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[–] 128 points 6 months ago* (36 children)

You know that the streamer is right. Just because other occupational hazards are worse does not mean theirs are invalid. And loads of streamers are barely scraping by.

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  • [–] 67 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah, obviously there are worse jobs and steamers who love what they do, but I can’t think of a better way to ruin any enjoyment I had for gaming.

    Mad respect for the ones who are on for 10 hours every day of the week for years straight, and somehow still manage to be healthy and have a family. I couldn’t do it.

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  • [–] 37 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Honestly it goes deeper than that. I'm part of a very small streamer community and the two biggest points of exhaustion are actually just community management and the platforms themselves.

    You can be having an absolute blast playing games, bullshitting with chat, whatever else, and then ONE person can come in and ruin the entire vibe. The two big ones are people "um, ackshually"ing a joke you make or someone deciding to trauma dump into a 10+ person conversation to fish for compliments. The amount of times one of the streamers is vibing, making jokes, chat is blowing up and someone comes in like" I hate myself I want to die please compliment me and make me feel better while you're live :'(" is insane. Just zero self awareness and you can't just ignore someone writing what sounds like the first half of a suicide note so suddenly you flip from entertainer to therapist. For larger streamers this comes in the form of random groups of people deciding they don't just hate you but actively want to sabotage you through stream sniping, harassment, doxxing, etc..

    The platforms are just as bad. Having to constantly fear that any accident in a game gets you banned is just such a suffocating experience. This is worse in games with open mics where it's your responsibility to police, mute, whatever else the random outbursts of hate speech and slurs. Heaven forbid you're playing a game that suddenly surprises you with nudity or something else and you're left wondering if you're gonna get flagged by TOS because it arbitrarily wasn't artistic enough. Lord have mercy on your soul if you stream something from Nintendo - - who seemingly just rolls a die once a month to decide which random community built around their games they want to Thanos snap out of existence.

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    [–] 109 points 6 months ago (59 children)

    I think there is a lot to be said for the emotional load someone like Hasan deals with. We are talking thousands of death threats and vitriol, swatting, psyops, debate bros etc etc. The soul sucking is mental and different, not going to assume this was him saying he has it harder like this out of context meme is trying to portray.

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  • [–] 26 points 6 months ago

    Its very much the same as standup comedy. Its 100% you.

    If people dont watch its because YOU arent entertaining enough, YOU arent likeable enough, YOU arent putting in enough effort and energy, YOU dont bring anything new to the table, YOU dont take enough risks... Theres no team, theres no band, theres no coworkers, its all on you. Thats a lot to hang your entire livelihood on.

    I could only do streaming or a YT if I had "never work again" money because without the pressure I probably could be fun and entertaining the whole time.

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    [–] 71 points 6 months ago* (4 children)

    “A real job” I guess does a lot of work here.

    There’s nothing more demoralizing than being on a “make work” job, where you’re so silod off from the world there’s no connection from what you do to any meaningful outcome.

    And that defines an incredibly large chunk of corporate jobs.

    It’s why in goulogs and concentration camps they make prisoners break rocks.

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  • [–] 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I think the reason behind the work plays a big role in our perception of it. If we are building an earthen wall to protect our friends and family from invaders, there is a finite amount of work that ends with a sense of accomplishment. If we are looking through the corporation's quarterly reports in order to become a fraction of a percent more profitable, the work continues forever and the end result is meaningless.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago

    In addition the physical direct aspect of the wall building. At least for me any manufacturing job suits exactly because at the end of the day there's a literal physical representation of what i did. Later going to the store and having the recognition when seeing something i made.

    There was no such connection when trying out office jobs or basically anything else besides manufacturing. Just doing some completely meaningless task the whole day and best case scenario is some random numbers going up.

    So while manufacturing is physically tiring, office jobs are soul sucking and client service is just hell in all aspects.

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    [–] 71 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (10 children)

    I've actually attempted live streaming. It totally sucks the joy out of sitting in front of a computer and zoning out playing your game. You start to go "Oh no I can't play this game cuz I'm playing it on stream."

    I wasn't majorly successful but I still made affiliate and had some regular watchers. The pressure to create content and be entertaining and stay engaged was too much for me and continue doing it all for the paltry sums that I was getting.

    I could also feel the pressure to become someone I'm not to reach more people. Something I refused to do. In the end though I made enough money streaming to make up for all the equipment I bought for it. I ran out of real time to stream when I got a new job that demanded more time from me. I am making so much more money so much faster by just clocking in and out every day and i feel like I'm building my skills in the field I'm in instead of making me hate my entertainment options.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I get that but like doing the same shit with excel and no audience instead also fucking sucks lol

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago

    True but when you have a moment where you just need to sit lean back, stretch, and say "argh I fucking hate excel", you don't have an audience arguing that you should love it. Or maybe you do have an audience but it's colleagues who have similar experience and can commiserate or give advice about the latest annoyance if they know a trick.

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    [–] 67 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    I think I actually believe him when he says its soul-sucking. He's obviously missing a lot of perspective on what he calls 'real jobs', but that doesn't mean there isn't an emotional toll from what amounts to being a clown whose paycheck is derived from the whims of literally faceless masses

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  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago

    I agree. The algorithm wants you constantly putting out annoying shit to keep their audience hooked. At first you are creative! Monetizing your hobby! Soon you have a hole on your resume, a demanding schedule, a soulless algo, a capricious audience you must grow... Yeah I think I'd take corporate life over being a streamer or whatever.

