• pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    A thought on the upper half of the meme: those “fans” sound like creeps with a fetish.

    Streaming is just acting for a digital audience. If someone is going to be so upset over the identity of the streamer outside of their streaming persona, they are unhealthily invested in that person’s life.

    Edit: I’m not surprised about the downvotes, but I am disappointed. This isn’t very different than followers on Twitch getting pissy when they find out their favorite gamer girl streamer actually has a boyfriend, and I’m sure most of you would agree that those people are creepy, obsessive, and fetishising women gamers.

    • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      I mean… I can see it both ways.

      When people engage with content, they have expectations going in - they expect to know if the content is fictional, truthful, or intentionally ambiguous.

      For example, if someone watches a documentary and finds out it was all made up, they’d be right to be upset, because it presents itself as honest.
      Likewise if someone watches a fantasy movie, they don’t have the expectation of honesty.
      And if someone watches something like the Blair witch project, they go in knowing that it’s dubiously truthful. It’s a bit of a grey area because the deceit is part of the art.

      Streaming is similar, vtubers are obviously fictional - nobody really has expectations around what they’re really like.
      But if someone builds a following around being authentically themselves, and then it’s discovered that they’re lying about significant parts of their content, I can understand some degree of outrage.

      I don’t really watch streamers because the dynamic between streamers and viewers seems toxic AF, where streamers are kinda forced to pander and appear personable… But I still understand being upset when you find out what you got isn’t what you were sold