Insane Difficulty: Why Do Girl Gamers Seek Attention? Awesome Response - Insane Difficulty

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This. I've never understood why females are especially insulted for doing whatever they can to get viewers--as if males who screech and/or wear stupid costumes aren't doing the same thing? Somehow it's acceptable to do whatever antics you want to get views if you're male, but if you happen to be an attractive female not wearing a bag over your head, woah buddy watch out attention!whore alert e.e

Sadly, it's bigger than just streaming, and it's bigger than just gender. You also see similar accusations about people who are told their bisexuality/pansexuality/transness is "just for the attention", for example. People of color often experience it when talking about racism, with earnest conversations about experiences and perceptions being seen as "race baiting". You see it applied to body modifications as well. It often gets posed as a question: "why does a person who does/identifies as [x] have to be so vocal about it?"

It's a coded way of saying someone is just looking for attention, and it's a form of marginalization, because it assumes by default an illegitimacy for that person's identity and experiences. Under this thinking, the identity characteristics of people who fall outside the accepted norms aren't that way in earnest -- they're that way as a sort of contrarian act. For those who do largely fit the norms, I can understand why it's easy to think that, as much of their identity development has been in rejecting pieces of the norm that they interface with. Maybe they reject mainstream music, or AAA games. Maybe they embrace fringe technology. Perhaps it's rejecting what they see as the dominant religion or political beliefs.

These rejections happen organically for them, relative to whatever their "normal" is, and they view them as fundamental parts of their beliefs. As such, when faced with someone who's counter to dominant culture in a particularly striking or individual way (particularly those who violate norms that the observers have made a conscious choice to accept rather than reject), it's often easier to explain their existence within a framework of norm-rejection, which gives them the internally-consistent belief that people are, say, "bisexual just for the attention". Instead of assuming that most people who identify as bisexual are doing it in a way that's consistent with their own personal experiences, they assume that the identity came about as a rejection of a cultural norm, and that the rejection is so strong that, of course, it'll definitely get attention.

What's interesting about that, is the idea that attention is fueled largely by the very value imbalance that these kind of accusations imply. The outcries that people make when someone defines themselves as say, "bisexual" or a "girl gamer" create the very attention that people are, paradoxically, decrying. I can't speak about Kaceytron specifically, as I'm not familiar with her, but the post someone else made about her has been seen by and commented on by thousands of people. In decrying her attention-seeking behaviors, the person who posted it not only signal-boosted that, but also revealed their own desire to call attention to their perspective -- an attention-seeking behavior that is probably invisible to the poster and many of the people agreeing with the image's message.

/u/imuya brought it up relative to streaming, but the fact of the matter is that much of what we do are attention-seeking behaviors. Why do you keep in touch with your friends? Why do you comment on reddit? Why do you tweet? Whenever there's a social component to something there's an element of attention embedded in it, because the task becomes relatively meaningless if there isn't an audience.

Reddit itself is like a veritable pressure-cooker for attention, with everything you do on the site being a vector for it. I'm writing this comment in the hopes that other people will see it; I'm writing it with the understanding that anyone on the site can respond to it; and, even more, I'm able to have a direct proxy for the audience's opinion of it in the form of reddit's voting system! I can't imagine a system more designed to reward attention-seeking behavior, especially because an upvote is structurally analogous to saying this needs more attention by nature of reddit's sorting methods (displaying highly upvoted articles and comments first).

The point of all of this is that a behavior being attention-seeking isn't wrong in and of itself -- in fact, that's a reality we are all complicit in if we're on this very site. Instead, it's often the intent of the behavior and the manner and space in which it's executed that are far more important in terms of gauging authenticity.

But then, people donated actual money to see this on stream:



Lots of male streamers do much the same thing, and yet no one calls out Trihex or Caleb for 'seeking attention'. In fact, the Twitch chat explodes into Kreygasms whenever they go shirtless.

