Twitch: No Fun Allowed (Patreon)

Oops, I did it again. I had too much fun. Deplatformed and banned. Sorry everybody, i was looking forward to doing some cool twitch streams this summer, but i have this nasty little habit of doing absolutely nothing wrong that always gets me in trouble. 

The other night i did a long, very laid back marathon gaming stream, i guess because i was just feeling friendly. I thought the stream went great, lots of laughs, great interaction from the chat, great video games, good times. So imagine my surprise when i awoke the following afternoon to a notice from Twitch informing me that, contrary to my recollection of events, i had in fact unleashed a torrent of the dreaded "hate speech", and was to be removed from the platform immediately for the safety of all law abiding citizens and people of upstanding moral character. 

This hate speech was apparently as damaging to society as it was vaguely defined. Nowhere was it stated exactly what i had said, or where i had said it in this 5 hour stream, that sent the fun-alarms into meltdown. Nor was it made clear in what way, if any, i could state my case and appeal for a reversal of this decision. The avenues suggested were nowhere to be found within the labyrinthine corridors of policy pages, in fact the only thing that was made clear was that if it wasn't submitted properly by the exact specific method described (which again, did not exist) then it would be thrown out without the slightest consideration. 

Knowing full well that it wouldn't matter anyway, i nevertheless diligently fired off the obligatory appeal from the first "contact us" link i was able to find. Whether it's the right one doesn't really matter because i know they wouldn't give a crap even if it was. It's just part of the process. You get banned for no reason, you send the email, you don't expect it to make a difference because you've lived in this world long enough to know better. Here's the pointless appeal i sent, with extra salt since it doesn't matter either way. 

"I wake up this morning to find my account suspended for... something. It seems deliberately unclear, and the method of appealing it deliberately obtuse. I'm going to guess it was decided somehow that i "violated" the "community guidelines" with terrible, scary "hate speech", but there's just one problem. I didn't. You're wrong. I have no illusions that sending this message will accomplish anything, i'm sure no one reading this cares, if it's even going to be read at all. But i did NOT use "hate speech", and i don't appreciate being accused of such by a faulty system. I did not attack anyone. I did not hurt anyone's feelings. I didn't say anything even remotely offensive. I did absolutely nothing wrong, But i guess you can just decide that i did and destroy my account whenever you feel like it. This goes beyond a freedom of speech violation, it's 100 percent in error. A completely unfair result of a presumably automated system that takes reports at their word and doesn't check or even use the smallest bit of common sense or understanding of context before slapping users with a permanent ban, attacking their livelihood in the process, for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. This ban is a joke, and so is this site"

Obviously this isn't the tone one would strike if they actually had any hope of an appeal being taken seriously, but come on, it's 2019, if you still have faith in these things you're dumber than a sock full of rabbit turds. You don't write these appeals under the delusion of making a difference, you write them to blow off steam in the hope that somewhere, some stupid motherfucker will have to read it and know that you hate them. 

It didn't take long for people to notice my twitch page was gone, one person made a thread on reddit asking what happened, to which i replied. For the sake of completeness i'll include my reply here as well. 

[–]Endless_Jess 

I did a late night stream just having fun playing Castlevania and interacting with the chat, and then woke up the next day to being accused of “hate speech” by twitch, with no clear way to appeal. It's completely bogus. I said nothing even resembling hate speech. It was about as laid back, wholesome, and friendly a stream as you could imagine.

Worse yet, the message I received informing me that my account is gone doesn’t even tell me what the supposed hate speech was, or where in the video it was said, thereby confirming that it's either some totally automated shit or they don’t even check what gets reported. They don’t know what it was, if anything, that i said, and they don’t care. It doesn’t matter what platform you’re on, twitch, youtube, twitter, the bullshit is always the same.

I know I tend to be pretty un-pc, but this was a 5 hour stream, and it was exceptionally tame throughout, especially by my standards. I’m honestly baffled that of all the streams I've done this is the one that gets my account destroyed. I’m trying to remember what the hell i could have possibly said that did it, and the only thing i can think of that an automated system managed by brainless pc zombies could possibly have taken offense to is a brief bit where i started riffing on the different ways "gay" is used.

