Twitch Chat – Hell on Earth
Aabicus thinks that Twitch Chat is somewhat cute. It’s apparently endearing or something. Well he’s wrong. Twitch Chat is probably the most horrible thing I have seen that isn’t violent or gross or whatever. It’s an all-round turn off and a giant sign screaming that we’re all sheep. Especially in major e-sports events.
Seriously it’s fucking retarded. The only thing worse is probably a youtube comment section on a particularly bait-y subject. Either way though, it’s the same set of utter idiots who scream and gurgle and shout and drool. And a ton of shitty emoticons and ‘jokes’. People screaming “hacks!” or “bots!” whenever someone does something cool or fucks up. I can get a cry of “that was awesome!” or something similar, but that’s not what happens, the chat just floods with spam and emoticons and phrases like “lololol”, like a monkey slamming its fingers on a keyboard. And don’t get me started whenever a girl pops up. Why the fuck are you spamming “grill” in the chat? Are you all thirsty little teenagers? It’s pathetic.
Thing is, this isn’t cheering at some sort of sporting event. This isn’t cheering at the LCS or the International. This isn’t cheering at all, it’s people spamming words on their keyboards, alone at home, trying to get themselves heard while thousands of other people try and do the same. There’s no conversation or anything, no discussion on what’s going on. There’s no space for that, no time for it.
In a way, it’s to be expected. People are horrible little beings. And we all like copying each other, even if we’re unaware of it. We think we’re being so unique spamming “pro hs must be hax” in chat when in fact we all saw it and all thought similar things. Maybe you all like that hive-mind idea, but it’s all just so… not human. And all the effort put into making these streams, whether they’re big time events or popular streamers, it all gets dragged down in the foulness of Twitch’s chat and degrades the quality of the stream. Almost like how hooligans ruin football, without the property damage while being much easier to avoid. If you want to watch these events and still have some hope for humanity, you NEED to turn off Twitch Chat or you will suffer.
Even when it’s all over, it’s still horrible. Twitch Chat can often be full of spammers or bots when watching reruns for major events, or even just in general. I was watching the rerun of the Cologne 2016 semi-finals and the chat was full of bots spamming codes for some sort of gambling site or some sort of trading service. Normally bad links get heavily moderated, but spam like that often tends to slip though.
When there’s only a few people in chat, it’s not so bad. But then that’s not Twitch Chat, that’s any other messaging system. Except worse because you can’t see who you’re also talking with and everyone’s kinda distracted by the guy you’re all watching playing. And there might still be some guy spamming the chat with stupid emoticons anyway.
Turn off Twitch Chat. It’s not worth having it there, for that brief sense of superiority. Save your mind.