Popular YouTuber Drew Gooden has had enough of Twitch streamers like InvaderVie, BadBunny and Amanda Cerny “baiting” for subs—so he has dissected why this tactic is disingenuous and “entitled.”
“The quickest way to make people angry is to act as if you’re entitled to their money by merely existing in front of them. Like they should be honored to have the privilege of financially supporting you,” he said.
Over the past several months, numerous clips have gone viral in which Twitch streamers colorfully express disappointment in their audiences for being too stingy and consuming content without subscribing. As Gooden notes, these complaints follow a typical pattern and ultimately reveal an undeserved sense of entitlement.
[ad name=”article1″]
Taking BadBunny, InvaderVie and Amanda Cerny as case studies, Gooden discusses the signs of a silly pattern: the streamers appeal that their communities pay the $5 to subscribe, gain attention granted by viral outrage and, subsequently, increases in views and income through that new awareness.To start, Gooden analyzes the first incident, BadBunny’s rant in January: “I don’t know, what are you doing with your life—where you have hours of time to watch Twitch and not five dollars to provide for the content you’re watching?”
The eventual outcome becomes clear, as Gooden remarks that the fallout “was probably the most attention she ever got.”
[ad name=”article2″]
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
He then moves on to the next incident, the infamous InvaderVie rant: “Being like ‘I’m broke, I can’t afford to sub.’ That doesn’t really track, what you mean to say is I’m so irresponsible with my money, I can’t support the entertainment that I enjoy.’”
This becomes emblematic—as InvaderVie first berates her audience for acting unable to support her monetarily, before hypocritically and condescendingly deflecting in her following apology and comments.
“I wish that I could give you a satisfactory answer so that you could see who I really am—but that’s not what this is about.” Gooden first notes how obtuse InvaderVie’s apology is, before pointing out that her comments about having worked jobs that were not “glamorous streaming work,” betray earlier comments about why her stream deserves support.
[ad name=”article3″]
As he paints the cycle, these streamers can “do a bad thing” like smugly beg for subs, profit from the attention of ensuing outrage, subsequently “play the victim” of said outrage, allowing them to profit once from viewers who now feel bad before, finally, circling back to the “bad thing” step.
And this pattern betrays how viewers actually contribute to streamers even without subscribing, as Gooden reminds how free viewers must sit through channel ads while helping boost social analytics that help a streamer’s ranking metrics.