It was something along the lines of, "it's okay to be gay but people who don't like video games are gay cause that's gay shit", or "no matter how much dick you suck you'll never suck as much as a guy who sucks"

Just dumb, silly word jokes like that, which took up maybe 2 minutes total of a 5 hour stream. Most likely I let slip a “fag” somewhere and some algorithm just latched on to the word, because in context i can’t imagine an actual human listening to it and taking it seriously, much less considering it “hate speech”.

I think it goes without saying, but i don't go around throwing slurs at people who might actually be hurt by them, the whole point was just to be as linguistically absurd as possible. I wasn't attacking anyone, just goofing off with the chat and improvising some silly gay shit. Nobody who saw the stream would call it in any way hateful.

The irony is that i specifically pointed out numerous times in the bit that it's totally fine to actually be gay. That was the whole premise of the joke. "Gays and queers are allowed in my castle, but not any of you homos who don't love Castlevania."

So basically i was banned for saying it's okay to be gay. I guess Twitch doesn’t agree. The moral of the story is never have fun or joke about anything because even acknowledging that LGBT people exist and that words can be funny is a hate crime. Twitch would have banned Eddie Izzard.

Welcome to 2019. Where everything's made up and context doesn't matter. Where "hate speech" means magical no-no words that are bad no matter what, and not... you know.. speech that is hateful.

Fuck that. Context matters. It will always matter. And I live to destroy this Orwellian Poopy-Place that keeps trying to tell us it doesn’t.

So there you go, that's... the thing. The thing i'm talking about today, Oh shit i suddenly don't feel like typing anymore. Oh god i'm becoming overwhelmed with existential angst. Oh crap I'm deeply unsatisfied and unhappy. Oh no this is all wrong. All of this is so terribly, horrifically wrong. Oh crap oh god oh geez oh no. Oh crap. Excuse me while i step outside and have my daily anxiety attack over the fact that this constant cycle of internet blogging and platform warfare is my actual life with no visible means of escape. 

By the way, here's the Eddie Izzard bit I was referring to. Enjoy this while i ineffectively ponder the hell that is my digital existence.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXBHY7uco0Y 

Okay I'm back, and here's the good news, i have the whole stream backed up for all of you, so you can comb through it for anything even mildly offensive and see for yourselves how cruel and hateful i supposedly am. Or you can watch it like a sane person who just wants to see a rad dude play fun games and talk about cool stuff. Either is fine i guess, we all take our coffee differently. 

I actually listened back to the entire stream myself to try and pinpoint exactly what i said that was so terrible. Yes. I sat here and listened to the entire 5 hour stream over again just to make sure i didn't accidentally say anything legitimately awful. Here's what i found. 

Topics discussed in this stream:

"Boomer Pills"

My old songs

The Dick Show

FF7 Remake

How unbelievably good i am at my terrible job

micoolman's excellent Buttchugger AMV ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcmA9B1K9Do )

The term "influencer"

Why The Binding of Isaac is a perfect game

My favorite powerups in Isaac

Things I hate about Isaac

Why Isaac actually sucks and I hate it

Eating Wendys and shitting blood

The New Eva Dub

The Origin of the "Endlett Je" name

How cool Castlevania is

The difference between anime and "Japanese Animes"

The difference between video games and "Nintendo Games"

The difference between wrestling and "Rasslin"

Why it's cool to get old

So as you can see i touched on many topics, and was all over the place, mostly just from answering questions. It was a long stream and covered a lot of ground, but one thing missing from that list of notable topics is... you guessed it... the mythical "hate speech".

Well after listening to it again i stand by my aforementioned theory that what the mysterious and most likely entirely unmanned, algorithmic powers-that-be deemed to be hate speech was the less than 2 minute bit about people who don't like (and then later people who do like) video games being gay as fuck in a way completely distinct from those who are actually homosexual, whom i make explicitly clear i have no issue with. 

