It’s not necessarily news to anyone that has visited the Amazon-owned streaming service known as Twitch. Twitch is massively popular with the streaming scene, and hosts all sorts of content; from music to esports, former pros gamers exploring new titles to travel vlogging. Yet there’s one aspect, a shady side of Twitch, that is equally well-known yet rarely discussed.
Women streaming in various stages of undress that tend of emphasize their breasts and other assets while walking a razor-thin line between raw sexualized content and existing in front of a camera. It’s like a dulled version of Chaturbate, where the women simply never get fully undressed; if they do, they get a suspension from the streaming service.
One man from California is now suing Twitch due to them apparently espousing, or at least offering a platform to, the arguably sexually-charged streamers.
Offering a 56-page lawsuit in the complaint where the individual has multiple screenshots and mentions of Alinity, Pokimane, STPeach, and dozens of other popular streamers in various states of undress.
Erik Estavillo has previously gone after other companies in what appears to be a bizarre get-rich-quick scheme: he’s thrown lawsuits at Nintendo, Blizzard, Sony, and even Microsoft in the past which have all been thrown out of court. It appears now he has his sights set on Twitch in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, on top of the requested $25 million, asks that all streamers listed by the plaintiff immediately receive a permanent ban from the platform.
Interestingly, he is attempting to subpoena both Winona Ryder and Martin Lee Gore (from the band Depeche Mode) to help bolster his case.
It’s relatively easy to dismiss this case; it isn’t the first company that Estavillo has put in his sights as a means to get rich easily, and this case will likely be thrown out as the others one were; quickly and with little interest.
But there is an arguable note of interest lying somewhere within this amusingly charged lawsuit; Twitch has more than a few streamers that aren’t fully dressed and frequently speak of sexually-charged interests. These streamers have been invited to play multiple times in Twitch Rivals tournaments, such as the recent Valorant one, which appears to show solidarity for their streams.
Noe one is necessarily implying that Twitch should be rated E for everyone, but there are very sexually charged streamers out there that, frankly speaking, make the majority of the money due to how attractive they are. Whether or not that has a future within the Twitch platform isn’t likely to be solved by bizarre lawsuits, however, and it strikes a blow against attempting to bring this difficult conversation up in the future.
