On September 1, 2021, content creators on Twitch are coming together to send a message to the Amazon-owned streaming platform. Harassment has evolved into a never-ending stream of “hate raids” (large-scale invasions of a streamer’s channel with hate speech and harassment) for people of color and those in the LGBTQIA+ community. Twitch has failed to act in any meaningful way, leaving its community of creators vulnerable to malicious actors whose purpose is to terrorize and drive underrepresented communities from the platform.
In response to this, content creator RekItRaven started the #TwitchDoBetter hashtag, which caught on and evolved into today’s blackout, #ADayOffTwitch. We spoke with Raven in an interview and are publishing this transcript today to commemorate the boycott.
Michael Futter: Raven, thank you so, so much for being with us today.
Raven: Of course.
Amanda Farough: We know it’s been an absolute whirlwind for you. You’ve been featured pretty much everywhere online-
Raven: Yes. [laughs]
Amanda: -talking about #TwitchDoBetter, #SubOffTwitch. We’ll get into the meat of it, but we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to have a real conversation with you about how all of this started and how we got to where we are because hate raids are not new on Twitch.
Raven: No, they’re not.
Amanda: But they have gotten a lot worse.
Raven: Infinitely worse.
Amanda: Walk us through, from your perspective, what was the nexus of this? What was the real core event that started making everything tumble?
Raven: Again, like y’all have said, hate raids aren’t new. It’s something that I’ve dealt with since I started on Twitch in 2015. Late 2015, early 2016, I get it confused. It’s been a long time, and I’m old.
Amanda: The aging gays.
Raven: Yes, the aging gays.
[laughter]
Raven: Perfect. It has gotten a lot worse in the last couple of years, even more so in the last couple of months. Earlier this year, we saw people being targeted by follow-botting. While that was alarming, it was what it was. People were just inflating your numbers, and you could take care of it, and that was fine.
Michael: Can we just stop for one second?
Raven: Sure.
Michael: For our listeners, who are not up on the streaming community and who may not understand, they might think, “Oh, if someone comes in and gives me a lot of follows, that’s good for me because it looks like I have all of these follows.” Why is that a bad thing?
Raven: Because there are people out there who literally will buy follows. If bot accounts are found on your channel in excess, there’s a good chance that Twitch can take action against you and your channel and ban you, thus eradicating the work that you’ve done to get to the point where you are.
Michael: While it’s something on the surface that might seem like, “Oh, I have all of these follows,” it’s actually a malicious act intended to destroy someone’s opportunities.
Raven: Yes, absolutely.
Amanda: And destroy their push for partnership.
Raven: Absolutely. Trolling has been on the platform since it started.
Amanda: Since Justin.tv.
Raven: Yes, back in the day.
Amanda: We want to go all the way back.
Raven: Aging gays.
Amanda: Aging gays, right here.
Raven: [laughs] I love that that’s going to be the motto, the mantra for today.
Amanda: That’s how– [crosstalk]
Raven: I get the N-word hurled at me. I get the fact that I’m gay hurled at me. I get the fact that I’m femme-presenting hurled at me, that I’m thicker, or fat, as people call it. I get that thrown at me. After a while, it just doesn’t matter, because you hear it so frequently that it no longer really resonates as something that is malicious. You really do build up a tolerance to being despised by somebody for something outside of your control. Recently, it’s begun to get very much more pointed for me, in particular. The event that really started it off was that I was hate-raided. People basically coded a bunch of bots to come into my channel and ask something along the lines of like, “Hey, is a Black goth a gigger?”
Amanda: The physical way that I just recoiled from that. That’s horrifying.
Raven: Yes. At first, I was like, “You know what? I’ll give you that. That shit was creative. I haven’t heard it before. [claps] Here are your kudos.” Then, after it, I was like, “Wow, that was really fucking pointed.”
Michael: Yes, someone worked really hard to target that at you.
Raven: Yes, because it wasn’t just a “You’re Black” thing. Somebody literally sought me out, because there’s not many alternative, Black, femme-presenting people on the platform, to say that. That was like, “Okay.” I clipped that and I threw that clip onto Twitter. I was like, “This is not okay.” That took off a little bit, obviously, because people really do enjoy seeing a lot of the negative shit. It is what it is. I put it out there because I wanted it to get out there. I’m like, “Protect yourselves. This is happening.”
Amanda: It was your PSA moment.
