karamellkills-blog

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A little about me

I’m on a journey to find out who I really am deep down, I barley scratched the surface. If you don’t already know, I am depressed, this goes deep into my childhood. I don’t know the cause yet. I couldn’t talk about it because it was taboo growing up, so i just had to suffer in silence. I was the type of kid that usually was alone, and I never felt like I had REAL friends for a long time. i finally trusted someone enough in college to tell her I have depression, but they never really took the time to understand me. I get some people don’t know what to do in this situation, so i’m not mad at her, I have no right to be. I’m very forgiving because why waste my time and energy being negative? But the older I get, the more detached I became. I often have an empty look in my eyes because that’s how I feel majority of the time. I’ll talk more about what changed me in due time, but trust me when I say this... it was a very unpleasant change, and I don’t wish what happened to me to happen to anyone else. And if you’re family reading this, I’m alright. I just don’t like talking to y’all because there’s always drama, or telling me what I should do based on your agenda If you REALLY want to help, just listen to me and understand. Again, this is for you guys and myself to understand me more, and maybe the world. Even if I might seem crazy, I’ll take that risk.

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Welcome

So today I decided to continue with my blog. it was previously a blog for assignments and stuff so imma just leave all that stuff so you guys can look at it if you want, or don't I don't really care. But I want to recreate this in order to help people better understand what it means to be human, or understand what it's like to be me, or to just spread positivity it's whatever you want it to be. So if it interests you, you can stay or don't again I don't care it's up to you. However I will warn that this is real and things that happened in my life that I've haven't told many people, so even if you're like a friend or like family, you'll learn a lot about me from this. And please I don't want anybody to feel bad for me, or sorry for me. this isn't that type of thing and I'm not looking for that type of attention... I'm not looking for attention, just to be heard. Again this is for anyone who wants to look through the looking glass into my life. take it as a learning experience. I don't really know what else to say but enjoy. P.s I'm lazy and use talk to text.

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Blog Post 2: The Ancient Foundation

  Ancient Egypt often offers modern civilization a way to map things out. They were one of the first recorded civilizations to have textiles, tattoos, and a form of communication. All 3 of those are still used and inspired by them. Although, the means in which we do things has evolved, the basic structure has not. The way the ancient Egyptians communicated where limited to scribed or court officials. The people who would receive the letters where the king/queen in correspondence of another higher up. Access to anything literature was for royals. Since writing started out as a Mesopotamian invention, their usage was for money and making transactions. The Egyptians adopted this principle and made it into their own thing. This is when hieroglyphics and a building block for the “alphabet” appear. I thought it was interesting that that many years ago, literacy was power, and it still holds true today. I also thought it was interesting the Egyptians got their ideas from the Mesopotamian people, but we usually only learn or look at the Egyptian civilization. “It had no interest in making literacy easier to acquire and thus more widely available (Standage).” Another thing about their society that I did not know is that we still think very much like this. Always wanting to be on top and staying there with little, to no room to become a part of it unless you have the money.

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Blog Post: From radio to the Internet

“In a world where almost anyone can publish his or her views, the alternative, which is to restrict freedom of expression, is surely worse (Stanford).” In this chapter, Stanford compares the usage of the internet communication as a form more closely to Egyptian communications. I believe since that was the first form of early comms. Is why he would say that. But instead of looking that far into history, I would more connecting to more modern technologies. The way civilization operated back then isn’t the same as the modern world today. For example, the Egyptians most likely did not keep accounts on their citizens as we do today. Personal security is super important within our world today. I would more so connect current social media to radio because there’s so many things that could happen that aren’t planned. For example, amature radios would clog the airways, and with modern social media, we can “clog” by slowing down or even stopping wifi, we can shut down websites with a lot of traffic (like what happened to the Canadian citizenship database when Trump was elected), DDos, viruses/malware, etc. Even though communications are the same to an extent, you can’t ignore the technological advances. Eventually the government regulated the radios, and as of late 2017, the government is trying to regulate the internet more. So in conclusion, I would have to compare the current social media practices to the radio just because we cannot look too far back for modern, more complex issues.

