We need to talk about the relationship between fans and influencers/streamers. A lot of y’all claim that an influencer has no control over their fans and cannot be held responsible for what their fans do. This is inaccurate.

(Granted these are probably the same people who claim that media has no influence on us so I don’t know why I’m bothering but here goes).

Influencers create the culture of a space whether that’s comment sections, social media, discord, twitch etc. They consciously and unconsciously share their values and fans participate because of those shared values or they learn to share them.

So for a clearer example: in a workplace an all white male leadership who are not familiar with the experiences of their marginalized employees, nor are they willing to learn tend to have much higher toxicity and animosity in the workplace.

It’s not a surprise that video game companies whose leadership holds toxic values, and the games themselves perpetuate those values, also seem to have the most toxic fans and community.

This is no different from streamers and influencers. Studies show that if a streamer uses oppressive language, their chat is also likely to use that same oppressive language, they have been given permission that this is a community where racist, sexist, ableist language is ok

In Ninja’s case, as one of the biggest streamers of all time. His constant insistance that he will not stream with women signals his values. He can deny this all he wants but he is signaling to his audience that women are inferior, not good at games, not worthy of his platform.

His audience accepts this, and internalizes this by continuing to participate in a space that perpetuates sexist attitudes. The sexism is pollution that everyone in that community is breathing in.

No, Ninja is not responsible for every single action of every single fan but he *is* responsible for creating an environment that encourages sexist attitudes, especially knowing how prevalent and damaging online harassment is.

He, and anyone with a significant following do not get to simply throw their hands up and say well I didn’t directly tell them to harass anyone and therefore I am not responsible.

Influencers influence!

They shape the attitudes around them, for better or worse.