A more prominent streamer was mirroring this guy (or whatever you call it). He was having some hardware issues when I started watching. I participated in the chat. Boy was that a mistake.
I wasn’t an angel or anything, but everything I said was interpreted by the streamer in the worst possible way. While I had opportunities not to escalate it, it didn’t occur to me that my time was very limited to ingratiate myself to this guy. Before I had a chance to do so, he would mute me in the chat and then lampoon me for several minutes with his audience cheering him along.
Then he said that the reason that whole thing happened – unlike my answer, which would be a misunderstanding followed by bad reading of tone in text – was that I was “crying” about not having beta access as he does. I know that he’s not right about that, but it did get me thinking.
I haven’t committed to WoW like I once did for a long time. I thought that maybe Classic would be an enjoyable opportunity to connect with WoW and the people in it like I used to. But the experience I just had with this streamer feels like it could be a warning: do I want to deal with the potential for such toxcicity? Maybe this is a sign that I shouldn’t invest a lot of time in a game where the consequences of getting away from people like this can be a lot more severe (as compared to retail).
Friends that want to play Classic with me have told me that I should be differentiating streamers and WoW players in general. They pointed out, “you made friends so quickly during the BlizzCon demo, though.” One of them went as far as to say, “All those guys have narcissism and god complexes. I have never seen or met a genuine streamer in my life who didn’t turn out to be a complete dickhead.”
Blizzard’s hand chosen champions of the beta are degenerates? who would have thought that the people that streamed illicit private servers for money and trash talk blizzard every day for money wouldnt be nice people??
Which streamer was it? You have to remember that they all take a lot of crap on a daily basis and they are used to dishing it right back, and they don’t have a lot of time to give attention to individuals. But some of them are definitely worse than others.
I don’t want to name names and cause any more drama. But, that’s an encouraging thought, thank you. I’d like to think it had more to do with streaming than with WoW Classic, and that it’s something that could be done by an otherwise totally reasonable and good person.
Meh, that streamer was just a a-hole just like most pseudo-celebrities. Many of them have an interesting mix of inferiority complex (which causes them to get their feelings hurt over little things) mixed in with a massive ego (because they are surrounded by people who constantly tell them that they are awesome). The inferiority complex comes in to play when they compare themselves to real celebrities. The ego due to their fan base.
Most people are not like this. However, you will run into this type of personality everywhere and with every form of entertainment as well as every aspect of the business world. This is normal. The only difference is that there are a-holes out there whom are better hiding it than others.
Not sure who it was, or why they did it. But lets also not forget that, right now, there are thousands of butthurt people who didn’t get beta and blame it on streamers. These guys are getting to play the game and are being ripped apart for it.
That said, there are also definitely just some super sucky streamers. The nice thing about it though is that you can just stop watching them if they suck. There are a couple streamers I like watching, but every once in a while they get so obnoxious I have to just turn them off and wait for them to settle down.
Well, streaming isn’t the WoW Classic community, either. Streaming is simply a part of gaming. There are streamers for every game, and what you see when you watch is more “streamer culture” than the culture of the actual game.
So don’t watch him anymore. I tried watching a few and all of them I’ve seen are vulgar man-children drunk on stardom. Besides, I have no interest in watching people play a game. I’ll just wait until I can play.
I wouldn’t say all streamers are scum but there are quite a lot of them that are nothing more than professional trolls. You encountered one, they stay in business by antagonizing people for the amusement of their viewers.
Holy crap, I just looked at the list of topics in this forum and got learnt. I had no idea that this crazy, bloody war had started between streamers and the wider community over beta invites. My experience makes so much more sense now.
I would like to withdraw all my criticism of the streamer and his audience. I don’t want to be a party to this conflict. I’m sorry.