A Twitch hot tub streamer has received death threats after making use of the VTuber tag in an attempt to get even more followers.
VTubing has become an extremely effective Twitch “meta” with streamers using digitalized avatars of themselves on broadcasts, captivating much of the streaming world.
To celebrate their rise, Twitch decided to host an event called VTuber Takeover, but some streamers, notably Little Lianna, opted to use the VTuber tag on their streams.
This didn’t sit well with the VTuber community, resulting in YouTuber Nux Taku calling out the VTuber tag abuse, only for their followers to take things one step too far and begin sending Lianna threats of violence.
Twitch decided to make an event to promote vtubers, so not only does the vtuber tag get hijacked but WHY IS THIS EVEN ON THE PLATFORM IDKJAGSJSHSKS pic.twitter.com/S42k1B6Txa
— Nux (@Nux_Taku) August 29, 2022
Hot tub streamer strikes back at threats over VTuber Twitch tag
In a post on Twitter, Nux uploaded a photo of Lianna’s hot tub stream where she was riding on an inflatable banana and questioned why that content was allowed on Twitch to begin with.
The post spread like wildfire, amassing over 4,500 retweets, and even caught the attention of the hot tub streamer herself who fired right back at the VTubers upset with her for using their tag.
“I’m a VTuber now,” she sarcastically commented. “Thankfully it only takes a tag and an alert to ‘steal’ their viewers.”
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thankfully it only takes a tag and and alert to "steal" their viewers
— littlelianna (@itslittlelianna) August 30, 2022
Ultimately, the death threats proved to be too much for Nux who called out their own supporters for their actions, apologizing to Lianna in the process.
“This is unacceptable and I’m mortified that something like that would sprout from something I’ve said,” the VTuber explained. “This was meant as a critique towards Twitch, not the streamer. Lianna, I’m so sorry.”
For her part, Lianna accepted the apology, but not without one last swipe, saying it felt like a “direct attack” on her for the type of content she creates.
Thank you for your apology, it felt like a direct attack on me a smaller streamer and the type of content I make as no one else using the tag received any of the hate I did. But I am the easier target obviously. Sorry this got so out of hand 💕
— littlelianna (@itslittlelianna) August 30, 2022
“No one else using the tag received any of the hate I did. But I am the easier target obviously. Sorry, this got so out of hand,” she added with a lovely heart emoji for good measure.
Luckily, the incident seems to have been resolved, but the issue with non-VTubers being able to use the VTuber tag on Twitch remains despite the platform saying it plans to tackle the tag brouhaha later in 2022.