I've never understood why females are especially insulted for doing whatever they can to get viewers

I wouldn't condemn anyone for trying to get viewers. How they choose too is not a problem if i disagree cause i can just watch someone else, and causing arguments or trying too decry someone doesn't accomplish anything. Though i do understand suggestions and constructive criticism that's it not meant affront anyone but provide the streamers with idea's to improve their content. Now characteristics such as gender and sexuality that are not a choice shouldn't be accused of "attention seeking" unless its obvious flaunting of such aspects, but again its their choice too emphasize those characteristics.

I think a more important issue parallel to this is whether or not a streamer should feel the need to hide such qualities in fear of bad publicity and scorn due to something they cant change? Most notably if a homosexual streamer gets asked if he/she is gay, they might be pressured into lying because they worry about someone patronizing them for it.

Can you tell the difference between Sheever and the girls people always hate on for being camwhores?

There are always mouthbreathing wastes of space in every subculture, and they're the easiest to target. Whether it be feminazis, next-level beta nerds, or vapid steroid-bound jocks, they don't represent the majority of the subculture, nor do they deserve the negative or positive attention they get.

You don't understand, it was really, reeeeaaaally obvious that she was playing everybody like a chump. I understand if someone is just doing their thing and having a good time, but she pretty much extorts lust and wrath for cash.

In the stream I saw, she randomly started telling a story about how she had once gone to a porn audition where she gave a dude head before he told her he would hire her if she ever became an amputee. It was the most horrifying thing I had ever heard when coupled with the fact that I knew she was simultaneously fishing for sympathy, attraction, and hatred all at once.

I get that people should be able to do what they want in whatever way they want, but this kind of psychological extortion and self-debasement is disgusting.

It's even worse, because her behavior is even detrimental to the legitimate female streamers. She's showing impressionable young men that it's alright to treat women like shit/goddesses during a stream. Then, they go on to act like complete ass-hats to respectable women who are interested in the culture, effectively driving away potentially cool people from the community.

I've seen it during AGDQ even, when there's a modestly dressed woman on stream and the chat bursts out in cat calls and "OMG it's a grill" (intentional misspelling and this could just be an inside joke, but I doubt it).

It's sad, but I doubt you can really do anything about it except spread the word to ignore these people for the parasites they are.

Guys, this entire debate can be summed up very, very simply.

There are people who are "real", and there are people who are "fake." This extends far beyond the realm of gaming.

The people who are "real" will do something simply because they enjoy it. They are a part of a subculture because they belong there. Because of this, these people garner mad respect from their peers. Trihex and Caleb are "real." We love people who are "real."

Then there are people who are "fake." Based on the comments and such I'd attach Kaceytron to this, but I haven't seen her stuff personally so I'll refrain from passing judgement. "Fake" people do a certain thing and/or attach themselves to a given subculture for attention and nothing more. They are the posers, the pretenders, they are the people who deserve our sympathy, but not our respect. These are the people that any given subculture can inherently identify almost immediately, and are subsequently rejected.

Why do we reject those who are "fake?" That's rather simple. On the surface people will claim that it's because they're using their body to garner attention (in this case), but most of the time that's a red herring to distract from the real issue: they're cheapening that given subculture with their actions, which reflects badly on those "real" people in the subculture.

Acting on a snap judgement is always a bad thing, but this is what so many people will do. I think this is what Stann was trying to get at. When a lot of people see a hot chick on a stream, there are all too many people that will either fall in headfirst or immediately write her off. Both of these are equally bad.

Sheever is "real." The type of girl gamer that is doing it just for attention and nothing more, that sees playing X game as simply a means to an end, is "fake."

I argue she deserves respect because she is still just a person and whether someone likes her or not she is fitting a niche because there are people who want to see this or she wouldn't be making money from it. For her and many others doing many different things, this is probably more or less a job and if she can actually make money doing what she is doing, more power to her imo. I might be meaning respect much more literally than you are getting at though. I just don't try to take her too seriously and also don't believe this is really doing that much damage to the actual industry, it is doing more damage to the people that just don't like it who blow it out of proportion, but that's on them.