Photo: Instagram
Taking it back.
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on Jul 31, 2019
Hi, in case you didn't know, being a girl can suuuuck. Yeah, it can be awesome too, for sure, but let's be real: it can be a lot of work being female and not just that, it can also make you feel scared as hell. And with good reason, honestly! Being a woman means you're never truly safe. Or at least, you aren't safe as long as we continue to live in a world where women are seen as objects and treated like second class citizens.
Thankfully there are people out there who are trying to change all that. One of those people is Kacey Caviness, known to the Twitch community as Kaceytron. The popular Twitch streamer has organized a day of "slutstreaming" where she and other Twitch users hope to draw attention to the problems of harassment and violence that female gamers face daily. Here's everything you need to know. Who is Kaceytron?
1. What Is "SlutStream"
I remember the first time I was called a slut. I was 10-years-old and wearing my first bra. My chest exploded overnight and in addition to making me feel self-conscious, my new breasts were painful! So my mom got me a bra, and the next day I went to school, and dude noticed, snapped a shoulder strap and said "nice bra, slut." Even at 10 I knew that being a slut wasn't something good. Nowadays, women are trying to take back the word "slut," making it clear that just because we wear low-cut tops or short skirts that doesn't give anyone the right to rape us, commit violence against us or diminish us in any other way. Now, the women of the online gaming community are getting in on the action with an event they're calling "SlutStream".
2. The Power Of Ideas
There are two women behind operation "SlutStream" and we're going to talk about the first one of those badass ladies first. Please meet Kacey "Kaceytron" Caviness, a Twitcher with more than 500,000 followers. In an interview with Kotaku, she spoke about her plans for SlutStream. The event itself hasn't even taken place yet, and yet people are already ripping it apart starting with the most obvious target. “I’ve had a lot of people ask, ‘Why call it SlutStream? That’s just offensive', the whole idea of calling it ‘SlutStream’ is taking the name back and giving less power to it.” According to Kacey, SlutStream is meant to serve the same sort of function that "slut walks" serve, only this time directing attention to the problem of online harassment.
3. The Twitch culture
Kacey herself is no stranger to the vile elements of sexism and harassment and assault that can happen to female gamers. She started to become an established presence on Twitch back in 2013, largely in party because she is unafraid to flip the paradigm on its head and to call out Twitch's specific culture itself. “People who are upset about female streamers wearing low-cut tops will see [my stream] and say, ‘Oh, yeah, she’s making fun of female streamers acting like sluts for views. The way I see it is, it’s making fun of the people who get upset about that.” Kacey has hit a nerve, and she keeps hitting it, playing up (and ribbing) the notion that women on Twitch are trading solely on their looks to boost their views.
4. Help From A Friend
Thankfully, Kacey won't have to be doing this on her own because she developed the idea along with another prominent Twitcher, Isabella "IzzyBear" O'Hamman, and the two women will be joined by loads of other female Twitchers using the #SlutStreamDay. They're doing so not just to start a conversation about what the word slut means and how we use, abuse, and misuse it to shame, intimidate and belittle women and girls, they're also doing so to raise money. The sluts shall be steaming on the same day as World Day Against Trafficking In Person, and the money raised during the day by the hashtag is going to go to an organization that focuses on raising awareness of sex trafficking.
5. Why It's An Issue
“We want any and all streamers who stand against the constant harassment and slut-shaming of women to stream dressed in ways that make them feel comfortable and raise awareness for a good cause," wrote both women in a statement they shared on Twitter. The problem of slut-shaming isn't one that is exclusive to the internet, as Kacey herself points out: “If you’re a female on this website, you’re going to be slut-shamed by somebody," she said. But the problem of slut-shaming on the internet is perhaps one of the most important places where this battle should be fought because when you slut-shame, you're telling a woman that because she's proud of her body she's an object without value. It's this sort of depersonalization that leads to a mindset that allows sexual trafficking across the globe to thrive.
6. Beating The System
#SlutStreamDay will take place on 8/1 and the women organizing it have already taken precautions to make sure that Twitch doesn't boot them for using the word "slut." In an ironic twist, the women will not be able to use the actual word "slut" in the titles of their streams, but they just plan on leaving a dash in place of the "u". While on the one hand, it's great that Twitch is on the surface level so zero tolerance when it comes to web harassment, it also speaks to the problem of policing on social media. If the people at Twitch were to connect with the women, they would probably sign off on the endeavor. But in this age of connection, it is tragically as ever very difficult to actually connect with anyone.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's an experienced generalist with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, pop culture, and true crime.