Raven: Yes, like, “Be aware.” Then, after they came in and flooded my chat with a bunch of the hateful rhetoric, I got follow-botted. I was like, “Oh, okay.” Then, that was the one-off instance. We got through the rest of the stream. Whatever. The next Friday that I streamed, same thing happened.
Michael: Just for context, we’re talking effectively two, three weeks ago, right? This is all happening–
Raven: Yes.
Michael: Because I think it’s important that we point out how fast–
Amanda: This time frame is condensed.
Michael: Yes, how fast this has spun up and gotten out of Twitch’s control.
Amanda: Let’s be clear and let’s call a spade a spade. This has never been something that Twitch has controlled.
Michael: Right. What I mean by that is it was something they ignored for a long time. Now, where they are in a position where they have to deal with it, it is so far out of their control, that I don’t think they know what’s going on.
Raven: I don’t think they do either. This is a plague at this point because it literally was essentially– I know this is not a great analogy. Don’t cancel me. It’s almost like having a barbecue in California in the middle of a drought and then setting half the state ablaze.
Amanda: Yes, I definitely don’t know anything about that, being from British Columbia, which is currently on fire.
Raven: Right, but that’s what this equates to. There was a small ember that very easily could have been managed, but now we have this blaze. It’s hard because the second time that I got hit, that was when it was more generic. That’s when it was a message about the channel being taken over by the KKK. Then they put somebody else’s name attached to it who was an innocent party. That person is Simooligan.
Amanda: Oh, right.
Raven: Yes. Simooligan has been targeted by this particular group. They have access to more information on him than they have on me because, as soon as this started happening, I really started locking everything down. It’s no longer just on Twitch. They’re infiltrating Discords. They are finding out information on people. They are finding phone numbers on people.
Amanda: They’re full-on doxxing people.
Raven: Yes. I had to call the police two days ago because they found out my first and last name. I had to preemptively call my local police department to hopefully prevent myself from being swatted. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a Black person.
Amanda: Yes. Being swatted would potentially be deadly because of the way that this has happened in the past. This would not be the first instance of this. Protecting yourself and protecting your family– Because you have children.
Raven: Yes.
Michael: This is not just intent to harass. This is intent to do bodily harm and perhaps commit manslaughter or murder by proxy.
Raven: Yes. Sorry. If it was just me, I’d be fine. I can handle that.
Amanda: I know, but you’re a parent.
Raven: Yes. I don’t want my children to have to deal with any of that.
Amanda: Let’s pull this back just a little bit to give a little additional framing, and let Raven take a sip of water and be okay for a little bit.
Raven: My covfefe.
Amanda: Your covfefe. It’s okay.
Michael: Your bean juice.
Amanda: Your hot bean water.
Raven: Listen, that sounds like an innuendo, and I’m here for it.
Amanda: [laughs] Because we’re all good beans here.
Michael: I’m the Fall Guy.
Amanda: Yes, that’s okay. When Mike and I have talked about this, because we’ve both been harassed and we got doxed a couple of years ago in something that should not have happened but with everything that happened with the ESA and with E3, which was egregious enough, but we’ve often said to each other and to our partners that if it were just even the four of us, we’d be fine.
We wouldn’t worry so much, but we got four kids and no one that did– people that don’t work online or not extremely online don’t necessarily understand that, they don’t understand that internet words can equate to meatspace action and that there’s more at stake here than just, oh, you’re being harassed on Twitch. Get over it. This is not that.
Raven: Yes, it’s not.
Amanda: This is protracted. These attacks, they’re not just things that you can sweep under the carpet because they don’t matter. They do matter because they are happening everywhere now. I cannot scroll through Twitter anymore without seeing especially Black and queer creators being targeted en masse. This isn’t something that’s just hitting you obviously. It’s never been something that’s just hit you, but it has really spun out of control. Let’s talk about Twitch Do Better and Sub Off Twitch.
Raven: Sure. Going back to the second hate rate that I had clipped, where there were like, “oh yeah, KKK,” trying to whatever. Okay, cool, like you’re big, bad whatever. I clipped that. I posted that, and that took off as well. Day after, somebody by the name of Soloaimbot had posted their chat and it was the same thing. That’s when I was like, “You know what? It’s enough.” I have seen so many people within this last week who experienced this, it’s enough.
