Is Livestreaming Becoming Too Dangerous

We went from Twitch being predominantly a gaming platform where kids would livestream themselves playing video games in their bedrooms, to an IRL (In Real Life) platform. If you’ve been on Twitch lately and browsed around, you’ve probably noticed that the number one category is now IRL. It used to be League of Legends or whatever video game was popular at the time, but now, every day you log onto Twitch, IRL has the most viewers and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. It’s become so popular that streamers like IShowSpeed have even dedicated entire months to traveling across the U.S. But is IRL streaming becoming too dangerous? With some of the incidents I’ve seen happen to creators, I think we need to start thinking twice about streamers’ safety.

Given that IRL has become such a popular way to stream on Twitch, we’re now starting to see situations where creators are harassed, attacked, and even murdered in public. One that immediately comes to mind is the incident involving Valkyrae, Cinna, and Emiru on the Santa Monica Pier. There was also an incident where JasonTheWeen had a pumpkin thrown at his head while he was streaming on the beach. In a less serious situation, when Speed was streaming in San Francisco, a random fan jumped through his car window and into his moving car.

There’s this phenomenon called stream sniping that started in gaming, where people would try to mess with streamers in whatever game they were playing while they were live. But stream sniping is now becoming a thing in the IRL world, where people do this in real life while streamers are live to try to create a moment. While this is just annoying in gaming, it’s extremely dangerous when you’re streaming out in public and people are trying to chase you down. I anticipate that IRL will continue to grow, so how do we protect against this?

My fear is that it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out, and that kids are going to start putting themselves in more dangerous situations to capture outrageous moments on stream. If you’re a streamer and you don’t have security, you’re opening yourself up to problems like this. In a lot of these situations, the creators didn’t have security around them (and it’s also expensive for a newer streamer starting out), but that’s the price you pay for walking around with a camera, lights, and microphones. I think in a lot of these situations, people see a camera and view it as an opportunity to clip farm.

I think there are things creators can do to protect themselves while streaming. It starts with training your videographers properly, like making sure they don’t show addresses, landmarks, or the GPS while driving. Videographers can also take steps to be more inconspicuous, like using a smaller camera rig. Creators should plan ahead with the route they’re taking between locations and have a plan for what to do if someone tries to snipe the stream. In my experience, creators attract a lot less attention when they film with their phones, which is also something Twitch has been working on.

Livestreaming is evolving from a niche gaming format into a mainstream, real-world experience, but that shift comes with new risks. As more creators move their content into public spaces, fan interactions, safety concerns, and privacy challenges are becoming part of this new reality. IRL streaming is clearly the future of live content, but creators will need to develop smarter precautions and boundaries to protect themselves while still capturing attention on stream.

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