There's no way any but the most pebble-brained of simpletons could possibly interpret this clearly tongue-in-cheek and frankly quite tame attempt at linguistic silliness as legitimately hateful or meant to target anyone. But i did say "faggot" at least once in there. So it probably just got picked up by some moronic system, human or otherwise, with zero understanding of context, despite it being the most obvious and least confusing concept imaginable. 

Nevertheless, I suppose if there's a hard rule against the word "faggot" then I did technically break said rule. But I've scoured the guidelines and in fact no such rule exists. Yes, i'm serious. There is no actual rule on Twitch's community guidelines that says anything about specific words or language. Technically you could upload a stream saying nothing but racial slurs and it wouldn't actually be against the rules. Not that i'm suggesting you try it. 

Here's what it actually says under "Hateful Conduct and Harassment"

Hateful conduct is any content or activity that promotes, encourages, or facilitates discrimination, denigration, objectification, harassment, or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, medical condition, physical characteristics, or veteran status, and is prohibited. Any hateful conduct is considered a zero-tolerance violation and all accounts associated with such conduct will be indefinitely suspended.

Harassment is any content or activity that attempts to intimidate, degrade, abuse, or bully others, or creates a hostile environment for others, and is prohibited. Depending on the severity of the offense, your account may be indefinitely suspended on the first violation.

We prohibit using Twitch to facilitate hateful conduct or harassment, whether the targets are on or off Twitch. Individuals, communities or organizations that do so are not allowed to use our services. We may take action against users for hateful conduct or harassment that occurs off Twitch services that is directed at Twitch users.

All of that seems pretty reasonable, but the problem with this and all such platform's guidelines is the complete lack of common sense moderation. Humor isn't hate speech. It can be, sure. But context matters, and until we live in a sane world that actually understands that and implements people to review cases on an individual basis with that in mind, innocent and innocuous content creators are going to keep getting deplatformed unfairly. 

Taking away someone's livelihood is violence, especially when it's done in one swift, immediate motion with no regards to context and no real way for the accused to defend themselves. It's dehumanizing, and discriminatory, so by their own definition of hateful conduct, Twitch is guilty. 

Aside from that hypocrisy, I'm also baffled at some of the stuff that manages to skirt by these guidelines, when my innocuous jokes seemingly can't. I have seen people on twitch literally bully people, I've seen vicious ridicule and actual calls to harassment from channels that are still up. Hell, it's happened to me. I've been defamed, degraded, harassed, threatened, and mentioned by name in conjunction with all of the above on such videos and streams, both on twitch and youtube. 

None of those assholes ever seem to get the the ban-hammer for the hateful shit they gleefully and routinely take part in, and when they do, it's not even for the actual bullying or harassment, but again for totally random, context-devoid, innocuous shit that has nothing to do with anything legitimately harmful. Which inevitably gives them a chance to whine and complain about how unfair it is, and gain everyone's support, while their actual hateful conduct that should have gotten them banned in the first place continues to be conveniently ignored. 

I've seen this happen time and time again. The system is totally broken. All these companies want to look like they're taking a stand against hateful conduct, but none of them actually want to put in the effort to do it right. So all that happens is that people get away with doing hateful shit, while others get wrongly deplatformed for doing nothing wrong at all, because the rules are totally lacking in nuance and not moderated by anyone with a functioning brain cell. It needs to change, but i have absolutely zero faith that it ever will, except to continue getting worse. Of that i'm sure. 

Here's what I actually said in the stream, these are the full quotes that I found listening back to it. 

“What a good game… I love… video games. Don’t you just love video games? I mean if you don’t love video games than you’re a fucking loser, i mean let’s be honest, only a real asshole... idiot would go around not loving video games. Only a real stupid piece of shit... would have the audacity to set foot… in my country… would have the audacity to set foot in my kingdom… and start talking all that shit about he doesn’t think video games are cool… he doesn’t… love video games… i say to him… what are you a fucking QUEER? What are you GAY? My Kingdom is a little bit backwards when it comes to using LGBT terms as derogatory terms and insults, but ya know aside from that we’re still the best kingdom because we love video games, so how do you like that, so if you don’t think so then you can get the fuck out of my kingdom… faggot. “

So there you go. If you can’t see the humor in that, or comprehend that it’s not to be taken seriously, then I don’t know what to tell you, other than you have a mental disorder. The fact that I’m incoherently babbling about having my own kingdom where people who don’t like video games aren’t allowed in should make it pretty clear that this is not an actual stance that anyone would seriously have. My favorite part of this is that i even go out of my way to acknowledge that using LGBT terms as insults is “backward”, portraying it as a societal flaw of my made up kingdom. That’s literally the fucking joke. 