That’s when I was like, “And here’s another one.” Why are we paying 50% of our income basically to just get bullied? That’s not okay. That’s when Twitch Do Better was founded and it took off. Yes, I wanted to get it trending. I wanted to get it trending because Twitch needs to figure this out and fix it. Yes, it is our duty to curate our spaces and protect ourselves to our utmost ability but if you as a platform have a responsibility to those, you are contracting to do work on your platform.
Amanda: That’s an excellent point.
Michael: It is. There’s a couple of things that go along with that. One is curating your space requires tools that function, not just the appearance of tools, but tools that actually function. The other thing is that it requires moderation. It requires aggressive moderation, and not just from volunteers or even paid moderators in channels, it requires moderation at the platform level. The third thing that it absolutely requires is that you make sure that those tools, those things that people can turn off, are optional.
For instance, let’s talk about rates. You can optionally turn off rates if you don’t want them. A mutual friend of ours is working towards partners and I’m turning off rates because I want all of my traffic to be organic, and that is a good reason to turn off rates, but if your response is, “Well, just turn off rates if you’re being harassed,” what you’re saying is I don’t get to avail myself of the full features of the platform. I don’t get to engage in my broader community so my friends who are content creators can’t share their communities with me, which leads to organic growth. You’re not allowing somebody to fully avail themselves of the platform, you are forcing them to wall off their content creation and it stunts their growth.
Amanda: Yes, absolutely, because the organic growth is such an important part of growing your community of growing your platform, your brand, and being able to splinter off your content onto other platforms as well. Your Twitch followers will follow you on Twitter. They’ll follow you on Insta, on TikTok, on Snap. I don’t know if anybody actually uses Snapchat anymore. What do I know?
Raven: I’m an aging gay. Who knows? I don’t know anything. The TikToks. Yes, and to add to that point, rating is almost like a business handshake.
Amanda: It is.
Michael: That’s a fantastic way to put it.
Raven: It’s almost like a business handshake. Like I see you, I’m checking you out. I’m trusting you enough in your space to take care of the people that I care for in mine.
Amanda: Exactly.
Raven: That’s what rating is. It’s not just a, “Oh let’s do it for clout.” Although some people do that, that’s their choice, whatever it doesn’t work, just so you know but here we are growth but it is a business handshake like, “Hey, I see you, I believe in you. I want to share this with you.”
Amanda: Absolutely–
Raven: You’re going to tell me that I have to turn that off, that’s for-
Amanda: Exactly and it is. Having to wall yourself off so that you’re not open to additional organic growth and yes, if you build up your network large enough where you’re connecting with other content creators and streamers, then you’ll have a bunch of different people that you can go rate, that will come read you on a regular basis, but that’s not the point. The point is that you’re locking yourself down much like you have to lock yourself down on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, everywhere, because these platforms, this isn’t just a problem with Twitch, but this is a larger, broader problem with harassment on the internet.
Raven: Yes. It really is. It really is, and unfortunately it has been allowed to thrive because nothing was done when these things were first happening and now, I’m watching people get doxxed live. I’m watching people dox me in other people’s channels live and it’s wild because again, this has escalated substantially every day, so much so that I’ve had to seek legal counsel.
Amanda: I saw you posting about that on Twitter.
Raven: Yes, and I’m not going to say anything about who I’m working with because I don’t–
Amanda: No, no, it’s fine.
Raven: –but I will say that they are local. They are well-versed in content creation in the Twitch sphere in all of that and there is a really good team looking into who is behind this.
Amanda: Amazing. I’m really glad for that.
Raven: I am thankful for that. That is my safety net and if I didn’t have that, I’d be a mess because again, I am now the forefront of #TwitchDoBetter and I’m the forefront of #SubOffTwitch and the new hashtag that’s trending.
Amanda: Right. Let’s talk a little bit about #SubOffTwitch to lay the foundation for those that are not familiar in the content creation space. When you become a Twitch affiliate, you are able to accept subscriptions to your channel. Amazon, which is the parent company of Twitch effectively takes 50% of those earnings, both through your subscriptions and through your platform currency known as bits. This 50%, that’s an enormous amount and it’s even more, and so to put this in context for our indie developer friends that might be listening to this, that’s more than what you are giving to Steam. That’s more than what you are giving to Microsoft, to Sony, to Nintendo.
It’s still substantial what you’re giving in this revenue sharing, but that’s the way it is. It’s even worse on Twitch and that’s the way it is pretty much universally. I think that even YouTube and Facebook have very, very similar revenue sharing–
Raven: I know Facebook for the moment is actually not doing that. They’re allowing creators to keep 100% if I’m not mistaken for up to two years.
