“Over the past few months I have been very active on Twitch. I support various streamers as I can: subscriptions, donations, etc… and I really want to help them as much as I can, but I think I may be going too far and I am afraid that it is becoming an addiction. I don’t want to stop supporting them, but does anyone have any advice on how I can limit myself, or should I just delete my PayPal or something and stop?”
It’s a user’s post on Reddit. There are dozens of them like this one, from people asking for advice to stop an alleged “addiction” to donating on Twitch, a practice they have taken too far to realize certain harmful patterns for themselves. Is it a topic that “should” be ignored, a new form of gambling? There are many edges behind this new phenomenon to explore.
Early last year, then-Twitch streamer Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang received an email from a fan who had donated $200 to him a long time ago. “Hey, I donated money to you a year ago. I’m having a hard time right now. Do you think you could pay me back for that donation?” Wang did so without batting an eyelid, only for the fan to reply that he would donate it again “when he has more money.” This ultimately caused Wang to disable donations altogether. He didn’t want that kind of situation to happen again.
Large donations are a sure way to get attention on a Twitch stream, but these gestures may not always make a streamer feel comfortable, even if they’re grateful for it.
He has not been the only streamer to carry out certain limitations towards his communities of fans and followers. Aspiring Vtuber and Twitch giant Imane “Pokimane” Anys announced on Twitter in early November that donations on her channel would now be capped. They can no longer donate more than $5 to Anys, who asks viewers to take that money and give it to other streamers who may need it more than she does.
“Even when sometimes people donate $20 to me, I feel guilty. And when people donate even more, I feel like they have certain expectations, and I feel really bad,” she said on a live broadcast.
worked with @streamlabs to create a donation cap of $5 for my channel!
Thank you for supporting me to the point where I consider anything more than that unnecessary. To anyone that was more generous- please support growing channels, charities, and treat yourselves.❤️😊 pic.twitter.com/QhrusbDFxD
— pokimane (@pokimanelol) November 2, 2020
Streamlabs, the makers of the tool it’s using to limit donations, then explained that this was the first time anyone had asked them for help finding a way to reduce their donation amounts. In general, many of the products that Streamlabs makes, such as personalized tips pages, help encourage people to invest in their streamers.
And of course, at least on social media, some Twitch streamers have expressed an interest in doing the same. Meanwhile, others wonder if this will encourage people to donate more than once.
The debate has reached Spain
The conversation has reached Spain, this time with the help of streamer and content creator Jen Herranz. On her way through The Tolchou programof Elstream, stated that “it is time to open the melon, however briefly, of people who have an addiction to donating pasta to streamers. Jen commented that she has ever had to tell people to stop donating to the channel. “Once I was given 100 euros and I made sure to write to the person to say ‘Hey, do you really have money to pay your bills, save, your leisure, and then to donate this?'”
it was time to open this melon with @jenherranz pic.twitter.com/AM46pb6yJO
— ElStream (@ElStreamES) February 22, 2022
On Twitch and other platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Mixer, streamers earn money from a variety of sources: ads that run before and during streams, subscriptions that give fans perks like special emotes, and access to Discord. Many streamers also offer viewers the option to donate money whenever they want, usually as a show of support, or maybe to help you upgrade your PC, microphone, or whatever.
For smaller streamers, who make up the vast majority of channels on Twitch, donations make perfect sense. Their income isn’t constant, and a few spare bucks can go a long way toward upgrading their setups or helping them cut the cord from their day job and work full time.
The biggest streamers, on the other hand, make a lot of money from subscriptions, deals, and ads. A good offer alone can bring tens or hundreds of thousands of euros to a streamer. A donation is, in the end, a drop in an ocean. It is paradoxical, then, that there is a trend of people with little income who spend the afternoon donating to people who are already millionaires.
What do other Spanish streamers think?
At Xataka we have contacted the Spanish streamer Roc Massaguer, also known as Outconsumer on the Internet, to discuss the issue. He lives this phenomenon in his skin every day and recently disabled the Hype Train on his Twitch channel. For those who do not know, this tool is a bar that is placed in each direct and that is completed as people contribute any type of donation. When it reaches the end, it levels up, thus unlocking new emoticons or other actions that the streamer decides. Sometimes they can be challenges or simply add time to the live show (extensible).
“I don’t think there is an addiction as such, but sometimes I do feel that people are somehow being forced to donate. I mean, the system induces a type of pressure. When four subscribe, it is more likely that there will be a fifth. There is a certain knock-on effect. If I say that we have to reach 200 and we have 197, it is easier for the three that are missing to come. And the Hype Train is a perfect tool for all of this,” explains Outconsumer.
And he adds: “I do not criticize it, nor do I defend it, you have to be transparent, tell the audience where that money goes and what it is for, so they know what is happening. If it is to buy new equipment, to make trips, or what whatever you are going to use it for. I also try not to give an excessive value to subscriptions, I don’t want to set a trap for them, so remove the Hype Train, which interferes a lot with that: with people donating whenever they want and can Not that they do it under pressure.”
Fall in love with the avatar or character
There is another important factor to mention about this phenomenon, which is that of parasocial relationships. Wait, relationships what? Yes, people who believe that by paying or donating they will have more closeness, more interest, or the feeling that they are a friend of the streamer in question. A way of self-believing that the relationship between the two is going to go a little further by having donated and obtained that more “vip” status.
In their activity, the streamer shares a part of their intimacy, which generates a feeling of familiarity and closeness in their followers, and can lead to the desire for a friendship. Due to this closeness, the followers believe they know the personality and that it is someone they can trust and with the skills to help them, which is why they confess their fears and emotions to them. And also your money.
With many more VTubers, the tendency to fall in love with an avatar is increasing. When in reality it is a character that does not exist and is fiction. In the program we mentioned earlier, Jen Herranz said that she “avoids it”, but that other streamers “let it go for the benefits”: “It seems to me that it is a new gambling problem that is not being treated much because it is not convenient for anyone,” she concluded.