UC Irvine

Misogyny and meritocracy in video game live streaming culture are powerful forces that shape the experience of streamers according to social norms and stereotypes regarding authenticity and gender. In streaming culture, feminine gender performances and authentic performance as a streamer are considered by many streamers to be mutually exclusive. Using the framework of double binds as patterns of competing expectations, I explore how popular notions of authenticity and the figure of an authentic player in video games culture interact with stereotypes about women in the context of the live streaming ecosystem. Using qualitative methods of discourse analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews, I present an account of how marginalized streamers experience and deal with labor, harassment, authentic expression, and the social failure that comes with being deemed inauthentic. The central double bind revealed in this work is between gender and gamer identity. In this double bind, stereotypes about the skills and motivations of women place women further at odds with the streamer subject position when they are forced to choose between skillful play or emotional engagement. I argue that these double binds restricting women in streaming, while powerful, are paradoxical because streaming is a creative cultural industry fundamentally based in gendered labor. Harassing women and situating them as failures are therefore actions meant to disavow the many gendered aspects of live streaming labor. Discussing these issues with 17 femme non-binary, genderfluid, and women streamers, I found that many have struggled with issues of gender and authenticity in streaming. This manifested through their decisions to stream with the camera on or off, to practice a game before streaming it, and conversational topics they have to avoid in chat. Despite these experiences, they persist in engaging in the work of streaming for the sake of their communities, for reasons of personal fulfillment, and to politically assert their presence on the platform. However, this persistence continues to expose them to abuse and objectification. What I contribute with this research is an understanding of how women in live streaming perform for or despite the sociotechnical affordances of live streaming that enact a meritocratic hierarchy, enforce notions of commercialized authenticity, and police and politicize gender performance. This account demonstrates a further need for an understanding of how streamers are marginalized and who benefits from this marginalization.