Personality of Communities
I’ve ventured into political commentary streams as viewer, not a streamer. More or less to see a different side of Twitch as reminder that there is more to the platform than brain rot video game nonsense (I’m part of the brain rot, woo). The one thing I’ve noticed, and have found fascinating, as I’ve dived into those political spaces, are the varying types of communities. Some are welcoming. Others hostile to anyone who expresses disagreement with the streamer. Then there are those that are chill and feel like people sitting around a couch late at night shooting the shit. This isn’t only political streamers either, plenty of streamer communities are like the above. The political communities only highlighted this for me as I’ve sleuthed through Twitch.
It’s made me take a step back and think about the community I want to foster.
As streamers, we invite an audience to experience a game, or we engage in conversation with us. Naturally, the community will reflect the streamers persona the more they watch and engage. It’s a cult of personality, in a way, that streamers undertake. We form a community that we have a responsibility for; the good and the bad. That community has a personality of its own that we must foster and mediate, otherwise that community may drift away from what we envisioned if we don’t moderate it.
Likewise, we need to ask ourselves the type of community we want. One thing I’ve noticed with political streams are ‘plant-my-flag’ communities that will adopt and believe whatever the streamer says. Perhaps it’s the contrarian, or maybe academic, in me but believing anything another person, especially a person online, says without research is a head scratcher. For many streamers, they want to have a chill space for people to come talk and hangout, and that’s wonderful. But, to ensure the chill space, you still need to set boundaries, so that your viewers know the space you want to build. We have a responsibility to ensure our audience knows exactly what we expect from them in chat and beyond.
The beyond part is key. It’s easy for communities to take the issues into other spaces that we, the streamers, can’t moderate. While that’s out of our control, we can still make it clear that those actions won’t be tolerated. (I saw this a lot in the political spaces)
For folks looking to stream, this is something you’ll need to consider and think about. While it’s not an immediate focus for budding streamers, seeing how other streamers communicate with their communities will open your own eyes to how you could, and would not, approach your own.
Jesús M. Rivera 