Twitch is celebrating LGBTQIA+ Creators; their authenticity, colourful communities, self-expression and the personalities behind them.
Twitch kicked off Pride Month across the pond in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, with local front page features, social and email spotlights, and a special festival weekend jam-packed with LGBTQIA+ creator content.
AdNews spoke with one of the popular creators and co founder of the Aussie Pride Stream Team, Rat_Emoji to dicuss They're role as an influencer, how They are celebrating Pride Month and role with Twitch.
Rat_emoji is a micro influencer from Melbourne who identifies as an advocate for the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and a Twitch ANZ partner.
They said: "I am very honoured to be part of the TwitchANZ Pride campaign for this year. An all star line up of 34 creators from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, we are celebrating our diversity, sharing our stories and creating safe spaces for viewers to come and be their authentic selves. It is empowering to be recognised by Twitch as a queer person on their platform, which ties back to what I was talking about earlier - representation."
"I hope that young queer people who may feel like they are alone in this world are able to come on Twitch and see there are thousands of people just like them. You are not alone. Whether you want to watch a cosy game, a shooter or my personal favourite, a gorey horror, there are welcoming, inclusive spaces just waiting for you."
Rat_Emoji credits the wider fan base to the diversability of social media platforms, namely TikTok and Twitter.
They said: "Discoverability is one of the biggest hurdles in front of content creators. By using other platforms such as Tiktok and Twitter to showcase your content, you can bring new viewers to Twitch. One thing that surprised me as a content creator was the importance of maintaining an active Twitter account. Every major opportunity that I have scored has come from Twitter."
To celebrate pride Month Rat_Emoji will continue to advocate for the queer community and aims to take up as much space as he can on social media in order to flood streams with postive pride content.
"My biggest drive as a queer content creator is taking up space. As a queer person, the majority of spaces are not geared for us and this is also true in online spaces. Growing up, I often felt isolated and I had no immediate queer role models to look up to."
"The lack of LGBTQIA+ representation in the media added to this sense of isolation. Therefore, I try to be the role model my younger self needed. Every day I deal with trolls and bigots online, I have even received death threats for just existing on a public platform, but this only reinforces that I am doing what I need to be doing. Representation matters."
Rat_Emoji's advocacy for the rights of all queer individuals takes precedent within his content and as such is the reason they are one of the 34 most popular creators being recognised for Twitch ANZ's Pride Month celebrations.
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