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Blog Post: The opposite of social media

The first signs of radio were first seen in 1901 by Guglielmo Marconi to use in America’s cup yacht race. It’s first use was for commercial purposes; however, it was soon adopted by shipping companies and the military. Because the first signs of tele communication were still showing within American culture, people could call in by using Morse code to tell their stories on a broader spectrum. “‘My apparatus has a radius of seventy-five miles’” (Standage 192). Unlike our connections in modern times, the 1900s offered regional coverage compared to national, or worldly telecommunications. The best thing is that anyone could join in on the conversations. “‘…the time has now come when in wireless telegraphy it is either regulation or chaos…’ “(Standage). The problem they faced with having open airways is that anyone could listen into people’s conversations without any type of regulation. Just as we seen through the passing of notes, or coffeehouses, anyone could just add their 2 cents into the conversation. Much like with social media today, anyone can comment about whatever they see, and many people can view it if there isn’t a regulation on comments – that being disabling the comment section. Regarding the news, news could travel a lot faster from region to region. Let’s say there’s a radio station from Littleton, and they need to transmit information to Aurora. They can report to a station in Denver for Aurora to get that information. Because anyone could use the airways, it got flooded with useless information, and the book uses the Titanic as an example of a tragedy that could have been prevented in so many ways. Eventually they had to ban the use of armature radios to keep the airways clear during the war. Many people used the radio to tune into what was happening in the war. Actual radio boxes were soon to be sold in the early 1920s for commercial use, and eventually the bigger telecom businesses took control, such as AT&T. With that being said, eventually we started to buy into the bigger companies and everyone would get the same news from the same person. It also formed how we currently pronounce some words for clarification, “pronunciation of the word garage should rhyme with “marriage” rather than ‘barrage’ (Standage ).” This was a time of new ideas emerging and regulations being put into play. In helped to form our own identity even more as a country in comparison to Britain because we adopted our own views on the world, and that within itself I believe made it another reason why America didn’t want to join WW1, and why America joined so late into it. The news coming out of the war wasn’t our war to fight due to location, and having the bystander effect made Americans at the time not truly understand the full impact of WWI.

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Blog Post 9: 20th Century Fox Presents Racial Perspectives on Social Media

   The ways we view ourselves, and the way we view others can construct the way we think as humans. We’re all different, with different back stories, and that makes us all unique if you believe it or not.

  Booty Call: Sex, Violence, and Images of Black Masculinity by Patricia Hall-Collins gets a glimpse of what not only the black culture, but more specifically, the roles of black males and females. Personally, I have seen both sides of this sad story of how we’re “supposed to be”. “Black men who earn large salaries but who are deferential and appear to uphold American values are acceptable (Hall-Collins 321).” This quote is referencing that black men are looked as better if they embody what “The Man” tells them, and they have a better chance on moving up in the world. But, if they look thuggish, they are less important and “too rough to fix”. Hall-Collins use of the NBA as a way for black men to be “tamed” by a father figure, the coach (usually a white male). African American males are portrayed as “tamed” or “untamed��. Once we label things as “good” or “bad” …we often forget the parts in between. For African Americans, we can see the “tamed” way as being a “sellout”, while we can also see the “untamed” way as being thugs. Mainstream media is a form of mass media, it can cover a wide amount of people, but it often will leave out, or cover issues based on popularity. In Social Media Freaks, Kidd mentions that the BLM movement was only covered as a saying, instead of as a movement. Eventually, they made more movement coverings, but it still was missing the main point of why there’s a BLM movement in the first place. Being black, there’s so many things I have to deal with on a dallies basis. I must think about how others will view me if I dress a certain way, or who will be the next white male to move their white wife closer to them if they see me.

  America allowed integration in the late 1950s, nearly 64 years later, there are still these prejudices embedded within the DNA of America. The NBA and other sports are still predominantly black. Why? Because we’re seen as only being good for “natural talent” instead of being more than just entertainment. No matter what we look like, we’re still viewed as second class citizens to others. And no matter how we look like to each other, we’re always going to be labeled within our own communities as “sellouts” or “thugs”.

