If you ever watch any Twitch channel, and are even remotely interested in League of Legends, doing even the most minimal research, the subject of Twitch streamer, Kaceytron, will come up on the LoL forums. The so-called controversy of Kaceytron was quite visible even during the first few days I started watching Twitch.
Almost all of the forum members wanted Kaceytron banned for being so rude to her subscribers, often cursing them out if she gets killed, despite all of her deaths completely being her fault.
They also bemoaned the fact that she's really not playing the game, and only doing this for money due to her sexualized nature. It was upsetting to me that a Twitch streamer would be so nasty to such a faithful subscriber, who pays faithfully month after month. As a result, I refused to go on her channel as I felt that this is rewarding bad behavior.
Later, I noticed that quite a few people on the Twitch streams I follow would post Kaceytron emoticons: by hovering over the icon, it will list where they come from. Horrified, I asked one subscriber how can he possibly follow Kaceytron, when she is so nasty to her loyal followers. He merely replied, "LOL", so I felt there was something more to the story than what the LoL forum users describe, so I decided to check out her channel.
Upon watching Kaceytron's stream for the first time, I was struck by how many comments flew by, hundreds upon hundreds. The next thing I noticed is how appalling the language was. I'm not bothered by swear words, but the comments are so nasty and foul that the worst internet comments I've read prior to Kaceytron's chat room were actually polite and pleasant.
After being inured to these comments, I then noticed that the Kaceytron bot (these bots automatically send messages to the chat room) was constantly reminding moderators to NOT suppress any speech, and to respect the first amendment, which made me lol.
After these first 10 seconds of impressions, I then watched Kaceytron playing LoL, and I was very surprised and startled as to why the forum members don't realize that she's playing an obvious Persona parodying sexualized woman streamers. She intentionally provokes nasty comments in rather humorous, dead-pan, ways, that I really don't know how any one can miss that. Since I found her intentionally dead-pan, jaded tone amusing, I subscribed to her channel.
The first few months that I followed Kaceytron on a regular basis, it's clear that she's intelligent and has excellent comedic timing. The other interesting thing to notice is that her channel and her shows are well put together, and it seems that she prepares for quite a few of her streams.
For instance, Kaceytron has a fake channel news (Gaming News) that's actually more professional and objective than the Fox News Channel, which quite a few people pointed out in the chat room. Setting something up like that takes time and effort, and it continues to make me laugh as the banner underneath states, "Respect, Dignity & Gameplay" which is the opposite of the chat room, and Kaceytron intentionally plays poorly.
I especially enjoyed Gaming News's endorsement of Donald Trump as a "supporter" of gaming, even though his tweet was extremely anti-video games. Hillary Clinton's speech on video games was a non-controversial promise to back Mature M rating on video-games, which no one is against. So, if anything, Clinton is far more pro-gaming than Trump.
In a lot of her other streams, she would have pretend professional gamers, and chat-favorite, Catcam, member of the factitious "GrandNationalChampions" team, on her channel.
Kaceytron's professionalism also is shown by having a regular set time when she streams, and she also sends messages to her subscribers when she will not be streaming. She also publishes newsletters for subscribers. I have not watched her channel recently, so I'm not sure if this has continued, but while I was watching her stream the first few months, she was always present on schedule, and sent messages when she won't be available.
Indeed, the most successful streamers tend to have set schedules that they follow consistently, and Kaceytron goes above these to let her subscribers know when she won't be there.
As for Kaceytron cursing out her subscribers, it's actually an honor to be singled out, which was absolutely lost on the LoL forum users. During one of her rants, when she was cursing out her users for once again insulting her, there was an automatic message that I was a subscriber of her channel for 18 months. You can share this to the streamer and chat room by clicking on the button.
Upon clicking on the button and seeing my username on the screen, in the midst of her rants, Kaceytron said, "and fuck you too, Alice Chang for subscribing to my channel for 18 years [sic]", which made me lol.
I quickly told my friends who know about Kaceytron, and they all found it rather amusing. I sent her a message stating that I really enjoyed her expletive, and she replied thanking me for understanding that this was an act, and that not a lot of people understand that.
And yes, I'm a proud owner and wearer of a purple Kaceytron t-shirt.
The How of Happiness Review
Almost all of the forum members wanted Kaceytron banned for being so rude to her subscribers, often cursing them out if she gets killed, despite all of her deaths completely being her fault.