Michael: User acquisition costs.
Amanda: The UA stuff is definitely-
Michael: They’re using that to attract new people to the platform, and this is a moment for them because people are going to start fleeing Twitch.
Amanda: Let’s talk about #SubOffTwitch, and let’s talk about the importance of it, because it is exceptionally important much in the same way that Mike and I have talked about Activision Blizzard and no longer patronizing their company until the workers have said, “We’re safe.”
Raven: Yes, it’s very similar. Initially, this was never about money. The 50/50 cut was never something that I was focusing on and it’s still not my primary focus. My focus was to make a point like, “Hey, y’all are backed by a multibillion-dollar corporation. You are a billion-dollar corporation, and yet I’m still paying you to allow me to not feel safe and others to not feel safe in this space. You have the money because you are paying your top creators, millions of dollars in these contracts but what about us? Because y’all really do be making money off us.” In a capitalistic society, if we’re going to boycott and we are going to protest, we’re going to do it with financials.
Amanda: We have to.
Raven: Yes. #SubOffTwitch was created to say, “Hey, there are other ways you can support me, monetarily, if you so choose.” I personally use Ko-Fi.
Michael: I think it’s supposed to be pronounced coffee.
Raven: Yes, I know. Listen, this has been a debate.
Amanda: Ko-fi, caw fi, who even knows.
Raven: It’s like the dress, is it white and gold or is it black and blue? Who knows? It doesn’t matter because both are right maybe. I don’t know.
Amanda: That’s a deep cut. That’s internet memeing 101.
Raven: Yes. Aging gay. Anyway, the point is to find another platform to allow for subscriptions to you as the content creator and use it. I know Ko-Fi doesn’t take a cut.
Michael: Bean juice the platform does not take it.
Amanda: Bean juice the platform. Hot bean juice the platform.
Raven: Yes. Oh, that sounds musical and I’m here for it.
Michael: It’s also an innuendo.
Raven: Perfect, yes, I love it here. They don’t take a cut. PayPal takes a cut. Fanhouse is another good one because 90% of the money that you make goes directly to you and you get paid out weekly. There are some minor differences. Fanhouse is a, well, Only Fans is now safe for work, but that’s a completely other topic.
Amanda: That’s a completely separate conversation about building platforms on the back of queer content creators and sex workers and ripping everything away. Yes.
Raven: Fucking– ugh.
Amanda: No ethical consumption under capitalism, but also.
Raven: Yes, right.
Michael: Capitalism will consume you.
Raven: Yes, but Fanhouse was the tamer Onlyfans where you can offer different– paid DMs, paid items. If somebody wanted a selfie of you, you could charge them $5, you can also send them content that they have to unlock with tips. Ko-Fi actually has membership tiers.
Amanda: They do, yes.
Raven: They’re also starting to do the itemized list of items that you can basically do a one-off sale on. Both are really good options. That’s why Sub off Twitch is so important, because if we’re going to, because I’m not going to throw hands at people unnecessarily. I know that there’s a lot of people who work at Twitch who are equally as affected by this and I don’t want anybody to be like, “Oh, everybody at Twitch sucks,” because I know that’s not true, but the SOP sucks. That sucks and that needs to change. We’re going to do it as peacefully as possible, but we’re doing it to prove a point.
Amanda: You have to hit them in the wallet.
Michael: It’s true. The founder of Ko-Fi reached out to me and reached out to you with a simple question. “How can we better serve streamers?” Obviously the platform isn’t perfect yet for streaming, but they’ve expressed some sincere interest in hearing content creators and figuring out how they can better serve content creators. Now I have a question for you, though. Has Twitch reached out to you?
Raven: They have.
Michael: Oh really? Oh, good.
Raven: They had sent me a DM basically to say like, “Hey, we’re going to talk to you soon.”
Michael: And?
Raven: That was it. Then I was like, oh, okay. Basically, it was a DM to say, “Hey, we’re DM-ing you to tell you that we’re going to get in touch with you.”
Michael: When did they send you this DM?
Raven: They sent that a couple of days ago. That was late last week.
Amanda: It took them that long?
Raven: Yes.
Michael: On one hand, it’s not like they’ve been holding the ball in terms of this communication for too long, but it took them two, three weeks to realize, hey, maybe we have a problem here and let’s talk to the person who originated this movement?