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Blog Post: “Extra! Extra!”The rise of Mass Media.

America started to create its own identity after the French Revolution. Europeans were still discussing how they would run the press, while in America, they already figured it out and cold get it from one end to the other within a matter of a few weeks! Because America could rapidly mass produce newspapers, it was cheaper to subscribe to them. And they had papers being made in a lot of different areas. The people could afford these papers because of the steam press could “…based on reducing cover prices and increasing circulation.” The Sun newspaper was a paper for the people. A way that made the communities feel more connected were the types of ads being displayed. Not every region needs the same thing, and many need things other regions had. The business could use these ads to connect the different regions by commerce. Benjamin Day was a smart businessman who was the first to use newsboys to sell in America. The way it worked was the boys had to buy the papers at a wholesale price, and they could only make one cent off each paper. The papers would cost them 67 cents, and depending on how well they sold would determine how much profit the boys made. Which is a lot like commission based jobs. This newspaper was not only easy to obtain, but it was interesting to read. It was one of the very first newspapers to have “…coverage, with an emphasis on anecdotes, morality tales, crime reports, quirky news items, and human-interest stories designed to appeal to ordinary people.” And nobody was really doing relatable things at the time. The Sun has helped shaped America’s identity so well, that in 1835, the Sun was not only evolving, but revolving. Eventually, more newspapers such as, The New York Times, came about because more people could read. This newspaper was more for the blue collared people because it had work related articles within it. Eventually, the reports started to become controversial, and people either like, or hate it.

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Blog Post 8: Reality T.V vs Actuality T.V

Reality T.V can be so amusing to watch because it’s how someone else lives. We can get a glimpse of their lives without being in their lives. Actuality, is a term used to define something that is indeed, real. Reality T.V reminds the viewer that “in our society, you are expected to do x, y, and z”. The hegemony of it is to keep us in our place, which makes people not think there’s ways to break the cycle if we are willing to follow the “norm”. In the article, we see the “rich bitch” being described as someone who’s “Sacrificing motherhood, empathy, and altruism… Always gendered, always classed, and almost always racialized (144 Lee & Moscowitz).” The reality of this is that people DO live like this, but only if they are rich. If the show was an Actuality show, it would be boring because the general population is already living this lifestyle. To the untrained mind, reality shows can be damaging because the viewer will see “this is how I should act” or “this is what is acceptable”. They can pick and choose what/who they want to be like, but usually most reality shows have the “best bitch”. The ‘Rich Bitch’ generates parallels to how the women act nasty to each other, but will try and teach their kids on how to be independent and have self-worth. In 20 years, how will their daughters and sons view their mom’s decisions if they were to watch these shows? Shows like these can be detrimental because many of the people who watch this are bored with their own lives and want to be like that in secret. When I watch the BGC (Bad Girls Club) I felt that I wanted to go out and be a bitch for no reason, or participate in the goings on of the girls. I watched shows like these when I was in my adolescents, so it could do some damage to the untrained mind.

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The French Revolution

The French Revolution wasn’t just a fight for their dislike of king Louis XVI, but his tight grip on the press and businesses. He didn’t allow for multiple businesses of newspapers which lead to monopolies, and in turn, leads to less money being generated from businesses. Kink Louis XVI was a very paranoid king, and wanted to make sure no one was plotting against him. With him sending out people to find writers that spoke bad of him, he would not only be wasting money imprisoning these people, but the workers would have to be paid. On top of that, his love for regal clothing didn’t help. There was a lot of unnecessary speak within France about the King’s mistress, which that was the first time learning about. Poissonnades was the term used to mock the mistress which are insulting rhymes. The people of France, rich or poor, wrote these as “an effort to get Louis to renounce her.” This really caught me off guard because if the French wasn’t allowed to say anything bad about the kind, they would talk about other matters in his personal life. Eventually, he ended up listening to his mistress instead of his minister. But they died anyway, but the power of speech can be harmful to some people. I liked how the French thought that if everyone could speak French, they would know of a revolution coming.

