Frankly, I was hoping that page 99 of my dissertation would capture the voices of one or more of my participants. Unfortunately, what I arrived at was the second page of my methods chapter. Although not what I had hoped for, I am fortunate that this particular page included a clear statement of intent.

“I seek to offer an understanding of gendered disparities and disjunctions faced by women in Western streaming contexts [emphasis added]. In this dissertation on the experiences of women live streamers on Twitch, I: conducted discourse analysis on forums that featured discussions of gender, performance, and feminism in live streaming; watched hundreds of hours of live streams on Twitch as a participant observer alongside other viewers; and interviewed 17 women, femme non-binary, and genderfluid streamers about their experiences.”

While this paragraph is pretty dry, it also speaks to what motivated me in this project- to understand why the earnest efforts of women in streaming are discounted and policed through rhetoric (like the stereotype of the “titty streamer”) and harassment campaigns online and to hear firsthand from those involved what the impact has been on their labor.

Using the framework of double binds as patterns of competing expectations, my dissertation explores how popular notions of authenticity in video games culture interact with stereotypes about women in the live streaming ecosystem. Live streaming is a creative cultural industry fundamentally based in gendered forms of labor such as emotional labor, but in the case of video game live streaming this fact is downplayed by a masculine prioritization of skillful game play. The central double bind revealed in this work is between gender and a gamer-streamer identity. Stereotypes about women in games -that they are naturally less technically skillful- only place them further at odds with the streamer subject position when they are forced to choose between skillful play and emotional engagement.

This tension is further complicated by the demands of live streaming culture to commoditize the intimacy and vulnerability of all streamers, because it is even more true for femme and women streamers. They are expected to go even further to provide a positive customer service experience for their viewers, but doing so often means sacrificing skill during gameplay. It can be hard to perform a technical task well and carry on an engaging conversation with dozens of viewers at the same time. (I’m sure by now years of Zoom teaching have taught many of you this.) This places women streamers in a tricky situation where on the one hand if they focus on emotional labor or aesthetics they are accused of playing games badly or for the putatively wrong reasons and thus are being inauthentic. On the other hand, a focus on gameplay might result in their successes being minimized or invalidated with epithets like “girl gamer” or statements like “good for a girl.”

What the methods outline above- particularly the insights of my interviewees- revealed to me is this: Streaming is based in feminine labor, but that labor is evaluated by masculine standards of success.

Amanda L. L. Cullen. 2022. “Playing with the Double Bind: Authenticity, Gender, and Failure in Live Streaming.” University of California, Irvine, PhD.