Twitch streamer bigcocobuns, a partnered channel on the platform, was broadcasting IRL from Ohio, when she broke down in tears following racist abuse from a stranger.
In Real Life (IRL) streaming can be a risky business, as while it makes for entertaining content, it can often attract the wrong kind of attention too. This has been particularly noticeable for female streamers and minorities, who have repeatedly captured scary and racist interactions on stream.
Already in January, streamer JustKeth was chased by a man during a stream, who was later arrested for the incident.
While streaming on January 12, bigcocobuns, known as Coco, a streamer based in Canada, was broadcasting from Ohio, and sharing her traveling experience with viewers. Things took a sour turn, however, after racist comments from a stranger.
Streamer in tears after sudden racist abuse
The exact moment of the interaction was not caught on stream, as technical difficulties interrupted the broadcast, but once she made her return, Coco explained what had happened.
“Did you guys see what just happened?” she asked. “When I was walking down the street, what happened was, this man was asking, ‘are you Chinese? Go f**k yourself!”
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The streamer then became visibly upset, and took a moment to collect herself. “I didn’t even say anything because I don’t want to get beat up or something.”
Although she considered ending the stream, Coco stayed live, explaining that it would feel as though she had “lost” if she ended the broadcast.
Coco also asked her viewers: “is it like, Ohio, or is it just like, America?”
Coco’s experience is one shared with a number of other streamers, many of them Asian, who have been subject to racist abuse while livestreaming. In November, ExtraEmily, who has Chinese heritage, was bizarrely confronted by a customer in McDonald’s, who mocked her for looking “Chinese-Japanese, I don’t know.”
