By James Hilepo SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Most people don’t associate video games or video game streaming with women.
However, enter Syracuse University senior Giulia Milana’s room and you’ll find her gaming setup, complete with a PC, two monitors, a headset a microphone.
Milana is part of a small, but growing trend in the esports industry, female video game streamers. The field is historically male, but in only three months, she has amassed over 360 followers and created a small community on the streaming website, Twitch.
“People love that I am a girl doing this, like showing that it’s just not guys,” Milana explains.
Video game streaming involves broadcasting gameplay and speaking to and with the viewers, who respond in the form of a text chat. Streams happen at the schedule of the streamer, and sometimes last for many hours on end.
Jenny Gluck, Chief Information Officer for Information Technology Services at Syracuse University, helps to promote esports spaces on campus, and she believes female players are making the gaming scene more inclusive.
“It’s long overdue for people to be able to sort of play on a level playing field, and I think in many ways it’s a level playing field. I’m delighted to have girls involved.”
While Milana says the experience has been overwhelmingly positive, she recognizes that it is impossible to avoid people on the internet who will antagonize her for being a woman in streaming. Most of this comes in the form of mean or even creepy comments from teenage boys, who disparage or sexualize her stream.
These interactions that most female streamers have to deal don’t prevent success, as Milana was inspired by seeing other female streamers do well.
“Gaming has this masculine stereotype, like ‘Boys games, boys game, and then, to start seeing girls grow on Twitch was really cool. It was like ‘Well okay if this girl can do it, and be successful, so could I.'”