They also bemoaned the fact that she's really not playing the game, and only doing this for money due to her sexualized nature. It was upsetting to me that a Twitch streamer would be so nasty to such a faithful subscriber, who pays faithfully month after month. As a result, I refused to go on her channel as I felt that this is rewarding bad behavior.
Later, I noticed that quite a few people on the Twitch streams I follow would post Kaceytron emoticons: by hovering over the icon, it will list where they come from. Horrified, I asked one subscriber how can he possibly follow Kaceytron, when she is so nasty to her loyal followers. He merely replied, "LOL", so I felt there was something more to the story than what the LoL forum users describe, so I decided to check out her channel.
Upon watching Kaceytron's stream for the first time, I was struck by how many comments flew by, hundreds upon hundreds. The next thing I noticed is how appalling the language was. I'm not bothered by swear words, but the comments are so nasty and foul that the worst internet comments I've read prior to Kaceytron's chat room were actually polite and pleasant.
After being inured to these comments, I then noticed that the Kaceytron bot (these bots automatically send messages to the chat room) was constantly reminding moderators to NOT suppress any speech, and to respect the first amendment, which made me lol.
After these first 10 seconds of impressions, I then watched Kaceytron playing LoL, and I was very surprised and startled as to why the forum members don't realize that she's playing an obvious Persona parodying sexualized woman streamers. She intentionally provokes nasty comments in rather humorous, dead-pan, ways, that I really don't know how any one can miss that. Since I found her intentionally dead-pan, jaded tone amusing, I subscribed to her channel.
The first few months that I followed Kaceytron on a regular basis, it's clear that she's intelligent and has excellent comedic timing. The other interesting thing to notice is that her channel and her shows are well put together, and it seems that she prepares for quite a few of her streams.
For instance, Kaceytron has a fake channel news (Gaming News) that's actually more professional and objective than the Fox News Channel, which quite a few people pointed out in the chat room. Setting something up like that takes time and effort, and it continues to make me laugh as the banner underneath states, "Respect, Dignity & Gameplay" which is the opposite of the chat room, and Kaceytron intentionally plays poorly.
I especially enjoyed Gaming News's endorsement of Donald Trump as a "supporter" of gaming, even though his tweet was extremely anti-video games. Hillary Clinton's speech on video games was a non-controversial promise to back Mature M rating on video-games, which no one is against. So, if anything, Clinton is far more pro-gaming than Trump.
In a lot of her other streams, she would have pretend professional gamers, and chat-favorite, Catcam, member of the factitious "GrandNationalChampions" team, on her channel.
Kaceytron's professionalism also is shown by having a regular set time when she streams, and she also sends messages to her subscribers when she will not be streaming. She also publishes newsletters for subscribers. I have not watched her channel recently, so I'm not sure if this has continued, but while I was watching her stream the first few months, she was always present on schedule, and sent messages when she won't be available.
Indeed, the most successful streamers tend to have set schedules that they follow consistently, and Kaceytron goes above these to let her subscribers know when she won't be there.
As for Kaceytron cursing out her subscribers, it's actually an honor to be singled out, which was absolutely lost on the LoL forum users. During one of her rants, when she was cursing out her users for once again insulting her, there was an automatic message that I was a subscriber of her channel for 18 months. You can share this to the streamer and chat room by clicking on the button.
Upon clicking on the button and seeing my username on the screen, in the midst of her rants, Kaceytron said, "and fuck you too, Alice Chang for subscribing to my channel for 18 years [sic]", which made me lol.
I quickly told my friends who know about Kaceytron, and they all found it rather amusing. I sent her a message stating that I really enjoyed her expletive, and she replied thanking me for understanding that this was an act, and that not a lot of people understand that.
And yes, I'm a proud owner and wearer of a purple Kaceytron t-shirt.
The How of Happiness Review
A large part to understanding Kaceytron and her stream, comes from the knowledge that it is 100% satirical. She isn't herself when she is streaming, she is acting for her fans, and being the person they want her to be. Whilst I do feel like she started doing it at the wrong time, there was a very large argument for the ban of "girl gamers" from twitch, (you know the ladies I'm on about, camera is bigger than the game screen, usually LoL or Hearthstone because more viewers, audience is typing with one hand.) I could very much see the trouble it was causing. People coming into other girl's chats demanding they get topless, inviting the wrong audience and wrong attitude to Twitch. It is important to understand that Kacey herself wasn't part of that crowd, mimicing it jokingly instead and because of that I hold a lot of respect for her and her broadcast, and I'm glad she's still around today.
