A Troll in Cyberspace
You may know these people. Goblins, imps or the more commonly associated term to describe them, trolls.
As streamers and content creators, we are constantly faced by these bullies who hide behind their monitors, keyboards or mobile devices while they attempt to lay waste on us by destroying our moods. It totally can’t be helped when you realize how many of them exist in cyberspace.
It got me thinking about the late professional wrestler Hana Kimura who, at the tender young age of 22 and with a very bright future ahead of her, committed suicide last year after being harassed and bullied online by trolls due to an incident that happened on the controversial reality TV show, Terrace House. I have my own reservations regarding my thoughts on reality TV on a whole, but perhaps that is a non-streaming subject I could possibly discuss about in a future blog.
Trolls exist everywhere on the Internet. Whether it be Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, Facebook, SnapChat and even message boards, there are those who find sheer pleasure in tormenting so many of us who only want to showcase our talents and spread our love and joy for what we enjoy doing while entertaining our viewers.
I have had my fair share of trolls dropping by my streams often due to being a man who streams Just Dance three times every week from 9PM to 1AM GMT+8 on Twitch. I’ve had trolls bombarding me with homophobic slurs (which I find ironic seeing that I identify myself as a heterosexual), trolls telling me to shut the **** up, trolls calling me dumb, trolls calling me a “try-hard”, trolls wanting their own mothers dead so they can inherit their wealth (yes, that happened once on my stream), trolls wanting to see my genitals, trolls who diss my dancing and called me trash and, well, I could go on about this and it won’t end.
As a young boy growing up, I’ve been exposed to toxic masculinity pretty often, especially among my classmates back in school and one thing is for sure, quite a good number of them detest dancing because it’s not seen as a manly thing to do. That also goes for those in online communities I’ve been a part of, particularly those in the combat sports community (though thankfully, I have friends within that community who respect what I do and find joy seeing me having a blast on stream as well).
But as I grew older, I start to get used to trolls bothering me in my streams or any other social media platform, including Twitter where one time, I got called a simp (Oh gosh, this is another topic for a future blog as well.) just because I was defending a fellow streamer and friend of mine who was harassed by a bigger influencer with a juvenile behavior. It has become, dare I say, a normal occurrence for trolls to come in and put us down for their own pleasure not realizing how hurtful their words can be, especially to those who may suffer from conditions such as depression, anxiety and ADHD (like myself) and use streaming as an outlet to channel whatever they go through in a positive manner so they can connect themselves to their communities who appreciate what they do and beyond. However, it shouldn’t be the norm. Less of this should be occurring for our sakes, not more of this.
If you’ve read this far expecting me to come up with an advice, I honestly don’t have a solidly good advice. Everyone has their own way of reacting to and dealing with trolls, such as laughing at their attempts to tell them off, simply shrugging and moving on with their stream or calling them out and making an example out of them. I’m blessed to have a group of mods who take swift action on these individuals by outright banning them (I believe in bans more so than timeouts because you made the choice to troll the streamer without thinking twice) and not allowing them anymore attention to kill the vibes of my stream and chat.
For me, if you’re coming into live streaming or creating any type of content, always have a steely heart knowing that there are people who will go out of their way to tear you down. If you have a community loyal enough to have your back, all the better, but if you are just starting out and on your own, it’s always best to go in with a strong heart and mind. Should you be attacked, take a deep breath and address them however way you deem fit…or you could just outright ban them and not give them the light of day for the attention they crave.
Either way, I wish you the best in your journey as a streamer and content creator. You got this!