“E-Girls” Lose Again…According to Twitch’s TOS

Hot tub streams results in loss of ad revenue

Just when you think they’re making bank off of horny and desperate “simps”, Twitch streamers who are known all over the internet as “thots” or “e-girls” are back in the public eye. This time Twitch has silently taken action against them and it’s affecting their income in what could be a life-changing way. According to an article from Kotaku, Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa was the one who discovered this problem. What exactly are hot-tub streams? Well, my friend, simply put – it’s the just chatting stream with the host being in a hot tub in their bathing suit. According to the article, the host of the said stream would do various things that range from just chatting to whatever fun games or activities one does in a hot tub. I didn’t make this up so don’t ask me anything beyond this…to be quite honest I don’t see the appeal but kudos to them on their success! Amouranth had quite a lot to say about these sudden changes and spoke on it. She said this on Twitter

Yesterday I was informed that Twitch has indefinitely suspended advertising on my channel…Twitch didn’t reach out in any way whatsoever. I had to initiate the conversation after noticing, without any prior warning, all the ads revenue had disappeared from my channel analytics. This is an ALARMING precedent and serves as a stark warning that although content may not ostensibly break community guidelines or Terms of service, Twitch has complete discretion to target individual channels & partially or wholly demonetized them for content that is deemed “not advertiser friendly”, something that there is no communicated guideline for. This leaves open-ended the question of where the line is drawn. Many people complain about ToS being “unclear” but at least there’s something to go by. There is no known policy for what results in a streamer being put on this blacklist. With characteristic opacity, The only thing twitch made clear is that it is unclear whether or when my account can be reinstated.

Daylam Tayari posted an entire thread on Twitter saying Twitch was experimenting with a new algorithm called “Brand Safety Score” that would rate how appropriate a content creator is for specific ads. This data would go to the companies and Twitch has a particular formula for doing this. Check out his thread here.

Of course, Twitch responded by saying this:

Hey tayari, we’re exploring ways to make sure ads are appropriately matched to the right communities on Twitch, looking at a number of different factors. Nothing has launched yet, and no personal information was shared.

Amouranth stated in an email to Kotaku (and I’m going to paraphrase here) that she used to make $1,000 a day off of those ads and now it suddenly dropped to $0. She went on to say she’s lucky because she diversified her income, but other content creators may not be so lucky. I have to commend her for doing that because it seems she made that smart money move very early on in her career. This problem always rears its ugly head every now and then – and that problem is a content creator does not have absolute control of their content on any streaming platform. Not only has this happened on Twitch, but it also happened on YouTube. It continues to happen and it’s a lesson that some people have yet to learn, and a prime example would be those content creators that were left in the wind when Mixer shut down not too long ago.

This breed of content creators have ALWAYS caught flack for what they do, and in most cases opened the door for other people even from the porn industry to jump in and get to the bag. They’ve been branded as thots, titty streamers, e-girls, onlyho’s, etc. While I don’t necessarily agree with what they’re doing, I can’t be mad at them. They found a way to take advantage of a male-dominated industry and make a living off of it. They made a living off of sex work that somehow still survives on Twitch, despite their ToS and various changes they made to it. Another reason why I can’t be mad at them is that what they do does not affect my brand, my viewership, or how I conduct my own business. To the creators that use this arguing point – check your analytics over the last year and see if you had a drastic drop-off. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that it hasn’t (especially if you were consistent).

The only thing that bothers me about this breed of “content creator” is that I feel it puts a stigma on the women who are in this industry for the love of it. The joy. They wake up every day and make quality content that’s actually entertaining and fun to watch, and still have this shadow over them, to the ignorant that don’t know what they do. Even if one may find them attractive – it casts a stigma that is a constant uphill battle. Again – I’m not mad at them for taking advantage. Shit…if I were one of them I’d probably do it too! Just like Jay-Z said in his song from his first album Reasonable Doubt, you can’t knock the hustle. If there’s one thing I want you all who are independent contractors, creators, entrepreneurs, to take from this is one thing. In the words of the great GZA from Wu-Tang, “diversify your bonds n—a!”