The 26-year-old DJane and producer Anika “Sintica” F. is a successful German streamer on Twitch. According to a leak from 2021, she is one of the 3 women on the platform worldwide who earn the most money. She now shows the messages from a person who donated over 1 euro to her during a Twitch stream. Users on Twitter find the messages disgusting.
Who is that?
- Sintica is a pioneer of a trend: DJ artists host streams on Twitch for hours, where they play music and create an atmosphere. Especially during the Corona pandemic, Twitch became an alternative for some DJ artists to perform in clubs.
- The German Twitch scene is dominated by men: Sintica ranks 35th among the most-watched German-speaking channels with 4.7 million watched hours last year, making her the second-largest female streamer in Germany. Three places ahead of her, at position 32, is Antonia “RevedTV” Staab.
- In the Twitch leak of 2021, it was revealed that Sintica was among the top 3 highest-earning women on Twitch: Apparently, she has many enthusiastic and loyal fans who support her with paid subscriptions (“Subs”).
Prime Gaming is an important factor in the Twitch ecosystem:
This is what the streamer is showing now: In a tweet from July 22, Sintica shows a history of chat messages she received:
- A user sent her a total of 8 donations of 1 euro each within an hour.
- Each donation came with a chat message, in which the donor clearly indicates that he is masturbating to the streamer or describes sexual fantasies involving the streamer.
- Apparently, he interprets the actions of the streamer while she is playing music as sexual acts directed at him.
“What is wrong with Twitch?”
How is this being commented on? Many users on Twitter are disgusted by the donor’s behavior:
- “Why the hell do some men always have to be so disgusting? Ugh”
- “What platform is that? Twitch? What is wrong with them …”
- “These people are so disgusting, why do you have to say that to a stranger? I don’t understand it.”
Female streamers feel sexually exploited on Twitch
This is what’s behind it: What Sintica describes is a phenomenon that many Twitch female streamers face. People treat them as sexual objects and communicate that to them:
The streamer Sweet Anita said in April 2021 that she feels sexually exploited because people cut clips from her streams and reduce her to her sexuality in these clips, even though she did nothing suggestive in the actual video. She said, 7 seconds of her butt gets 500,000 views in one day.
The streamer Valkyrae found videos online that showed sexual acts, claiming that she was the one in them. Furthermore, there are entire Twitter accounts dedicated to sharing photos of female streamers that are masturbated to.
Another problem for female streamers is that their most successful clips are not particularly cool moments in games, but everyday actions, such as getting up from a chair or leaning forward, simply because in that moment their butt or breasts seem to be highlighted for a few seconds.
As the comments show, this is a problem that many users see Twitch responsible for addressing.
While Twitch has extensive rules on how streamers should behave in front of the camera to avoid causing offense, there seem to be no rules for viewers that have any consequences.
We at MeinMMO spoke with the streamer Gnu about sexism in gaming:
Sexism in the gaming industry: “I thought that was part of it”
