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This is something we need to talk about more often about rather than just talking about it on our livestreams—a medium in which we’re talking about as I bring to you a video discussing a situation that needs more visibility when it comes to disruptive chat behavior falling under categories that you never knew were possible from bad chatters on Twitch, YouTube, and other livestreaming platforms.

VShojo VTuber GEEGA recently had a moment from a stream that was highlighted on the VTuber’s clip channel, Daily GEEGA, discussing the effects of bad chatters on livestreams. There is always bound to be one bad actor on livestreams, especially those of VTubers like GEEGA.

Unfortunately, this video hits close to home as our VTuber, Nakaichi, has been a victim of a few bad chatters in the past as our Twitch and YouTube channels continue to grow. In the video, GEEGA touches on some inquiries from her viewers on the topics of different bad chatters under parasociality, reverse anti-fandom, and backseating.

Parasociality

Parasocial behavior is one being so obsessed with a person, usually one who is famous, that their focus is solely on them, often ignoring everyone around them—especially their significant other. This could also be similar to the behavior of a “stan” (stalker fan), or in the K-Pop fandom: a “sasaeng” (사/sa: “private”; 생/saeng: “life”) fan. For example, a fan so obsessed with their favorite idol often violate boundaries as they are known to camp outside the residences of the celebrity, or committing an act worse than just disrespecting their role model’s privacy.

Reverse Anti-Fans

Anti-fans are those who cannot stand the entity that the majority idolizes, and will go out of their way to make the idol and their fans miserable. In the case of a “reverse anti-fan”, these are people who are “fans” of the individual or group, but only on the condition that their community remains small. In hindsight, this could be seen as the broadcaster being pressured to not improve upon or make additional content from what they are known for. Should the community increase in size or the content creator ignore the “wishes” of the so-called “fan”, they will jump ship and repeat the cycle elsewhere.

Backseaters

“Backseating” can also be referred to “armchair quarterbacking”. Or in simpler terms: “someone’s opinion no one asked for”—in which the viewer tells the broadcaster what to do and be on the defensive that it’s “helpful” for the community and for “someone else”. However, it’s likely only helpful to the viewer in question; an attempt from the viewer to be in control when there’s not a lot of opposition from other members of the community—especially in a small streamer’s community—to call out the behavior that can be seen as problematic.

Actual Examples of In-House Bad Chatters

In the case for Nakaichi, they have had issues from bad chatters who have either made strange requests or offered “advice” for their stream that fall under two of the three subjects above:

• Parasociality: a then-frequent “viewer” would come to Nakaichi’s streams to ask them to cosplay a certain virtual anime character (that’s not Nakaichi, sadly) that they were obsessed with… and on an unhealthy level. With this viewer only having been to a few streams, the question was answered with skepticism, stating that it would be considered in the future. Despite the declaration, the viewer kept asking Nakaichi if the cosplay was obtained—along with a proof of purchase.
• Backseating: A viewer in the past was concerned that the game’s viewpoint on the overlay was too small for the screen, and they wanted to see the game “as large as possible”. Personally speaking, there are plenty of overlays on Etsy and Fiverr that accommodate for both the game and VTubers, so their suggestion was not very convincing. They weren’t one of those so-called “GFX artist” bots, unfortunately in this case.

While two of these subjects were experienced in our community, we have yet to witness Reverse Anti-Fan behavior from a bad chatter. Although the explained experiences could have been behind a thinly veiled ploy that may as well count as such behavior. And going back to the viewer’s issue of the game viewpoint overlay, it could be possible that the viewer was not a fan of seeing our dear VTuber. (How dare they!)

We do have rules in place to manage such issues and other toxic chatters, especially having to redefine certain rules based on issues that have occurred in the past that were unpleasant experiences to make it clear that this is not the way to go. There are some unspoken rules, however, that people will take advantage of and assert that it “wasn’t applicable” to them because it’s not an established community rule. But there will always be an unwritten rule anywhere of being a respectable human being; if someone tells you to stop, it’s probably a good idea to stop.

VTubers (and all content creators) Are Real People

We need to remember that us content creators are real people; real people with feelings behind the text, behind the screen, and behind the voice. One or multiple faux pas can and will be remembered for a reason; it’s not a good memory to leave for the next person in an online community who is looking for a place to unwind. If someone reads this and realized that they have offered unsolicited “help” to a VTuber or another content creator in the past, we need to take a step back and consider the feelings of the person getting the help.

Honestly, the best help is when it is requested; many people prefer to figuring things out on their own. It is not very helpful when the person refusing the help, or going about a way that works for them, is criticized, despite claiming the effort that it was on good intentions. Sometimes, even if the “advice” is offered on a permission basis, there is a chance of “oversharing” the information that could leave a bad taste in the mouth of the person who gave permission for the “advice” to be shared, which was the case of our backseating incident.

To conclude the above scenarios Nakaichi had to deal with: the virtual idol-obsessed bad chatter apologized and exited the community after a warning of the violating behavior. As for the “advice” from the backseater: well… I was comfortable with the setup that nothing changed. And considering the person seldom visits the channel, this was a very low priority. Even if I changed it, it would not have made me happy because it was on the basis of a single favor, and not on constructive suggestions from a fanbase who want to see their favorite creator succeed.

Conclusion

In the end, the broadcaster is here to entertain everyone after a particularly rough day, week, month… worse case scenario, maybe the entire year. Everything should not be taken so seriously as to make everyone, including the creator, uncomfortable. If the creator and their community enjoys what’s happening around them, the moment shouldn’t be ruined because of literally one person who needs a reality check.

Check out the video below from the Daily GEEGA channel for more on the topic of bad chatters. What other bad chatter behaviors have you witnessed? Tell us in the comments below!

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