What I look for as a team lead of a stream team in applications

---

Alright pals this is going to be super long and I'm so sorry in advance LMFAOOO I wanted to share the things that I look out for as a team lead when going through people's applications! I just have a lot of thoughts and I'm trying to do better at writing out things in a clear concise way so that's why we're upwards of 15k letters thank you so much in advance for listening to the rambling :'3

First off - I want to preface that these are things that *I* look for and they may not line up with things that leads of other teams (or even the other leads of the teams I'm a lead of) look at! The application process is a group process and I'm obviously not the final say in any decisions, but everyone has different things they look for in apps and I wanted to at least share my brain thoughts in case it's helpful for people applying to teams, for leads who haven't really thought of these things before, or maybe for new leads who are trying to think of where to start because it's a process that can be (and very much is, in my opinion) super overwhelming.

I also want to note that I know that I am more intensive than most other people in terms of vetting people and that's because I don't want to have a situation where someone I say yes to and vouch for ends up doing something problematic and has to be removed for causing harm to others or doubling down on shitty/harmful actions.

I do also want to mention that I spend an *ungodly* amount of hours looking through each applicant and I know that not everyone has the spoons to do that. The last time I did the app process, I spent 60+ hours in a matter of days going through absolutely everything for every single person who applied and I'm not going to lie, it's a really stressful time for me! I definitely think it's worth it though (for myself and the spoons that I can make happen, again not everyone has the ability to do this) because I really think it's important to thoroughly look through applicants and make the process as fair as we can.

I go through months of Twitch clips/VODs/highlights, Twitter posts/retweets/likes/comments, and any other social media that the applicant has available, as well as looking at the answers to the person's written or video application (we let people do either or to make sure it's accessible for people who like verbal applications over written or vice versa). I do this for every single person because I know that different people have different energy levels for different forms of social media, as well as different experience levels with filling apps out, as well as different abilities to write/speak about themselves and their content. I also go through months of content because I know that energy levels differ between different months, and I want to make sure that I'm not being unfair and ableist in looking at someone's low spoons month and judging them based on that!

Another reason I go through both the apps and all that other media is because people can write anything in their apps and I want to make sure that people aren't just bs'ing and writing things they want us to hear without actually putting any actions behind their words (and that's probably a me having trust issues thing especially as a marginalized person but here we are LMFAO rip).

The main thing I want to make sure of is that I make things as fair as possible, especially for marginalized individuals, so generally why it takes me so long is because of the sheer amount of content I look through to try and make things as fair as possible so I'm not accidentally harming anyone in the app process. A quick sidenote here is that I'm always happy to do even more work if what I explained above still doesn't seem fair in any way - please feel free to let me know any other suggestions!! <3

Also before I start, I do also want to mention that if you're racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, fatphobic, sexist, etc. then that's an automatic no for me. This may be an obvious one but just in case I wanted to put it down. My priority is making sure that marginalized people feel safe and seen in any spaces I'm in so going against any of that is just a no.

Alright so now we'll actually get into what I specifically look at, 20000000 years later rip thank you for bearing with me and my wordiness~

First off, if you're a white person who primarily only uplifts other white people, it's gonna be a hard no from me. Like mentioned above, I go through *months* of content in various forms so if I can only count on one hand the number of times you've liked content from, retweeted, given shoutouts to, or raided POC then I'm saying no to your app. Also, if I check your recommended streamers and they're all cis/white people, then it's generally also going to be a no from me especially if I notice that you only uplift cis/white people. And that goes double-y if you mention how much diversity and representation means to you in your app or in your Twitch panels, and triple-y if you're a white person who says that you understand your privilege and want to give a voice to marginalized people. That also goes for other privileged identities - if you're a cis person who primarily only uplifts other cis people in the same way I mention above, then it's going to be a no from me. Same thing for other [insert privileged identities here].

And this also goes for people who are a part of marginalized communities - if you're white and in the LGBTQIA+ community but the only other LGBTQIA+ people you uplift are white people then it's still going to be a no from me. Intersectionality matters, and just because we're a part of a marginalized community doesn't mean that we can't cause harm or be discriminatory to other communities we're not a part of. This also goes for NBPOC (non-Black POC) - if you're a NBPOC and I scroll through months of content and haven't seen you uplift any Black creators then it's still going to be a no from me. NBPOC spaces can be very anti-Black and that's something that we need to be cognizant about and actively work on. I want the spaces that I put myself in to be POC-forward and *especially* BIPOC-forward, and that means making sure that people are constantly thinking about diversity and uplifting people in marginalized communities outside of their own. And that isn't just for BIPOC representation, that's for any other marginalized identity - marginalized people's voices are always going to matter more to me because we generally don't have spaces that are truly inclusive and safe for us.

As I'm looking through everything, if you only started uplifting marginalized people when our apps opened you're getting a bit of a side-eye from me. Even if the timing was just coincidental, I'm always concerned that people will start uplifting marginalized voices when they apply to teams that have pillars around diversity because they think it's going to get them onto the team, and then just stop once members are announced. Same goes for the marginalized people you uplift - if the only marginalized people you uplift are the marginalized people on the team then again a bit of a side-eye because we aren't the only marginalized people that exist and, even if it's not intended, it reads to me like you think we want you to uplift the people on our team in order to get onto it rather than you actually wanting to uplift them because you think diversity and representation matters. And again, that may just be me reading into things too much, but I am always concerned about POC on the team being tokenized in that way. Another note is that if the only time you uplift marginalized people is during times of their trauma then you also are getting side-eyed for me because you should be uplifting us during our joy too (with a subtle note that I know that the algorithm uplifts our trauma much more so it's more visible than our joy, but it's something you should actively be thinking about to make sure that you're not accidentally doing this).