Raven: It is what it is. That’s a corporation for you. I know even when I worked my corporate job, everything had to trickle down the pipeline and it took weeks to do but then I started having like, people reach out to me, I am in partnership and in talks with a group called Access Now.
Amanda: Oh.
Raven: Yes, and they help with internet equality, harassment, defamation. I have been talking with them pretty consistently about this. The initial DM was like, “Well, you’re the only creator we’re reaching out to you right now,” which seemed a little bit off. I had spoken with them about it and they helped me formulate another message to send, which I did yesterday about, “Haven’t heard anything, would love to be able to talk to you.” I’m going to bring Access Now with me.
Amanda: Awesome.
Raven: That way I am not in that situation by myself. Not that I don’t think I can handle myself–
Amanda: Oh, I’m sure you could but having backup is always good.
Raven: I want extra ears because if I’m doing this, I want it done right.
Michael: It is always a good idea, and whether that’s in the workplace or anything like that, have a third party in the room so that there is no, “he said, she said.”
Amanda: Or “they said, they said.”
Michael: Or “they said, they said.” Yes, I’m really glad you’re doing that. The timing on them reaching out to you is very interesting. You said it was two days ago.
Raven: It was a couple of days ago. I don’t know if it was two for sure but it was–
Michael: Recently enough.
Raven: Yes, it was about a week and a half after everything really started.
Michael: Okay, and since then, just to bring this timeline one step into the future or one step closer to present, there is one more hashtag, one more movement that is going on.
Raven: Yes, that is #ADayOffTwitch.
Michael: That’s #ADayOffTwitch.
Raven: Yes, can you catch it in trending.
Amanda: We’ll be posting all these hashtags and we’ll have sources and links including to the #TwitchDoBetter, change.org petition, which has now I think almost 13,000 names on it.
Raven: Yes, it’s massive because you can see the effect that it has had on so many people and so what we’re doing is we are staging a blackout where we are not streaming or viewing anything on Twitch for a full 24 hours.
Amanda: We need viewers to do the same, not just content creators but viewers have to follow suit as well.
Raven: Exactly, and there is a Discord up. It is very, very, very protected. There are verification processes that you have to go through and then you will be manually added after we vouch for you and that’s just because unfortunately the harassment isn’t just on Twitch. It is everywhere now. They’re getting people’s phone numbers– [crosstalk]
Amanda: Which goes against Twitch’s policies.
Raven: Yes, they’re getting people’s phone numbers and calling them. There’s a couple of partnered streamers. I don’t want to throw anybody’s name out there, but that I had been speaking with where they have basically given me information on what is going on with them so that way I can forward it to my legal team because they’re being harassed through phone calls and voicemails, and people have to understand that this is into the realm of life or limb.
It’s not safe, and I’m not going to say Twitch is 100% responsible. That’s not the case, but they are responsible enough because there are things that could have been done sooner to prevent a lot of this. Hate rates are never going to go away. They’re not, but there are things that you can use to de-incentivize those options to do so, and we haven’t seen that.
Michael: Let me do this. If you had the opportunity to ask Twitch anything, if there are answers that you want from Twitch, what are those questions?
Raven: That’s a good question. Now I have to look at it. Honestly, “Why?” I think that’s the biggest one. “Why is this still happening? Why is it that a company who claims diversity and inclusion—”
Michael: Their gold stars. They get their gold stars during Pride. They get their gold stars during Black History Month. They get their gold stars during Women’s History Month.
Raven: Asian American Pacific Islander Month.
Amanda: I think it’s Latin History Month soon as well. I think that’s next month.
Michael: They get their performative gold stars.
Amanda: Yes, they get their performative allyship.
Raven: Why is it that if you’re claiming to be these things that you are so lackluster on protections for those people? Why is it that when there is a Twitch-based stream that there is still racism running rampant?
Michael: You’re talking about on the front page on the official Twitch handles.
Raven: Yes. Why is it that if you have a marginalized creator on the front page, you are literally leaving it to them-
Amanda: To moderate it.
Raven: -to moderate it?
Michael: They should have a floating moderation team for that.
Amanda: That’s probably one of the things that baffles me the most, because I’ve been on the mod teams for a number of front-page engagements, especially for our queer creator friends, where we’re in there. We’re in there, and we’re the ones that are making sure that the content creator, that the talent, let’s be real, that the talent is protected, then that is Twitch’s responsibility. You can’t stop the bad things from happening in its entirety, but you can, as you said, de-incentivize it because a lot of what they’re looking for is they’re looking for the engagement. They’re looking for the acknowledgment. They’re looking to do harm. They’re looking to hurt people.
