I was looking through The Gamer Rich List recently and I noticed something very odd. Even on Twitch women seriously lag behind. (Sorry about the pun)

To explain these results. The figures are an independently compiled list that looks at all the streamers on twitch to see how much they make. In this case they have chosen to focus strictly on income from subscriptions, as it’s the only factor that can be estimated with a degree of accuracy. If you do not know subscribers to Twitch streamers can choose from three levels of subscription, costing $5, $10 and $25.

(According to popular streamer Disguised Toast, Twitch keep 30% of this revenue for themselves, with the streamer taking the other 70%.)

Using TwitchTracker, they then found the number of monthly subscribers at each tier for each month of the year, to calculate estimated annual subscriber income, before calculating the 70% that goes to the streamer, doing so for the 100 accounts with the most subscribers.

I found this fascinating, especially because if you even take a cursory glance at the top 10 you will see that it is all men?

So who are the top 10 – according to this list?

1. Nickmercs – $1,516,358 

2. Tfue – $1,414,518 

3. TimTheTatman – $1,378,412 

4. DrDisrespect – $1,189,073 

5. MOONMOON – $1,172,007

6. xQcOW – $1,186,742

7. Summit1G – $1,104,044 

8. AdmiralBahroo – $1,134,809

9. DrLupo – $993,468 

10. MontanaBlack88 – $824,737

I was a little surprised by this because even though I went into this knowing that gaming was still a very male dominated sector, I honestly expected that at least a third of the top spots would be take over by women. But no, you need to jump all the way down to number 34 before you see a women appear on this and that women is Amouranth. If you have been following us for a while you will know that she has garnered a criticism in the past for her choices in outfits, possibly slip of the tongue and flamboyant personality (still she has done some epic cosplay in the past).

Even as you go down through the top 100 you will only find 5 other women. Amouranth ranking the highest at #34

Pokimane at #43 earning $351,768

Loeya at #54 earning $314,969

BrookeAB earning $256,449 putting her in 69th place

LilyPichu at 79, earning $136,829 on average

I find this entire scenario very strange. Yes there may be more men streaming on Twitch, but surely that would lead to more women holding higher spots on this list?

Before I go on I cannot really attest to much of what I am going to say as a lot of this is going to be speculation but as it stands most of Twitches user base and fan base are young white males. This is because Twitch is very  big in the West and though Twitch has spent the last few years diversifying it still draws in a lot of people who are young white males. This is not a bad thing anyone who says so is either projecting or being a little racist. Most likely projecting – based on personal encounters with assholes in the past. (There is nothing wrong with a group all being one color and gender it is only when that group seeks to discriminate that you begin to see problems)

Many women on the platform have made comments in the past that they have been called fake nerd, thots, whores or e-girls. This could put a lot of women off, which is really messed up. Not only that but I have not really touched on the lack of diversity in the top 10 based on skin color. Twitch really could use a lot more diversity in that area too, but far to many streamers have had racist shit said to them. Maybe I am naive but I do not think that all these people saying this shit consider themselves racist, because they are hiding behind keyboards when they say this stuff. But if you are one of these people using any racist language makes you a racist

Though I will say this, it isn’t all bad out there. Joy Stique, a drag queen streamer and moderator, says she still sees “more love and positivity” than toxicity on Twitch. “Being an LGBTQIA+ streamer, you automatically attract a lot more trolls than one is used to, and adding the elements of streaming under the ‘LGBTQIA+’ tag, and being in drag attracts trolls even more because they think we’re easy targets,” said Stique. – taken from an interniew with Quartz

Look I wish we lived in a world where shit like this did not matter and someday we might but it does. I am also well aware that I am not the spokesman for this fight yet here I am on my little soap box screaming into the void. I do not get on Twitch half as much as I wish I could but when it comes down to it maybe we all need to broaden our horizons a little more. Because when it comes down to it having a darker skin tone does not affect how you game and having a pair of breasts should not affect your ability to pick up a controller (within reason). I know the majority of people reading this will agree with me, but if you don’t then ask why?

And when I say ask, I do not mean rage at me, ask yourself why and leave a comment below, I will be happy to respond.