    Its even eaten traditional creative careers. Writers and artists must be online content creators above all else.

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  • [–] 59 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (123 children)

    I mean, if you ignore the constant advocacy he does for rank and file workers and unions, alongside his repeated acknowledgement of his privilege, this would be a legitimate criticism. If you left out the "in the same way" as well.

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    [–] 53 points 6 months ago (10 children)

    He's right, normal jobs don't completely take over your life or get you stalkers and death threats or make it impossible to exist in public without being harrassed. Success as a streamer is like any other kind of fame in that it results in a bunch of extra bullshit above and beyond the actual work that is uniquely psychologically exhausting.

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    [–] 37 points 6 months ago (13 children)

    I don't have any further context, but he's got a point.

    Sure, physical jobs are physically demanding and the monotony can be taxing. Even customer service jobs are mentally and emotionally taxing, but at the end of the day you're just a rando in a uniform. You're selling your skills and labor, you can be yourself off the clock.

    Streaming is selling your personality, your perspectives, your values. With lots of viewers, you're exposing yourself to criticism for every opinion you express. You basically live every day with your identity under the microscope of thousands of anonymous critics. Either you deal with constant character attacks, or you commodify your personality until it's basically unrecognizable.

    "Real jobs" don't really attack your soul in the same way, because your soul isn't the product. Aside from certain kinds of celebrities that are basically streamers anyway, it is a pretty unique struggle. At least actors are portraying characters, and can separate themselves from their roles. Streamers are the roles. The line between self and curated content is pretty heavily blurred, it really is a singular kind of soul-sucking.

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    [–] 33 points 6 months ago (21 children)

    "look the guy who spends all day every day saying things said a cringe thing once! stop listening to him about israel and billionaires!"

    there's a huge hasan smear campaign by corpo "democrats" right now, because obviously he's the real danger for some reason and not the cheeto rapist in power.

    when people are calling democrats controlled opposition, this is what they mean.

    remember hasan's dog? don't think about the entrenched democrats actively enabling the fascist takeover. don't think about their support for funding israel's genocide of gaza. what if his dog possibly potentially had a shock collar because the way it moved once! keep hasan on the defensive so he isn't talking about israel or billionaires!

    etc.

    i definitely am not the biggest hasan fan, but i find myself defending him regularly from absolute bullshit.

    if there's was ever a time to be picky about hasan's choice of emotionally biased statements on non-issues, this is really not it.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    I don't love or hate him, but I keep up with what he has to say because he is undeniably the largest online voice representing the younger left-leaning voter base.

    I can't agree with many of his more agitating statements, but I'd rather have him reaching young people who feel disenfranchised by politics than the next manosphere crypto gambling tycoon. He's more of a step in the right direction than liberal influencers.

    Stuff like this is why leftists have a (mainstream) reputation of infighting and semantic policing instead of actual praxis.

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    [–] 29 points 6 months ago* (9 children)

    I do think the streamer may have a point, but only in a bullshit jobs way. A job that actually improves the world has a sense of satisfaction that a job that's either harmful or pointless lacks, and the latter does some damage to the psyche

    That said, he could you know, change careers

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    [–] 28 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Breaks my heart witnessing the struggle he has to go through day by day, selflessly giving his all, slaving away under the thumb of damn capitalist pigs. Stay strong comrade, working class unite 🫶

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    [–] 28 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    If my body wasn't so busted I would prefer general labor. Over almost any desk job. I hate it. I don't have a chat section. At least with general labor i felt like i actually did something of worth at the end of the day.

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    [–] 20 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly the more I hear Hassan quotes the more I like him.

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    [–] 20 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Many real jobs, especially low income ones do in fact suck the soul out of you. I have tried for y'all.

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    [–] 19 points 6 months ago (29 children)

    Nah he's right. I'm in a friend circle that includes a lot of content creators and the burnout is so palpable, they can't even take real holidays because if they do the algorithm fucks them over. Then the guy in the group who's effectively a Janitor is the happiest and well adjusted and he loves his job.

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    [–] 18 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    i challenge you to suffer his stupid fucking chat for a day... a lot of people would prefer back breaking labor.

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    [–] 17 points 6 months ago* (11 children)

    Every day I sit at my office desk and long for the days when honest work stocking shelves was my sole responsibility. It kept me active and it kept my mind occupied. I hate having an office job. I hate that I can’t eat junk food and I have to utilize my free time exercising. I hate my vapid and fake burgois coworkers. I hate the industry I’m in. I hate the politics. I hate the smell of the communal bathroom. I hate the finance bros. If I’m short on sleep, I always fantasize about the whole place burning down and the people I wouldn’t miss or even feel a modicum of empathy for. The office has soured my soul… it is a compete removal of the human from their natural environment and purpose.

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    [–] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    well a streamer is a wealthy persons game, most of them come form wealthy families, or well off its not like they have a job themselves. like some new ones about pets, how did you afford a house and getting married right out of college yea the parents paid for it?. some of these people look like they just graduated HS and have a house already/apartment. even though the 2 pet ones i followed seem nice, i wonder how you afford living on your own at 19-22, and it did not look like a shitty 1bedroom apartment, looks like a whole house, or a small one.

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    [–] 14 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Stop giving fuckheads attention. It's the only way we can prevent further idiocracy. Attention focus matters.

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    [–] 12 points 6 months ago* (1 child)
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