Twitch: 'Lockdown helped me find my passion for streaming'

An online gamer says she found the confidence to live-stream herself due to lockdown and working from home.

Imarah Forrester, 26, from Birmingham, has been gaming since she was a child and now streams on Twitch most days.

She has been able to quit her job to pursue it full time, meaning she has more time to spend with her young son.

However, speaking on Safer Internet Day, she said streaming's darker side meant she had taken precautions after receiving online hate.

Imarah said she had been the victim of "hate raids" targeting her for her race and being a woman.

She said: "People upset me quite a lot of the time. Twitch has some measures in place but not enough."

The mum mostly streams herself playing The Sims, a life simulation game where she creates characters and decorates homes.

"I've been playing since I was 11," she said. "It was kind of an outlet for me, because things weren't that great at home, and I could create all these new worlds."

Imarah continued to play but found being a full-time working mum left her with little time for her passion.

When the pandemic meant she was working from home, endless Zoom calls left her feeling more confident to stream herself online and a friend suggested she start a Twitch channel.

"I feel like the pandemic helped me find my passion," Imarah said.

She already has more than 1,600 subscribers, but she said: "You do get some people that are negative.

She said she used tags to find communities, for example one to connect with other Black gamers. But these tags are also sometimes used by trolls to spread hate.

On one occasion, she thought about leaving the platform when she was bombarded with graphic gifs of child abuse when she disclosed it was her son's birthday.

But now Ms Forrester is taking back control. She has set rules on her channel which warn users they will be banned for racist, sexist and homophobic language.

She has a moderator who flags inappropriate or abusive comments and also vets users before they join her on community platform Discord.

"My son drives my passion to make sure my channel is a safe space," she said. "I won't put anything out there that he can't watch."

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