Michael: They want to drive you off the platform. They want to get you to stop your stream. They want to make it so that you have to be worried about starting the next stream or maybe cancel your next stream or just leave entirely.
Amanda: Hey, Raven, how’s that going for them?
Raven: For what?
Amanda: Is it working? Are you leaving?
Raven: No.
Amanda: I was trying to lead you into the defiance, into what we know you to be.
Raven: Who? Me?
Amanda: Yes.
Raven: Let me think about it. No. Fuck no. This is an open letter to whoever the fuck is doing this. You have to understand you’re targeting marginalized people, and we have been targeted our whole lives, our skin colors, our gender identities, our sexual preferences. They do not stay on Twitch. They come with us wherever we go. We’ve dealt with this before. You are not saying anything fucking new, so if you think because I know y’all are making me a target, and I know that y’all are making anybody who associates with me a target, good fucking luck.
Amanda: We’re not going anywhere.
Raven: Yes.
Amanda: We’re not going anywhere.
Raven: Good luck. [laughs] I’m sorry. I got real sassy.
Michael: No, no, no. That’s perfect.
Amanda: I’m not going to lie to you, that was the purpose of the question.
Raven: Yes, I love that. I love when y’all just give me an opportunity to just clap back, get a little salty, flip the hair. I love that.
Amanda: That’s what I’m here for. That’s what we aging gays have to do together. We’re going to flip our hair together.
Raven: Yes. [laughs]
Michael: Raven, is there anything else that you want people to know about what’s going on? Obviously, there are a lot of questions about the technical side of things, about people who have turned off raids, who are claiming that they are still receiving raids.
Amanda: Infosec is looking into that quite frankly.
Michael: Yes, this is huge.
Amanda: We have a friend and, quite frankly, a moderator on our channels who works in information security, and he’s trying to figure out how the heck technologically this is happening and what exploits are being used because they’re researching it now.
Raven: Yes, they need to.
Amanda: This is not something that’s small. This is something that is enormous, and it’s widespread, and it’s not just social and cultural, it’s tech as well. One of the things, from my perspective, that I want people to understand is that these are not just words. These are actions, and the lack of protection is appalling, and the lack of protection is everywhere, to be clear. Even when the internet was like the wild, wild west of everything back in the ’90s and in the early aughts, I don’t know. We had netiquette. We would get tossed out of forums if we were assholes. I know because I–
Michael: That hammer was heavy, and it swung hard.
Amanda: It swung hard, but it hasn’t deterred the right people. This is a widespread issue, and this is something that isn’t going away anytime soon, and it doesn’t just affect streamers and content creators. This is affecting businesses as well because streamers are going to be folks that maybe just don’t have the spoons to deal with the harassment are going to leave.
We are going to have a talent drain with some of the most interesting, up-and-coming rising stars on the platform that are working with indie developers, that are working with indie publishers, that are spotlighting interesting creative movements for gaming, that are doing beautiful cosplays for games that are coming up, that are being paid to create. They’re going to leave, and that is going to affect gaming and the industry as a whole because everything ties together. Everything ties together.
Raven: The world is watching. The world is watching, and it’s a good thing. They’ve made me a martyr, and that is what it is. That was never something that I had intended.
Amanda: No, of course not. It’s not who you are.
Raven: That is where I am, and I know that I have a responsibility to myself and to others to keep pushing, but I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m exhausted of having to screencap things to send to my legal team. I’m tired of my DMs being flooded with people asking for help, and that’s not a bad thing. Please keep doing it, but I’m tired of having to be in that situation because we shouldn’t be here.
Amanda: No. This is something that could’ve been headed off many years ago. This all comes down to what corporate culture looks like. We’ve talked about this on this show before. When bro culture, when gamer culture, when toxic gamer culture more specifically is allowed to proliferate where gatekeeping happens and all of the best people are kept out of leadership positions as a result of racism, of misogyny, of prejudice and everything that we’ve seen in this industry. What happens is the problems get worse and they get to a point where they’re now boiling over and that is what we are seeing. An action needs to be taken because like you said, Raven, the world is watching.
Raven: It is. It is because I’ve had media outlets from overseas in my inbox, and I’ve interviewed with them, and this is major. This is major. It’s overwhelming, but it’s also a good thing, and I wouldn’t change anything because this needed to happen. It’s about damn time.