Stream Etiquette Pt 1: Trolling

While some lighhearted trolling just for fun is ok sometimes? Namely if part of a joke you see the streamer doing along with the viewers? You won't make many friends attacking the streamer or his viewers unprovoked and making it apparent that you're attempting said attack with intent to try to harm.

Personally? I've had people call me emo due to my long hair and piercings, come in and randomly say fuck you, call me gay, noob, etc, which in themselves to me are very entry level troll 'insults' of a pathetic nature.

Nonetheless, trolling doesn't affect me and I have thick skin.

But not everyone does.

Many streamers (myself included) pride ourselves on trying to maintain a positive and friendly atmosphere in our channel, so even if you apologize after saying something hurtful? Making a claim that you were 'just kidding' likely won't stop the streamer from banning you. Because in their mind? You were serious and are claiming you were joking just to keep from being reported, banned, or both.

In all, no one with decency is going to take a chance in letting you stay if your 'joking' had to do with fat shaming, racist or homophobic slurs, etc, as well as if you actually threatened someone's life. These are not things to 'joke' about.

Some trolls take what I like to call a 'bash and dash' approach by insulting someone then instantly leaving, namely after tossing a racial slur or telling a streamer to kill themselves (as has happened to me as well as other streamers I know).

This by no means makes you immune to punishment given hate speech and talk of bodily harm towards someone is not just a rule on many streamer's channels, but also rules of the site itself, thus grounds to have your account reported as well as a global ban given.

Just as is making multiple accounts to harass the streamer and dodge account bans is subject to such. That racial slur, death threat, or sexual remark towards a female streamer still sound funny to you?

You may think you're being clever in running before a streamer can respond to you as well as intentionally misspelling the slur (example, spacing between letters to break the 'n' word in half), but remember that you're not above the rules put in place by the very people who run the site you're breaking such rules on, thus you won't be able to run from them and their actions against you will be more severe than any punishment from the streamer you harassed.

Insulting and leaving doesn't delete the message and when reported? Staff knows what you said.

So before you type that derogatory message that may or may not go into hate speech territory? Think first.

Said streamers are responsible for their viewers be it punishment to a viewer who attacked the streamer or other viewers in the chat, or helping their viewers who were attacked in the first place in terms to recovering from it.

Trolling and bullying could be met with more than a timeout or ban. As stated, you could find yourself reported directly.

And for the record given I've had people I've banned leave then come back seconds later, or leave and come back a while later?

Bans don't just wear off like a time out. It's permanent unless the streamer lifts it.

Also, if someone is banned/reported other than you, but you defend the rulebreaker by telling the streamer to lift the ban or to not report them? You may just run the risk of being banned yourself due to the streamer seeing you as someone who quite possibly is affiliated with them, maybe even that very same rulebreaker on an alt account.

All this said? I'm not fully insensitive to trolls given that I understand that while a lot of people do so simply to be cruel? Some do so because they themselves are simply having a rough go at life and for whatever reason be it not knowing how to reach out and talk to someone, wanting others to feel the pain they feel, etc?

They are rude, but genuinely have a good heart.

But just remember that if you fall into the latter category, hurting others won't make your life better.

It may be hard to speak out in search of help if you're used to being hurt, but no one wins in a situation where you take your pain out on people in an attempt to feel better.