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Blog Post 7: Freaks and Geeks...Gender/Sex roles in games

*logs on to any female streamers on twitch*

The world of games, or being a gamer can be such a shock if you haven’t touched games since elementary days. As Kidd tells us in chapter 6, the gaming scene is evolving- but it’s a slow one. Social Media Freaks speaks on what goes on within the industry’s doors, and just like any other business, women are shot down. “Categorization imposes a false binary on sexes while at the same time ignoring those who do not fit the binary (Carter 1).” Delving more into the gaming industry, there’s a huge debate on why characters can be created to be oversexualized. Mostly female characters, but male characters are still included. They consist of usually fair skin, big breasts, with long hair for females, and males have a lot of muscle (even muscles you didn’t think were possible to see), very masculine, and again having fair skin. Some games let you customize characters, but even then, it’s very rare to see a “normal” character. Usually in these games (MMOs) the males play female characters and create them as huge breasted and small women, or the ones who do play males, they are usually muscular or skinny.

  Carter uses the term socialization as a way we pass on this old way of thinking which sex is in charge, or can do what.  Growing up, I always loved to play video games and my dad liked to always bring me games to play. My mom however, didn’t like me playing games and she still is getting used to the idea of me playing them. In the gamer world, if you are a girl who plays games you WILL get taunted… a lot… no matter the game. There’s a stigma within the community on girls being bad at games or claiming to be gamers, but are being posers. There’s also a thing called a “trap” that is usually a man using a voice changer to sound feminine, but that leads to actual women being called “traps”. In Social Media Freaks, Kidd discuss how GAME_JAM was canceled because of sexist comments from the host such as “Two of the other teams have women on them. Do you think they’re at a disadvantage (Kidd 125)?” From my own experience, women are just as capable as men.

*logs off*

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Blog Post 5: From the Arab world with love...

   The coffeehouse, to the club, to the micro communities of any social media platform, we have always found groups of people to talk to and trade stories or information. Depending on which coffeehouse someone subscribed to would depend on personal interests usually, or if they were eager to soak up information.

   Writing on the Wall continuously makes parallels from these coffeehouses to social media such as these coffeehouses being a place of meeting new people and sharing ideas, which is like Facebook’s mission statement: “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together (Facebook).” On the not so bright side, you also have the traditional thinkers and their beliefs, we call them the old heads nowadays because they believe in the old way. Most of the people still in Britain before the 1700s were either the commoners, or a part of the wealthy monarch. So, for the commoners, this was an outlet that left “social class at the door”.  But people apart of the monarch did not care for the idea much because they believed the coffeehouses were places for people to slack off and talk poorly about the government. Now I’m not suggesting ALL the wealthy people hated the idea, and ALL the commoners loved the idea since there was a mixture of social classes that attended. During the days of the Dandy, most people became laxer about the idea of what a coffeehouse stands for. Writing on the Wall also parallels this to Facebook and how you can add friends. Before, it was weird if you didn’t have a nice and open conversation with a stranger face to face, we now subscribe ourselves to different communities to choose if we do, or don’t want to talk to that person all the way in St. Lucia about marine life.

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So traumatizing!

#Triggered! But are you really?

This is one of the spicy memes that continues to circulate. The word comes from the medical background, it is a term referring to anything that evokes a traumatic event or episode. But how does the medical term equate to a meme? Now I’m not too sure about that one, but when the hashtag is used, it is meant to be negative and make fun of a difference in opinion. The example above is one of Harambe. May 2016 in the Cincinnati Zoo, a young boy fell into a gorilla pit and Harambe grabbed the boy. Harambe was later killed due to the incident. But because he died from a gun, the meme is referring to Harambe being “triggered” by guns. But how can something that is dead become “triggered”? Well this meme is more for the people who like Harambe memes. So, the traumatic event that happened to these people is Harambe and a gun to represent how the gorilla died. Of course, these people are not really in any trauma, but they enjoy how the meme creator used a popular meme to describe the situation.  