The next part continues that line of thinking to it’s logical, hilarious conclusion. 

“you look up faggot in the dictionary… written by me, and it says “some asshole who doesn’t love video games” 

This is an easy joke anyone could make, the idea of flat out changing a slur to be about some other innocuous group of people that offends you far more than the slur was originally meant for. 

I’m sure tons of people make that same joke every day, and for good reason, it’s funny! Not to mention a valid philosophical idea in a society mired in the dialogue of what to do about these words. 

Hell, i remember there being an entire South Park episode about changing the word faggot to refer exclusively to loud bikers. Pretty sure you can see plenty of South Park on Twitch. 

“And if you’re not down with that, then i got two words for ya… suck it. And you will, cause you’re gay. But it’s not a gay thing, it’s just a faggot thing. It’s different. But do suck it. Suck it is different. Suck it is not like a gay thing either, suck it is just suck it cause you suck. And you sucking is not a gay thing either, you don’t necessarily even have to be sucking to suck. Some people just suck, ya know? 

"If you’re not down with that, i got two words for ya, suck it” is a reference to Degeneration X, it’s just an old wrestling catchphrase, tacking that on the end there led to me incorporating the word “suck” into the bit and goofing around with it some more. All the while continuing to clarify and make abundantly clear that i am not saying these things to attack actual gay people, because again, that’s the entire crux of the joke. 

“You know some people are so gay that they suck, and some people suck so much that they’re gay….and some people are gay and they do suck but that has nothing to do with the fact that some people suck so much they’re gay and some people are so gay they suck, it’s a totally different thing. “

By now it should be obvious to any listener what I’m doing here. I’m just having fun rambling in circles and creating this silly little linguistic pretzel. It’s a language bit. I’m having fun with the absurdity of the english language, and playing with the contextual differences that arise from how sentences are structured. 

That’s not to say this bit was some perfectly realized master plan that i wrote and prepared beforehand. I was just improvising here, but it’s the kind of humor i’ve always loved and the kind of comedy I naturally gravitate toward when performing. 

It’s something I’ve done my entire career. Something i do all the time. Something that i got from pretty much all of my biggest influences. Carlin, Weird Al, The Angry Video Game Nerd, they all derive humor from the way words are used. Carlin in particular dedicated entire bits to exactly the thing i’m talking about now, the importance of context. 

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUvdXxhLPa8”

“You know, it sounds complicated… if you’re an…. R-TARD. But, you know, if you’re cool, then you’re smart, and you understand, and if you’re a member of my kingdom then you know…. not to be retarded or gay. And if you don’t know not to be retarded or gay then you’re gay and retarded, and that’s just the way it goes… idiot. “

Come on. I can’t even pretend that this isn’t hilarious. Like I’m transcribing it, and looking at it written down, and it’s still hilarious to me. It’s so obviously, patently ridiculous, I’m blown away that anyone could even think of taking any of it seriously. If i had any faith in humanity, it would be getting its ass kicked right now. 

Fuck anyone who pretends to be offended by stuff like this. I’m completely proud of this entire bit. This shit is funny as fuck and I did a wonderful thing rambling it into existence. In fact i’m gonna give myself an extra pat on the back for using the phrase “R-Tard” which in my mind, is possibly the funniest thing ever conceived by Gods or Man. 

At this point the bit subsided for a while, before returning and getting even more hilarious about a half hour later, once i decided i didn’t like the game anymore. 