If you're a lead for a stream team that primarily only has cis and/or white people, or all the team leads are cis/white, then generally it's a hard no for me too. It's important to me that you cultivate a diverse space and if you're not doing that in your own stream team then I think that's an issue. @/Psoymilk hosted a really fantastic conversation about diversity in the streaming space (mainly focused around racial and ethnic diversity) that I really encourage you to check out and learn from (and pay them for their time if you have the monetary ability to for all this free education): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1553773021

If you allow pepe emotes in your space, it's going to be a hard no from me. Many marginalized people have expressed their discomfort over being in spaces that allow them, and if you're not willing to remove that emote from your space and ask your community to use different ones then I'm not going to be in a space with you. This spans more than just having a "no pepe emotes" rule - I've definitely seen people have that rule but then use them and also allow community members to use the pepe emotes in their space which sucks especially when you think that they might be a good place to hang out in! So if you aren't willing to call that out then it just seems like you've got the rule to seem inclusive without actually putting in the work. And I will mention that I understand when it happens once from a random chatter and you just don't have the spoons or energy to educate (especially because constantly educating when you're trying to have a fun stream can be absolutely exhausting), but if it's a constant thing that you freely just allow then that's different.

If you have a "no politics" rule then generally it's also going to be a no from me. Note that this is different than a rule saying something like "no bigotry" or something like "no politics" coupled with rules about no transphobia/racism/ableism/etc. Marginalized people's lives are so politicized that a "no politics" rule generally flags that the space isn't safe for us because we don't know if you'll stick up for us and fight for our rights. I understand that people might not have the energy on stream to thoroughly talk about topics related to marginalization especially because it can be very triggering for us or maybe you're not in the marginalized community so you don't want to speak for us, but we need to see something that indicates that you're wanting to cultivate a space that doesn't do harm in that way. @/LookItsLyrica made a great post about this a while back that I recommend you look at for more information: https://twitter.com/LookItsLyrica/status/1524803657039941643?t=bIqQXsWnxOGVYblD-mXzbQ&s=19

I've also seen people mention things like having fully fleshed-out Twitch panels and VODs/highlights/clips available and being concerned that they're going to be written off by teams for not having these. Again, I want to mention that I'm writing down things that *I* look at and so not every team lead on every single team is going to have the same thoughts or think about it in the way that I do. This one is a little trickier to explain so hopefully my brain thoughts make sense here, and please let me know if I need to give more context or clarification! To me, there's a difference between not being able to find anything about the person who applied because they don't have panels, VODs, or highlights/clips available for me to look at in addition to not having much of a social media presence versus someone who doesn't have some of these but I can still find stuff out about. For example, if someone were to have no VODs available for me to look at (maybe they are for subscribers only, or you don't like saving them so there aren't any, or any other reason) but I can still see some clips to get an idea of you or see your Twitter and I can see how much you uplift marginalized voices, I'm going to feel much better about possibly being in your space than someone that I can't find anything about because nothing is available. I want to emphasize again that the most important thing to me is that marginalized people come first in my spaces, and I can't take the chance that the person that I can't find anything about might be super problematic. You may be the nicest person in the world but I need to see that somewhere in some way because I'm going to feel horrible if the worst case scenario happens, especially when I put so much work and effort into making sure my space is focused around the comfort of marginalized people. I hope that makes sense. I know that there are very valid reasons to not have VODs available and it can be super stressful and overwhelming to set up a bunch of Twitch panels, which is why I try really hard to look at a bunch of different things like I mentioned at the beginning of this absolute fuckin' essay :'3

I don't really have a specific type of content that I look for in people that apply - there are so many wonderful creators who do so many different things between crafting, gaming, ASMR, just chatting, cooking/baking, music, art, among so many other categories, and it doesn't really matter what you do because it's really cool to see all of it! I feel like we often see stream teams that are filled with primarily gaming streamers and something I'm wanting to work on is having more representation of different types of stream content that way I can diversify and do better in that way!

Stream schedules and length of streams also don't really play much a part in my decision making - it's super ableist to expect people to stream a certain number of days and/or hours because different people have different energy levels and it'd be unfair to have a rule like that especially when I'm sitting here saying that I'm trying to make my space as inclusive as possible. Same thing goes for solo versus collab streams; I don't look at if you do a bunch of collabs versus if you only do solo streams because different people have different comfort levels in their streaming space and I don't want to be exclusionary towards people who don't enjoy collab streams!

I think that's about all my brain has for now, it's like 3am and I've been jotting this down for hours so I'm sure that I missed something but imma just schedule this tweet for like noon or something and cross my butthole hairs that I got everything that I wanted to in this LMFAOOO I really hope that this helped at least a little bit? I know that this was like lightyears long and just thank you if you read to the bottom of this :'3 Being a team lead has been super fun but the app process is always so stressful for both the leads as well as the people applying. It can get so stressful when you're not sure if the app you've done is 'good enough' especially in a space where we can constantly see the victories of others and it can be hard to not compare yourself. Content creation is stressful and difficult and I'm always so happy seeing all the cool things you are all doing so I hope you know that I'm super proud of you and even though I may not have spoons to say anything, I'm rooting for you in the background (unless you're transphobic/racist/etc then you can leave me alone plz and thank you) alright I'm going to sleep. <3

Reply · Report Post