Dear Horror, the @TwitchTVSupport Account and whoever else.

Horror,

Let me start off by saying, I've never hated a furry, and I've never hated a gay person. I've never said shit about either one. I grew up going to Anime conventions, meeting lots of furries, lots of gay people, and lots of gay furries. Some of them are the nicest, most intelligent people I've met. A bit odd, but they were genuine.

I have never had an opinion of you besides knowing that the BionicBunion emoticon was your furry.

I get that your position is volunteer, but what you need to realize is that you have a position with power, and you're in the public eye because of it. Twitch is a huge website now, gets new viewers everyday, and new streamers. People spend more time watching streams than TV because it's catered to them.

That being said, you must *always* keep your personal life out of your work. Adding an emoticon of your boyfriend(or now ex/not-boyfriend) to a website where you "work" is not okay. If he was a streamer with subscriptions, sure. He has/had virtually nothing to do with the website besides being attached via you.

Making an emoticon based off of your furry friend is truthfully, harmless. I don't really want to touch on it, but making an emoticon based off of your furry friend where there are pornographic images floating around in PUBLIC(FurAffinity is an easy website to sign up on, and the images are easy to find) is not something you want on a website like Twitch. There are very few people who are familiar with Vore, and when they're introduced to it, are not interested. That, coupled with pornography of it, turns most people away.
Making an emoticon based off of your furry friend(that has pornographic images related to it) that can be used on a family-friendly website is not okay. If I had children, I wouldn't want them to see it. It makes me personally uncomfortable, and a lot of things don't creep or weird me out.

Although you're doing it because he is/was your boyfriend, you do not drag your personal life into work life. That's where your work life becomes personal, and it's harder to deal with. Criticism in your work life is for your work habits, when it becomes personal, you take everything personally. You make bad decisions and make it a more difficult situation to fix.

We all know though, the emoticon itself isn't the problem. It's part of it, but a very minor part of it.

Now, your behavior. Clearly the most exciting thing right now, since it's all everyone can talk about.

Being an Admin of a website like Twitch is fairly similar to being a forum moderator. You do it by volunteer, and you do it to help out. Although it is volunteer, it still requires you to act in a mature manner. You are in the public eye by position, so you need to act appropriately.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people parading around, saying things like "i'm a girl!" "i'm gay!" Do you know why? Because it doesn't matter. In the end, you're still a human being, so why differentiate yourself from everyone else? You're a furry? Cool. You're gay? Super cool. No one cares though. So do not act like a special snowflake and expect people to jump to your feet and worship you.

You do not know how to handle yourself, and you do not understand how to handle most problems. I am sorry that your boyfriend and you have broken up, but I do not feel bad. You have handled yourself and this whole situation poorly, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
"REMOVE HORROR" is not hate speech. Do not censor it, and do not expect people to stop. Do you get why they're saying it? Because they have a problem with what you're doing, but no one is willing to listen.

You need to grow up, and learn how to handle problems. If people have a problem with what you're doing, learn to take criticism and ask what's wrong. Answer their complaints, answer their problems. Do not reply in a matter like "Well I'm gay and a furry and it's all hate speech" because it is NOT. Just because you're gay, just because you're a furry, does not make objections against you purely hate speech. 75% of the problems brought up that had to do with you were to do with how you were conducting yourself and reacting, NOT because of what you are.

Do NOT hide behind the fact that it's all hate speech because you're gay, because it's not. You are disgracing the LGBT community, and looking like an idiot. You're making it harder for yourself.

Please learn how to handle harsh criticism, learn how to handle people not liking you, and learn how to respond in an intelligent manner. Your embarrassing to watch.



@TwitchTVSupport,

Thanks for being the shitty support team we needed on a big website like Twitch.tv.

You are a company, so conduct yourself in a professional manner. Replying in disrespectful ways, "funny" jokes, or in general ignoring complaints/problems makes you look like a company that does not care.

The viewers are the reason you guys are popular, so do not dismiss them like their problems are nothing. Do not dismiss them when they ask for a reason why, or they ask for a statement. They're trying to figure out how to feel about things. Just because that's not how you do things, doesn't mean you can't. You don't have the power to make the statement? Tell them to wait and try to find someone who can make a comment about the whole situation.

I have worked in customer service my whole life, I worked at a customer service help desk, and dealt with people yelling at me left and right because the company's policies were not to *their* liking, and did not bend the way *they* wanted. I never once responded in a rude way, never once made disrespectful comments, and when asked for some sort of comment on something, I never said "Sorry, that's not how we do things. Bye." I never stopped talking to them because they said rude things, and I never once ignored them. I dealt with each complaint, each problem, each question in a respectful manner, no matter how much it wore on me. This was all in person, but you can't even do it online.

It's unfortunate that you're making all of Twitch.tv look like a shitty uncaring unprofessional company, but that's what's happening.


11/20/2013