Amouranth Hits Back on ASMR Twitch Ban
Not too long after we wrote about the ASMR TikTok leggings meta, Amouranth and others got a ban on Twitch for it. As of this writing, Amouranth is still banned, though it probably won’t last for much longer. Some critics of this jump from sexy meta to sexy meta view it as a platform that creates people who creep and harass other female viewers. So these people heap the blame on streamers like Amouranth for creating these kinds of viewers. Amouranth has replied to some of these criticisms, calling them ironic. But why?
Creeps Existed Long Before Sexy Streams
According to Amouranth, these creepy chatters who hop across female streams and harass people aren’t thanks to her streams. These people existed far before the hot tub meta or ASMR Leggings meta. While this is certainly true, some think that these kinds of streams allow viewers to openly be creepy. In a Twitter thread, Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa spoke about this sort of mindset:
I will always find it ENORMOUSLY IRONIC that the generation that fought “violent video games don’t cause an uptick in gun/violent crimes”(I agree), instantly turn tail & succumb to a bad take like “HOT TUB/ASMR GIRLS LITERALLY CREATE CREEPERS that plague other girl creators!”
— Kaitlyn (@wildkait) June 20, 2021
“I will always find it enormously ironic that the generation that fought “violent video games don’t cause an uptick in gun/violent crimes” instantly turn tail and succumb to a bad take like ‘hot tub/ASMR girls literally create creepers that plague other girl creators! I always wondered how ‘think of the children’ and other slap-a-bandaid solutions came about. Why do people try and gloss over systemic issues by blaming causes that have no basis in reality? Zoomers and millennials are more alike with boomers than we thought!”
Hot tub streams didn’t create creeps on Twitch, that’s 100% true. Perhaps it made them louder and bolder though. It sounds like these Twitch viewers behave that way in hot tub streams or other sexy streams, and feel like they can go to other female streamers and treat them the same way. Amouranth ended her rant with “Spontaneous genesis is back baby”, which is the notion that living beings could have emerged from nonliving material (such as dust). In essence, she’s definitely mocking people who rail against the ASMR/Hot tub streams.
This isn’t all on the Twitch streamers participating in the latest money-making metas, either. Twitch failing to actively enforce its own TOS, and not moderate is the major problem here. Since Twitch doesn’t actively enforce anything on its own platform it seems (or at least, not fairly), once one stream meta falls off, the these streamers will continue to push the envelope.
Quite a few content creators have spoken up about these latest metas for sure, Pokimane in particular looks at it like Twitch creating a ticking time bomb:
“They basically implemented a band-aid fix, as opposed to treating the root cause. It’s not about the symptom, it’s the root cause! Which is your TOS and your lack of content organization and labeling.”
A Very Divisive Topic
Twitch has created a problem that should not have existed in the first place. Instead of having a clear TOS and punishing accordingly, we get rulings like “being found to be sexy by others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not take enforcement action against women, or anyone on our service, for their perceived attractiveness.”
So instead of looking at the problem and dealing with it, we get new and more bold metas that take advantage of Twitch’s weak TOS. Then people get banned, like Amouranth, who may feel she did nothing wrong. Is there anything wrong with being sexy on Twitch? Absolutely not. Have Twitch viewers become emboldened by these styles of suggestive streams? Perhaps, but that’s not for us to say. It’s unlikely that someone who is paying for the content of these streamers is going to harass others though. It very well could be people that are upset that this sort of thing is happening on “their platform”, so they deal with it by making a big fuss on innocent streamers’ channels. Though Amouranth got a ban on Twitch for the ASMR content, it’s still very much a hot topic.
As far as the ASMR meta goes, the biggest victims are the regular ASMR streamers. There’s nothing wrong with ASMR. Pokimane put it this way:
“I feel really bad for legitimate ASMR artists. For people to come into your category and get to the top by doing the splits with their butt out and gurgling into a mic? It sucks, it’s unfortunate.”
Pokimane’s not the only streamer to speak up on the negatives of this style of stream. Summit1g has also brought it up. He was confused how Twitch could not see these new TikTok Legging ASMR streams as anything but sexually suggestive:
“I don’t understand how it couldn’t be sexually suggestive when one of the goals is to make eye contact while you are licking into this microphone. And there are constant position changes that are never normal. Why would I be playing games this way while you are looking at me from over there? And then it’s like, the ASMR stuff is happening, they aren’t just sitting. They aren’t just laying down.”
Summit1g then showed off some of the positions the ASMR streamers use, declaring that he doesn’t know what’s going on. His opinion is that the hot tub streamers are trying to get onto the front page, by taking over the ASMR section. Having the hot tub streamers being kicked out of “Just Chatting” hurt them financially and that they had to find something new. 6
Twitch has still not addressed this problem, but has levied a ban on a few streamers like indiefoxx and Amouranth for the ASMR meta. We’ll have to keep our eyes open and see if this story expands or changes. Some people think the problem is that children use Twitch, and seeing this sort of stream on it is not a good idea. However, better moderation on Twitch and organization of content could make that a non-issue. It’s certainly a discussion that’s divided Twitch down the middle.
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