A hot tub streamer has reacted to receiving death threats following the use of the VTuber tag during a recent livestream on Twitch.
VTubing has been rapidly growing on Twitch and beyond, with many of the biggest avatar-led channels reaching millions of followers. The community has grown so big that even corporate mascots have tried to capitalize on the trend.
In recognition of the large group of streamers, Twitch announced the VTuber Takeover, which will highlight the community from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2. The event features over 100 VTubers and includes a Creator Camp panel as well as a VTuber-only Fall Guys tournament on Sep. 2.
“We’re featuring VTubers of all shapes, sizes, origins, and species as we celebrate the artform that is VTubing. They’re vibrant, they’re versatile, they’re virtually real. Let’s give it up for all the Vtubers on Twitch,” Twitch wrote.
But not every streamer using the VTuber tag during this virtual extravaganza was using an avatar. One hot tub streamer, Lianna, decided to use the tag in an attempt to grab more viewers during the celebration.
YouTuber Nux Taku took a screenshot of the hot tub stream, which saw Lianna sitting on a banana with a skimpy bathing suit, and accused her of “hijacking” the VTuber tag that was meant to promote VTubers specifically.
“I’m a VTuber now. Thankfully it only takes a tag and an alert to ‘steal’ their views,” Lianna responded on Twitter.
When combined with the amount of hate female streamers get on Twitch, the tag abuser was unsurprisingly flooded with hate. A lot of people in the VTuber community even sent Lianna violent threats. As the harassment continued, Nux begged her Twitter followers to stop attacking Lianna.
“People are sending a lot of hate and death threats towards the streamer in my tweet. This is unacceptable and I’m mortified that something like that would sprout from something I’ve said/done. This was meant as a critique towards Twitch not the streamer. Lianna, I’m so sorry,” Nux tweeted.
After Nux warned her followers to leave Lianna alone, the streamer responded with her own opinion on the situation.
“Thank you for your apology. It felt like a direct attack on me, a smaller streamer, and the type of content I make as no one else using the tag received any of the hate I did. But I am the easier target obviously. Sorry this got so out of hand,” Lianna said.
While Nux clearly didn’t want anyone to harass Lianna, members of the VTuber community still responded to Lianna’s tweet with disdain. They accused her of doing something “shitty” and pointed out that she isn’t a “smaller” streamer since she has 200,000 followers on Twitch.
Many expressed that Lianna deserved the backlash due to her own choices. There has been a lack of sympathy for Lianna due to her snarky tweet and toxic behavior during her VTuber-tagged stream.
