The Cathartic Release of Streamer Rage

Imagine you, sitting in front of your computer, playing a competitive shooter game. Your streaming platform is up and running, recording your gameplay and broadcasting it to hundreds and thousands of fans, some of whom may be recording and keeping footage from your stream for themselves.

The objective for this round is simple: stay alive until you are the last one standing. The ring of death that chips away at your health until you die or move out of it closes around the arena. It cascades the map in a purple glow and all surviving players run away from it, converging on the ever-shrinking circle of untouched land. In their mad dash, they cross paths and fire at each other, some dying and some still running. You are running too, your eyes darting across the screen, checking all corners of your monitor for the slightest hints of movement.

The clock is ticking now. “Only 5 players remaining,” the announcer proclaims. The adrenaline kicks in. It’s everyone for themselves now. The stakes are high. You are only focused on securing that W, the sweet victory against impossible odds. Your target appears in sight. You fire everything you have at them. You jump and crouch in order to dodge their shots. Your gun needs reloading, you have no more shots but your opponent does. Your health is depleted. You die. You placed 3rd, the screen says.

You sit in your chair, anger boiling over. Your hands shake uncontrollably with barely-repressed anguish. After nearly an hour of cat-and-mouse, you had your moment of glory snatched from you. Your fist flies up and you smash your keyboard. It cost $500 but you don’t care; the plastic appliance cracks apart, keys flying in the air as you rain down blow after blow on it. After the 7th strike passes, you calm down, the physical release allowing you to think clearly. The regret kicks in. This moment has become immortal to you. You may not reflect on this event with a smile, but your viewers and subscribers will, delighting in your meltdown and one spectacle of destructive force.

What I have just described is something you’ve witnessed at least once, even for an instant. Whether on Youtube or on Twitch, you have seen gamers rage so hard, that they lose their composure and smash their own equipment. To those of us with a budget, we scoff at the callous disregard for possible brand-new gaming appliances worth hundreds, yet we can’t help but also find amusement in the wanton destruction.

Anger is one hell of an emotion. When it is physically exorcised from your body, you feel nothing but relief, but the real-life implications left behind may not be in your best interests. In the heat of anger, you can commit the most regretful moments of your life. What you wouldn’t normally do with a clear head, you can do while backed by blinding rage. Gaming streamers are often always in enclosed spaces, surrounded by various memorabilia and objects of affection. Not only is this their office, but also their living quarters.

To an outsider’s view, mainly the subscribers’, it is simply a childish, immature temper-tantrum. Something that a child throws when they don’t get their way. Something to mock and make fun of. Yet to the streamer’s point of view, it is the build-up of months or even years of stress and tension being unleashed in an instant. The artificial walls they have built up over the years come crashing down. Some of the more notorious streamers known for their destructive rages don’t stop at just their keyboards and monitors, which is a prime target for their strife. No, the entire room comes asunder as they run rampant, smashing apart the artificial walls they’ve built up over the years.

This can be seen as a form of liberation, or a time to take a break. Obviously, seeing a grown-ass adult fly into a rage is something to mock, something to make fun of, a loss of cool only meant to entertain us but I believe it goes beyond that. There’s a sense of catharsis to the smashing of a monitor or a keyboard. These two aforementioned appliances have become the tools in which these streamers do their work, yet they can also be shackles in a way. When you commit to streaming, that becomes your full time job. Nothing fills up your schedule other than the task of having a successful stream, the means in which your bills are paid.

When the climactic smashing begins, there’s an almost uplifting sense of relief as the streamer demolishes their equipment. The sources of their misery and toil come falling apart. Striking out in anger isn’t the best source of venting, and this situation is made even worse if the streamer has a family or partner in their house. Yet there is no denying that sense of sweet release as the shackles that once bound these streamers are vaporized. Not only is it a release, but it can also be a reflection, a time to meditate on your own actions. Perhaps by analyzing the knee-jerk raging you see on the screen, you can look back at your own self and say “hey, maybe I’m doing something right after all.”

And maybe it’s a signal to the streamer themselves. A signal that they need to stop doing what they wanted to do and try something else. The world is full of possibilities, and maybe it’s time for a change of substance. Go out in the world, talk with people, make some personal connections. This isn’t a knock against streamers, rather this is a call for self-care. Burnout in any job or profession is real, and while we are a generation of hustlers, we are not invincible. “No man is an ax.” A quote from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved states, and that same principal applies to all occupations, not just physical jobs. There is a scary ordeal present in Japan called Karōshi, which essentially translates into ‘death by overwork.’ One of the most notorious events in which this overwork culture crystalizes is the ‘death march.’ This death march is a defined as a failed project that is doomed to fail, with workers toiling for unbearably long work hours, crunching way past the normal human workload.

Now gamer rage may pale in comparison to the overwork suffered by hundreds and thousands, but we all have our concept of what working is. Long story short, don’t be so quick to judge that raging streamer, because they may have more in common with you than you think.