However, this is a laxer version of the meme. More people use the term to shut down other people’s opinions. For example, some people believe that there are more than 2 genders and they can believe that; however, some people would make fun of them with 2 gendered jokes and throw in “triggered” just to create a bigger reaction out of the person. Now both are entitled to their own opinions, but the other party dismisses the first parties’ views completely while insulting them. This is a very popular word amongst internet trolls’ due to the fact they will most likely get a reaction from someone. So just remember while you’re scrolling through your internet activities to not feed the trolls!

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Blog Post 4: LGBTQ Report

Do you identify as LGBTQ? Did you recently become a viral hit? Do you have real life concerns that no one really cares about? If you answered yes to these questions, welcome to American consumerism. I am your guide, the American public opinion. Here, we like to exploit any irregularities we see within the LGBTQ realm, especially if you are a minority. Social Media Freaks uses Antoine Dodson as a perfect example on how we view queer theory. Did the American population really care about his sister’s rapist? No, instead we put Dodson’s face everywhere on the web along with parodies of the news footage. Here in American, we often LOVE exploiting other people not in our agenda. Take “Sweet Brown”, she isn’t LGBTQ, but boy did we love her burnt down apartment. But did we really care about it? “Ain’t nobody got time for that”! After her viral news interview, she, like Dodson, used her fifteen to better herself in good ways, but where’s the fun in that?

 Queer theory makes the majority uncomfortable, and we can’t have that. Why let’s face it, if it wasn’t for us big business men, the LGBTQ wouldn’t be as inclusive as it is today. We let them have their shows, their heroes, and anything else so we won’t have to deal with any more backlash. So, what if we just hire people to play as gay actors? No one is getting hurt, and everyone is happy! What…you don’t think this is a 100% depiction of what goes on in the LGBTQ community? Nonsense! The ratings are through the roof! Holy cow, we should have explo- I mean… included them a long time ago! Sorry what was that? The lesbians? One step at a time buddy, we’re just barley getting started with the gays, next thing you know we’ll have feminist lesbians everywhere. Quick! Right that down! Why do we do this you ask? Because the American public wanted change, you can’t say we didn’t give it to them. We just rehashed the same old and added homosexual couples. That’s what they really buy into. And don’t even get me started on the minority community.

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Blog Post 5: Pssst

“Word of mouth” is often used as a marketing term. Considered to be the most effective way to reach customers, it can make, or break your businesses. During the middle ages, more people were writing, and that meant more printing presses were being used. Just like any cool, new thing, there was no regulation and people could do what they wanted. But one thing you did not want to write about was Queen Elizabeth I in a negative light… or any royalty for that matter.

Eventually, the Queen put in regulations I order to try to stop the “rumors”, but people will be people. And when there’s rules to be put in place, someone is always there to break them. As these rules got more and more strict, the craftier people became. People would have meetups to trade publications. Eventually, this became the precursor to newsletters, news, and paparazzi. And the nobles did not want the commoners to have knowledge of what is going on in because they wanted to avoid revolution. Kind of like James XVI was extremely paranoid of people trying to kill him, he made majority of the French people do a bunch of tasks to prevent the people from rising against him. But we all know how that turned out. Writing on the Wall also sheds light of the people’s involvement of the Parliament- by the king having to listen to what the people wanted to try to avoid any type of confrontations. Ultimately, if there was a negative review about the government, the reviewer would suffer more than just a few docked points.

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Blog Post 3:Undressing the fabrications

In a world that is constantly changing now more than ever, boundaries and ideas are being tested. We’re pushing the limits of society. Some might call it “lowering the bar”, others might call it simply “change”. Now change can be good, or bad depending on what the user makes of it. Adapting to change is never easy, but it is something we are all capable of, it’s the willingness that enables us to change.

“If the world doesn't change

                                            then we'll never get dressed”

Bed Peace by Jhene Aiko and Childish Gambino, is an example of how the world would be a better place if we all just stop and listen sometimes, and to find our inner peace.

With the rise of social media, a lot of people from different walks of life join at least one platform every day. They are surely subjected to some sort of negativity directed to them at least once in their usage of social media. So, the question is “why does social media have such a draw for LGBTQ youth when it is also such a dangerous space for them (Kid 75)”? I believe it is a way to make their voice heard. If the world doesn’t know about their struggle, how will we change? And again, not everyone will be ready for the change, but those who are will be up for the challenge.

