[FAQ]

Hey everyone,

So I’ve been streaming on Twitch for a decent while now, and while my community is mostly awesome, I’m finding it really hard to deal with the trolls and the random negativity that pops up in my Twitch chat.

Last night, one person came in and just kept saying really mean stuff. My mods banned them, but it honestly threw me off my game for the rest of the stream. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I felt my energy just tank.

How do you all mentally deal with this stuff while you’re live? It’s one thing to say “just ignore them,” but it’s another to actually do it when you’re trying to perform and read chat at the same time. I’d love any tips on how you’ve built up a thicker skin or what your mental process is for shaking it off in the moment.

[Jeff Bullas]

Acknowledging this challenge is the first step to a professional career.

Short Answer: The most effective mental strategy is to depersonalISse the attack by viewing it as a predictable failure of your text-based filters, not as a personal failure, and immediately re-focusing your energy on your positive audio and video content.

Your on-air performance is your product, and this is how you protect its quality from negative data.

First, you must re-frame the event. A troll is not a person; it is a data-processing error. Their negative text-based content is spam, and its sole purpose is to disrupt the quality of your own broadcast content. The troll’s goal is to see their negative text reflected in your on-screen video content, which is your facial reaction, and your live audio content, which is your verbal response. Your mental job is to sever this feedback loop. Second, you must trust your systems. Your moderation team is responsible for handling the malicious text content; that is their task, not yours. Your task is to maintain the integrity of your own video and audio production. This means you must consciously decide to not let your video feed show a reaction and not let your audio feed acknowledge the negativity. Finally, you must immediately pivot your audio commentary to reward the positive text-based content in your chat. Find a good question from a real community member and answer it, or read a positive comment aloud. This action starves the negative actor of the audio-visual reward they are seeking and reinforces the positive content you want to see.

Cheers,

Jeff

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