ReplyDeleteI think it's also worth talking about the culture a lot of streamers create, in their little pocket of the internet, when different communities are formed they develop their own inside jokes, their own habits, their own dialect. You mention how Kaceytron's are filled with insult's and hatred, it's all a big joke that they're all in on. If you used language like that in another stream, you'd be banned instantly, chat would probably cease for a few seconds, the mood would be killed completely for everyone. It's ok in Kacey's channel though, because that's how they roll.
Another example to pull from would be TheOddOne's twitch channel, you wouldn't believe me if I told you it was an a great honour to be banned from his channel, but they love it. Whenever he is rolling some sort of RNG in his games, whenever he queue's up for League, he'll "sacrifice" 5 twitch viewers for good luck. They know when it's coming, they'll spam chat Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! There's the occasional "I don't want to die! BibleThump" they're the first one to go. Now for other people looking into this environment, this is fucking weird. If another streamer just banned 5 of their viewers for seemingly no reason what so ever, they wouldn't have a stream for long, but they love it over there, it's become a part of their culture, one of their rituals, their inside jokes.
All streamers will have their own culture, whether it be something as ritualistic as sacrificing your viewers for good luck, or something as unseen, or something unseen like the atmosphere and attitude of the chatroom.
-CheesusAlmighty
Thanks @CheesusAlmighty for going into more of the background and context of the Kaceytron movement. I didn't realize that the chat themselves were in on the joke, because some of the stuff they write are so extremely vile, that the most negative internet comments are quite tame in comparison.
DeleteI'm very heartened to see that Kaceyton does garner a lot of respect from you and us subscribers. A lot of people don't realize that she puts a lot of time and effort into her streams as she always has different content such as fake interviews, news shows, and the like.
It's so good to see you here, I very much appreciate your knowledge and input, which are quite impressive in depth and breadth. I feel that you should have a blog! If you do, let me know of it!
Yours, Alice
I kept one in college when I was studying Media, haven't updated it since I left though as it was under the college's name. While sure I can still access it, I don't really have much need too. I have been thinking of keeping one again, I did enjoy it before, it's just a commitment I haven't really stepped up to in a while.If you want me to, sure why not.
DeleteYou can find all my old stuff here https://14511student.wordpress.com , lots of Disney, few video game stuff, i wasn't a fantastic writer back then, to be honest I'm not the best writer now, still blab on a little too much but if you're up for a long read, I'd recommend my Child of Light: Textual Analysis ( https://14511student.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/child-of-light-textual-analysis/ ), probably the piece I'm proudest of, and the only one there which I wrote of my own accord, rather than homework.
-CheesusAlmighty
I'm definitely going to check out your writings! Please only do the blog if you truly want to, b/c the point of it is to have fun. I'm looking forward to reading your Child of Light analysis.
Delete-Alice
It's cool, I just needed a little kick up the butt to get it started. It wasn't so much the blog itself that I dreaded, more setting up my website for it. I have a domain I used for a kind of job's portfolio, I've been wanting to renovate it and do more with it, but HTML's bitch so I'd be using something like Blogger or Wordpress and just keep the DNS.
ReplyDelete-CheesusAlmighty
I very much enjoyed your Child of Light analysis--impressed with how you're able to describe music so well! I replied on your Wordpress account and followed. I'm also impressed with how you were able to get so much information from just one Brave promotional poster--I'll comment on that too!
DeleteI've replied, I should mention though that I won't be using that blog anymore, it's under a college email, college URL, and I have my own website I'm renovating for this, I'll let you know when it's up.
Delete-CheesusAlmighty
LOL, I didn't notice this comment, until I replied to your reply (sorry about my going around in circles). So you definitely shouldn't reply to my replie, otherwise we will go around in circles.
DeleteYes, I'll definitely subscribe to your website, and I hope you'll add some of your pieces from your student blog.
Website's up, nothing much on there right now except my online portfolio and about me, I also stuck my Child of Light analysis up as a kind of test post. Website is http://www.cheesusproductions.com I've just built it this time through blogger, I ain't going through the hassle of coding a worthwhile blogging addon when there's perfectly good one's avaliable for free.
Delete-CheesusAlmighty
Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check out your website!
Delete