“I hate this game, it’s a bad game and all the good things that i just got done saying about binding of isaac i take it all back. Every game is bad, every game sucks. “

This is a routine i do often, where i talk about how a game is awesome and then eventually end up completely contradicting myself to talk about how it sucks, usually flip-flopping back and forth numerous times in a single session. It’s just a funny quirk of my gaming videos, this running stream-of-consciousness between appreciation and annoyance. It’s fun. I’m not crazy, i just perform this way, and I only highlight this part because it sets up how the gay bit returned. 

“if you like games then you’re a fucking idiot, if you think that video games are even cool, and like… not terrible, then you’re not even allowed to set foot in my kingdom. You’re too gay, and you’re too lame, and you’re too queer, and you’re too gay, and you suck dick, and you suck, and… you’re full of fuck”

This is pure AVGN. This habit of just repetitively stacking phrases and insults to the point of absurdity, i know exactly where I got it from. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjUz8IT0CYg

“It sucking fucks, It fucking sucks, it fucking blows, it’s a piece of shit… and i don’t like it.”

That line in particular stuck with me so much that i know if you go through my videos you can hear me rattling off my own version of it, probably a hundred different times. 

It’s just hilariously structured. It builds up to that slight pause right at the end before “…and i don’t like it”, which is so much more tame than the rest of it that it becomes the perfect punchline. Sort of like a micro-example of a shaggy dog story. I’ll never not find it funny. 

Anyways, back to my terrible awful no good very bad hate speech. This is the end of it. I wrap it up by going back to the ridiculous idea of having my own kingdom, and the even more blatantly absurd notion that admittance is based on whether or not you like video games, made even more absurd by the fact that it’s now fully reversed to the opposite policy of what it was originally. 

“In my kingdom everybody has to hate video games and you’re not allowed in if you don’t. That’s the law. 

You’re allowed in my kingdom if you’re gay, but if you don’t love video games, then that means you’re gay, so you can’t come in. 

You can’t come into my kingdom if you’re gay from not liking video games, but if you’re gay from just sucking dick then you can come in, but if you suck dick because you don’t love games, well then you’re gay so you can’t come in, that’s the law. You know what I’m saying? I think you get what I’m saying.”

So. Do you? Do you get what I’m saying? How much more clear can i be that i’m taking the piss out of language and not in any way insinuating actual dislike or prejudice against gay people. I literally kept saying it, in the bit, over and over. Upon re-listening to it, it’s actually impressive how careful i was to consistently make that clear. 

Okay, i think i made my point. I did absolutely nothing wrong and this whole thing is R-Tarded. I'm honestly more bummed out about it than I'm probably letting on. After living on the road for most of the year i finally got set up in a place with some decent internet and genuinely thought i was gonna do a bunch of fun twitch streams, but i guess that dream was to be immediately dashed, as tends to be the ultimate destiny of all my dreams.

So with all that said, enjoy my brief return to streaming and immediate expulsion, preserved in all it's hateful glory in The Blue Glow, as all things should be.

Part 1: Crypt of The Necrodancer

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm0_avJdBbA 

Part 2:  Kid Dracula

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4YEb9PDC8 

Part 3: The Binding of Isaac

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvC9Ftd6Q-E 

Part 4: More Isaac

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciiUbSlfCqo 

Part 5: Castlevania 3

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKaf3NdUynw 

This should probably be a video instead of just a text post that no one will ever see, but it's gonna be a busy week of me once again having to travel. Hopefully it'll be the last road trip i have to take for a while, and when i get home i can finally stay put and get some actual work done. I won't have Twitch to distract me, that's for sure.

I have no idea if i'll get my account back. The email notice says it's a "30 day suspension", but i don't trust that for one second. The notice that pops up when I try to log in, as well as the guidelines themselves make it clear it's an "indefinite suspension". So they can't even get their own story straight and I'm completely in the dark, which is exactly what I've come to expect from these Kafka-esque calamities of unchecked policy, mindlessly rigid retardation, and automated algorithm fuckery.

Also my mouse is lagging, and if i can't figure out how to fix it i'm going to chuck my entire computer into the river and focus on being a lumberjack. As always thanks for your continued support. Take care, and enjoy that delicious, succulent content.