to do since back in the day when I first watched Chuggaconroy play Earthbound (the first time). Yeah, I’ve been around YouTube for a second. So about a year ago (July 12, 2018, to be exact) I started streaming. It’s been an interesting year streaming very inconsistently. As I’ve mentioned, I was also in the middle of grad school and had a few different jobs that made streaming difficult. But the main reason I stopped streaming was that my internet wasn’t good enough. I was barred access because the small town I was living in didn’t offer internet speeds that consistently met the 3mbps minimum upload to have a healthy stream on Twitch.
See, we live in an age where we say and hear things like “anyone can do ___” when we bring up inequalities in a given area. So yeah, in theory, anyone can stream. But in reality, that’s not true. At base, you have to have an internet connection that can handle it, and either a PS4 or an Xbox or else you’ll have to invest at least 100$ in a decent capture card to play any Nintendo systems on stream. Also, if you go the route of a capture card, you’ll have to have a computer that can handle streaming as well. So right away, there’s the money aspect of streaming that keeps people out. There are other levels that encourage some populations to not stream that affects the larger tech and gaming industry as a whole, but we can get into that later.
A few weeks ago, I was streaming. Now, I love talking about access and inclusivity and the ways that spaces are inaccessible and exclusive. So this idea that streaming is still this white-dominated space that’s filled with a lot of toxic streams. So what does it look like to be a person of color who wants to stream and be honest and intentional about what it’s like to be a person of color in the gaming community? Doesn’t streaming, and being yourself while doing it, then become an act of resistance?
There are some people reading this no doubt thinking that being a person of color on the internet can’t possibly be that bad. It can be. Trust me. So streaming as an act of resistance can look like groups similar to Brown Girl Gamer Code, Black Girl Gamers, The Cookout, and for those who want to talk about mental health, Yam Fam. This is not an exhaustive list, these are just the communities I know of. But, like Cote wrote about in Woke Gaming, these spaces are built for and by the people who desire them. These are not spaces that naturally exist in a world developed and informed by white supremacy. (Look for an upcoming review of Woke Gaming that goes more into this topic).
Being bold enough to attempt to speak on important topics has made people targets. It takes an incredible community behind you to hold you up when trolls or just angry, jealous people come after you. And that is why the decision to continue is such an act of resistance. It’s participating in something that will hopefully enact positive change. In an age where it seems like most people act out of a place of fear, acting (streaming), from a place of hope helps other people to see that a new thing is possible.
Streaming as an act of resistance looks like plugging in a controller, headphones, and a mic and being unapologetically you. For me, it also means engaging in conversations about access and equity. It means figuring out how to hold gamin culture accountable while supporting the streamers, communities, and game developers who are also doing the work to break down the gates and walls that keep certain populations out. It looks like spreading resources across the board instead of hoarding them for myself. I attempt to embody the thought that we all rise together or none of us really go anywhere. We lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. That is how we resist. That is how we make change. And that is the kind of content that I’m here for.
Originally published on July 23, 2019, on pizzayetiwrites.wordpress.com