“depriving sex of its erotic content, reduces it to a gymnastics of orgasm...it hastened the reduction of sex to the genital level and revealed the poverty of an exclusively male sexuality without eros.”

    Warren puts this quote from Melucci in his article to show how some people interpreted being gay. Melucci unapologetically explains the gay experience as just wanting to find the closest thing to fuck; if you can call it fucking. However, that is not the case, it is a lifestyle, so is being straight, and that is okay. Connecting back to the lyrics, if we all just slow down and enjoy what it means to be human, we can all listen and understand each other to create a world in which we can co-exist together.

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Blog Post 1: Freak Yeah!

A bit ironic, but deep down I don’t care about what others think of me. Social media can make us feel like freaks because we made it routine to look at some sort of platform ever so often. “I tap through Pinterest, Tumblr, and blogger… Instagram is next (Kidd 2).” The definition of ‘freak’ is to behave or cause to behave in a wild and irrational way, typically because of the effects of extreme emotion, mental illness, or drugs. So, what is it about our culture that has made this freakish new concept into an everyday reality? I just had to correct ‘tumblr’ to ‘Tumblr’ which is a made-up word that we now know the meaning of. We also can be considered as freaks because we are seeing a different, or new perspective of a life that we may or may not know, that they are willing to share about themselves. An example of this would be people on my Facebook. Facebook is a place where people can wine about whatever if they want to, and it’s weird because they usually would just let it go, or let it eat them up inside, but because of Facebook, it’s just people venting, or being passive aggressive. In other words, we can survey almost anyone’s life.

Being labeled as a freak can be hurtful to some because they are showing a “not normal” part of themselves, but I admire them because they are not scared to be them. I never was a bully, but I hung around one in middle school just to make sure she didn’t bully me, but that only lasted so long. I was called different and weird in middle school because I had just moved back from being overseas. I eventually stopped hanging out with her, and that’s when I realized I would be okay without being in a group, but of course, that made me a target for other people. However, now that I am close to finding my true self, I can happily admit I might be a freak, but I do not care and I am really glad to have a different view on life as a whole!

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GG get rekt. Twitch.tv is the one of the top places to see live streams. I mostly hang out in the gaming section, but they offer many other categories such as: user generated programming, publishers/developers, editorial, events, creative, IRL (in real life), TV programs, and social eating to name a few. The site is mostly known as a game streaming platform, but anyone can stream pretty much anything that goes within twitch’s terms and conditions. Twitch.tv is owned by Amazon, so having an amazon prime account is beneficial to not only the viewer, but to the streamer as well. This is a great example of corporate interlocks because not only do you get benefits from having an Amazon prime account, but they also put ads (they are not stingy with their ads, so I would suggest an adblocker if you don’t want to subscribe to a channel) in the channel, and they happen randomly and without warning.  

Aside from the business perspective on twitch, the gaming community can be extremely toxic, and like Twitter, can have a huge bullying problem. As you watch a stream, you can participate in a live chat if you wish. Since I mentioned the different categories above, they all have different people who act in different ways. The creative side of twitch is a lot more supportive with the way they talk, but I’m not implying that everyone is or isn’t supportive, it is just less toxic! Depending on the streamer’s personal norms and values can influence if the viewer’s relationship with that streamer. For example, people go to Summit1G because they find him funny and respectable, but he is bad at a lot of games. while others go to Imaqtpie because he’s super calm, a bit weird, and extremely talented at League of Legends. There is also a “community” tab to add and search different types of gaming communities and the sky is the limit. People come to these communities because they are interested in connecting with other viewers or streamers that are like them, and it’s really simple to gain access to the site because you don’t really have to have a profile to watch, but you need to have one in order to talk in chat or subscribe.

Because the most popular channels get the most traffic, those channels can get a lot of people to act, or think a certain way. And again, because the gaming community is so terrible, a lot of them are trolls and will do whatever to make someone’s day bad. They wont be afraid to say what is on their mind because they are protected by a box.