Twitch Raids During Black History Month

Black History Month is RIFE with problems on Twitch. With the current "news" abounding of some streamers sending their huge following into the chats of green streamers brand new to the platform, who have maybe three people in their chat, and the harassment being thrown against quite a few vocal, black streamers, imagine the fear that washed over me when my tiny chat became the entertainment of choice from a channel I had never heard of, bringing 11 people.

Thankfully, it was all good and they were really excellent folks who were just coming from another artist's channel. They came in, we talked about other artists and art we've seen, and one even Followed the channel :) But baby, when I tell you my heart stopped and I saw myself closing up the WHOLE channel to go cry if it turned into what I thought it was going to be! I'm still shaking from this. I didn't greet any of those folks right when they came in because I was afraid of what I was going to get in return. And just because it didn't happen this time, doesn't mean it won't at all. There's still a whole month left to go.

Abuse and trauma steal joy. I couldn't get excited about that raid because I had no idea who that channel even was, and if you were watching you could probably see on my face that I was already on the defensive. When it happened, I realized that I had not closed my channel to raids and that I was in for a world of hurt if I went live this month. There are people on that platform really looking to humiliate others because they think it's funny. Twitch is not my full-time job and if it came right down to it, I could pack it all up and say "Nuts to this, I don't need to be on camera to do what I do if this is what I'm going to get." But why is this the thing to think? Because of trauma. Because living through abuse changes you and makes you do things to avoid future abuse, and closes you off to other experiences for fear of abuse.

I know I don't have to tell y'all, but please be good to your queer, black streamers. This month especially. My little channel has been a target in the past, so this is NOT just me worrying about nothing. It's not even about who does and doesn't have mods. This is the stuff that just happens, and I don't think anything Twitch does can stop it from ever happening.

For now, I'm probably going to turn off raids from people I don't follow and who don't follow me. My nerves can't take that again.